Many people tend to consider the emergence of Hungarian runes the same process as modern Hungarian, Turkish and Slovak alphabets were created, i.e. by adding some auxiliary strokes to the original Latin characters. There are many unjustified opinions that try to classify Hungarian runic letters according to their graphic forms (e.g. regarding as a basic classifying factor whether they include vertical lines). They think they can find the relationship between characters that are only partly similar with the help of adding- auxiliary strokes. For example Rona-Tas András wrote, „ The character s seems to have originated from the Greek character o f lambda., and the character l seems to have been drawn by adding two diacritical marks to the character s (Rona-Tas/1996/338). With that chain of ideas and enough „diacritical signs”
any alphabet can be deduced from any other, to the greater honor of
„academic” science.
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Székely ,,f ’ (Föld „Earth” ) Chinese „Earth” (Karlgren/362)
Őrség Erdély (Transylvania)
Fig. 8 Linear and pictorial representations o f the orderly world created by God: variants of the Székely T (Föld
„Earth” ) rune and its Chinese equivalent (top), and drawings in two Hungarian peasant plates, one from Magyarszombatfa of the őrség region, with the God of the Sun in the center (lelt), the other from Transylvania (right)
Such „academ ic” deductions do not reveal anything about the origin of Székely runes, as the runes developed not from auxiliary strokes, but from pictograms, just like the most ancient characters of antique scripts. The character ’s’ (.sarokJ, for example, represents the angle of a „corner, North Pole” and the rune ’ 1’ { l ó „horse” ) a horsehide stuffed with straw and drawn over on a slanting stake standing in the ground. The „diacritical marks”
mentioned by Róna-Tas András are in fact the fore- and hind legs of the horse (cf. Szekeres/1993/84). Of the two theories of origin only the latter can be supported by a series of similar examples. Both characters in question have originated in steppe mythology and belong to the letter-like elements in the complete system of the Hungarian set of hieroglyphs.
Linear runes are extremely simplified drawings. This is unambiguously supported by the exactly identical form of the Székely V (vas „iron” ), Turkish
’ lt/lcT {temir/demir „iron” ), arid German ’e’ {Eisen „iron” ) runes, which all represent an Aegean-Anatolian semi-finished metal ingot and refer to its material15 (Fig. 2). lo
lo Semi-finished ingots copied the form of flayed animal hide, since hide had been a means of exchange, which was later changed to semi-finished casting. Magyar runes representing ingots were interpreted by Chinese as metal cauldron, because the word vas „iron” had the same origins as the words os „ancient, progenitor” , réz „copper” , üst „cauldron” , and ezüst „silver” . Linguists deduced that in the Ural linguistic age, the ancient form of the word vas was vaske (meaning őskő „ancient/
However, when comparing pictograms of different scripts, such extensive coincidences cannot be expected, as the same object can be drawn differently (Fig. 3).
The shape of a character depends on the thing it depicts, the drawer's point of view, writing technology, etc. Similarity usually show relationship, but also graphically different characters may be of the same origin (if Székelys had turned to the use of cuneiform writing, their character for cauldron would have been different from the above German and Turkish runes).
Most parallel features are due to genetic relationship, even in the case of the most remote writing systems, as the basic principle „everything is connected to everything” is valid for signs as well. Székely runic script is related to nearly every writing system at the same time, and the explanation for the astonishing similarities is not generally known. Many authors have alleged accidental coincidence as a reason, which is a convenient, though weak argument to disprove the rival theory of writing development spreading from one center. With the help of mathematical probability calculus, it has been shown that such large-scale coincidences were impossible to occur; the reason for the similarities is mainly their relationship, even in the case of the most remote writing systems (Varga/1993/189).
The genetic connections manifested in identical character shapes can be explained by the extremely widespread use of the most ancient religious beliefs, since most ancient characters developed from symbols that were connected to myths from the Paleolithic age.
These ancient myths appear clearly or in fact the most clearly in the symbolism of Székely runes. The world of their images forms a system, which proves that Hungarian runes arose at a very early age. Hungarian runic letters are related to Eastern mandala16; they represent the created world arid its elements, and they had developed from the map of the world-center, that is Eden, and from the drawings of mountain, water, plant, animal, the Orion constellation, which was identified as the father, the Milky Way, and the pillar of the world holding Heaven (Figs. 4, 6, 8, 9, 23).
progenitor stone” ). This word has connections with the Sumerian guskin, Hurrian ushu „copper” , and Armenian (v)oski (cf. V eres/19 9 7 /1 1 9 ). Its Finno-Ugrian equivalents mean „ metal, ore, wire, chain, coin, copper, bronze, tin” . From the meaning ancient the meanings of the set of words are likely to have developed at the start of metalwork in connection with the magic importance of the meteoric iron fallen from the sky, a gift from the divine forefather. The relationship between the Magyar vas and the Hurrian ushu sheds light on the age and meaning of the Székely characters V (vas „iron” ) and V (üst
„cauldron” ) of Nikolsburg (Fig. 2, 5 , 2 4 , 35).