Editing Pannonian Avars (section)

==Language==
{{Infobox language
| name             = Avar
| altname          = Old Avar, Pannonian Avar, Carpathian Avar
| familycolor      = unclassified
| states           = Avar Khaganate
| family           = unclassified
<br>[[Turkic languages|Turkic]]?<br>([[Para-Mongolic languages|Para-]])[[Mongolic languages|Mongolic]]?<br>[[Tungusic languages|Tungusic]]?<br>[[Languages of the Caucasus|Caucasian]]?<br>[[Iranian languages|Iranian]]?<br>[[Uralic languages|Uralic]] ([[Hungarian language|Hungarian]])?
| extinct          = 9th century AD<ref>{{cite book|author=Richárd Szántó|title=The Avars and other peoples in the Carpathian Basin in the 9th century|url=https://aperta.ulakbim.gov.tr/record/228319|date=2022|access-date=2025-05-13}}</ref>
| ethnicity        = Pannonian Avars
| region           = [[Pannonian Basin]]
| iso3             = none
| glotto           = none
}}

The language or languages spoken by the Avars are unknown.{{sfn|Encyclopædia Britannica|Avar}}{{sfn|Waldman|Mason|2006|pp=46–49}}{{sfn|Beckwith|2009|pp=390–391}}{{sfn|Kyzlasov|1996|p=322}} Classical [[Philology|philologist]] Samu Szádeczky-Kardoss said that most of the Avar words used in contemporaneous [[Latin]] or [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] texts appear to have their origins in possibly [[Mongolian language|Mongolian]] or [[Turkic languages]].{{sfn|Dopsch|2004}}{{page needed|date=August 2022}}{{sfn|Szadeczky-Kardoss|1990|p=221}} Other theories propose a [[Tungusic languages|Tungusic]] origin.{{sfn|Helimski|2004|pp=59–72}} According to Szádeczky-Kardoss, many of the titles and ranks used by the Pannonian Avars were also used by Turks, [[Proto-Bulgars]], [[Uyghur Khaganate|Uighurs]] and/or [[Mongols]], including ''[[khagan]]'' (or ''kagan''), ''[[Khan (title)|khan]], [[Kavhan|kapkhan]], [[tudun]], [[tarkhan]]'', and ''[[khatun]]''.{{sfn|Szadeczky-Kardoss|1990|p=221}} There is evidence, however, that ruling and subject clans spoke a variety of languages. Proposals by scholars include [[Languages of the Caucasus|Caucasian]],{{sfn|Waldman|Mason|2006|pp=46–49}} [[Iranian languages|Iranian]],{{sfn|Curta|2004|pp=125–148}} [[Tungusic languages|Tungusic]],{{sfn|Futaky|2001}}{{page needed|date=August 2022}}{{sfn|Helimski|2000a}}{{page needed|date=August 2022}}{{sfn|Helimski|2000b|pp=43–56}} [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]]{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} and [[Turkic languages|Turkic]].{{sfn|Encyclopedia of Ukraine|Avars}}{{sfn|Róna-Tas|1999|p=116}}

Historian [[Gyula László]] has suggested that the late 9th-century Pannonian Avars spoke a variety of [[Old Hungarian language|Old Hungarian]], thereby forming an Avar-Hungarian continuity with then-newly arrived [[Hungarians]].{{sfn|Gyula|1982}} Based on archeologic and linguistic data, [[Florin Curta]] and [[Johanna Nichols]] considered that there is no convincing evidence for the presence of any Turkic or Mongolic languages among the Avars, but evidence for the presence of [[Iranian languages]], further strengthened by Iranian-derived loanwords and toponyms in the region and among languages within the range of the Avars.<ref>Curta, Florin (2004). "The Slavic lingua franca (Linguistic notes of an archaeologist turned historian)". ''East Central Europe/L'Europe du Centre-Est''. '''31''': 125–148. Retrieved 29 May 2015.</ref> Shimunek (2017) proposes that the elite core of the Avars spoke a "[[Para-Mongolic languages|Para-Mongolic language]]" of the "Serbi–Awar" group, that is a sister branch of the [[Mongolic languages]]. Together, the Serbi–Awar and Mongolic languages make up the ''[[Serbi–Mongolic languages|Serbi–Mongolic]]'' languages.<ref name="Shimunek, Andrew 2017"/>

Some scholars like [[Omeljan Pritsak]], [[Horace Lunt]], Florin Curta speculate that [[Proto-Slavic]] became the [[lingua franca]] of the Avar Khaganate, which helped spreading the Slavic language in the Southeastern Europe.{{sfn|Curta|2004|pp=132–148}}<ref>{{Citation |last=Wihoda |first=Martin |title=After Avars: The Beginning of the Ruling Power on the Eastern Fringe of Carolingian Empire |date=27 October 2021 |url=https://brill.com/display/book/9789004500112/BP000012.xml |work=Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe |pages=63–80 |access-date=16 January 2024 |publisher=Brill |language=en |isbn=978-90-04-50011-2}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Rady |first=Martyn |title=The Slavs, Avars, and Hungarians |date=2020 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-war/slavs-avars-and-hungarians/11EA9AFFD45898310D9023AC3C886633 |work=The Cambridge History of War: Volume 2: War and the Medieval World |volume=2 |pages=133–150 |editor-last=Curry |editor-first=Anne |access-date=16 January 2024 |series=Cambridge History of War |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-87715-2 |editor2-last=Graff |editor2-first=David A.}}</ref> The assumption is problematic for several reasons, as [[Alan Timberlake]] notes that there was no "radical loss of grammar that accompanies [[creolization]]" neither the Avars and Slavs had specific social and economical mechanisms for spreading ''lingua franca''.<ref name="Timberlake2013">{{cite book |last=Timberlake |first=Alan |author-link=Alan Timberlake |date=2013 |chapter=Culture and the spread of Slavic |title=Language Typology and Historical Contingency: In honor of Johanna Nichols |series=Typological Studies in Language |volume=104 |editor=Balthasar Bickel, Lenore A. Grenoble, David A. Peterson, Alan Timberlake |chapter-url=https://benjamins.com/catalog/tsl.104.15tim |location= Amsterdam, Philadelphia |publisher=[[John Benjamins Publishing Company]] |pages=348–349 |isbn=9789027206855 |doi=10.1075/tsl.104.15tim}}</ref> [[Jouko Lindstedt]] asserts that Late Proto-Slavic/Common Slavic had a complex morphological and accentological system because of which "shows no trace of a possible lingua-franca function".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lindstedt |first1=Jouko |author-link=Jouko Lindstedt |last2=Salmela |first2=Elina |date=2020 |chapter=Migrations and language shifts as components of the Slavic spread |title=New Perspectives on the Early Slavs and the Rise of Slavic: Contact and Migrations |url=https://blogs.helsinki.fi/esalmela/files/2019/06/Lindstedt_and_Salmela_Slavic_spread_March_2018_preprint.pdf |editor=Tomáš Klír, Vít Boček, Nicolas Jansens |location=Heidelberg |publisher=Universitätsverlag Winter |pages=275–300 |isbn=978-3-8253-4707-9}}</ref>