Languages of the Hunns and Pannonian Avars

What linguistic famiky did the Huns and Avars belong to?
Some claim they were of Mongolic, Turkic, Iranian, Uralic or even Yenisseian stock...
 
What linguistic famiky did the Huns and Avars belong to?
Some claim they were of Mongolic, Turkic, Iranian, Uralic or even Yenisseian stock...

Most scholars, IIRC, believe Hunnic was either Mongolic or Turkic, as you point out. However, given that we don't have much more than people's names to work with, it's hard to draw firm conclusions.

Avar, on the other hand, is believed to be a Caucasian language from what I have found.

However, I will also point out that many of the people who belonged to the Hunnic Empire/Confederation likely spoke Gothic, and Gothic was quite possibly the lingua franca, insofar as one existed.
 
Some claim they were of Mongolic, Turkic, Iranian, Uralic or even Yenisseian stock...
There is a reason for that. We don't know. Even if we did know find a language from the time period, it dosen't mean it would be a smoking gun because it is possible the Avars could have spoke multiple languages anyway. There are many people that existed in antiquity that we know nothing about beside their names. The Avars just happen to be one of the last cases of these types of mysteries. They came from the Eurasian steppee, that is all we know for sure. There is a lot of speculation but noting definitive.

Avar, on the other hand, is believed to be a Caucasian language from what I have found.
Your jumping the gun by connecting the Caucasian Avars to the Pannonian Avars. The name could be a coincidence.

However, I will also point out that many of the people who belonged to the Hunnic Empire/Confederation likely spoke Gothic, and Gothic was quite possibly the lingua franca, insofar as one existed.
From what I looked at, it seemed Slavic was becoming the lingua franca of the Avar Khaganate. Had it continued to exist, we could could have had a Slavic ethnic group develop and take the name Avar just like the Slavic Bulgarians took the name of the Turkic Bulgars.
 
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For the Huns Oghur Turkic originally, they probably had big Sarmatian and Germanic speaking groups by the time they reached Roman territories.
 
There was also a Sarmatian group that Classical writers called Aorsi, whose name has been connected with the one of the Avars (both the Caucasian group and the steppe one). Does not mean that the three spoke the same language(s) though, even if the names are actually related (the Bulgars provide an historical example).
I am inclined to believe that the Avars may have been originally Turkic, only because it seems to make the most historical and geographical sense, but I don't think there's enough evidence to know for sure, and yes, probably the historical entities under these names were multilingual.
 
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