 Scholarly attempts in the early 18th century to prove a relationship between the Finns and the Huns led to the realization of the similarities between the Finnish and Hungarian languages . János Sajnovics 's <unk> , the first systematic comparative study of Hungarian and the Saami languages , was published in 1770 . Three decades later , Sámuel <unk> demonstrated similarities between a larger group of languages that are now known as Uralic languages . However , the majority of Hungarian scholars only gradually adopted Sajnovics 's and <unk> 's views . In the 1830s , Pál <unk> still wrote that Hungarian had an intermediate position between the Finnish and Turkic languages , but later accepted that Hungarian is closely related to the Mansi and Khanty languages . Hereafter linguistics played a pre @-@ eminent role in the research of the Magyars ' prehistory because it was always the dominant linguistic theory that determined the interpretation of historical and archaeological evidence . Consequently , as historian <unk> Berend writes , Hungarian prehistory is " a tenuous construct based on linguistics , folklore analogies , archaeology , and later written evidence " , because there are no certain records of the Magyars before the 9th century and the identification of archaeological cultures with peoples is highly debatable . Historian László Kontler identifies " the history of Hungarian origins " as " the history of a community whose genetic composition and cultural character has been changing , but which has assuredly spoken Hungarian or its predecessor language " . 
