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Jász is the Hungarian language name for a people previously known by the endonym Iasi or Jassy, an ethnic minority within Hungary, who live mostly in the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county.

Geography

The Jasz people live in the region known as "Jászság" (roughly translatable as Jász-land), which comprises the north-western part of the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county. Their cultural and political center is the town of Jászberény.

It is a common mistake to call Jászság by the name "Jazygia", which derives from the name of another Iranian people – the Iazyges, who lived in the same territory between the Danube and Tisza rivers in ancient times.

History

The Jasz people were a nomadic Sarmatian tribe which settled in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary during the 13th century and are generally thought to be of Ossetian origin originally speaking a dialect of the Ossetic language. The dialect is extinct and members of the Jász usually speak Hungarian.

Their name is almost certainly related to that of the Iazyges, one of the Sarmatian Alanic tribes which, along with the Roxolani, reached the borders of Dacia during the late 1st century BC (the city of Iași is named for them). Residual elements of these tribes, ancestors of the Jasz people, remained behind in the central North Caucasus, mingling with Caucasian peoples to form the present-day Ossetes.

Due to the circumstance that the Alans did not leave any linguistic relics, the Iranic origin of the Alano-As people is not definitively confirmed, and even, open to contra-theories. According to the account of Al-Bīrūnī the language of the Alans was a mixture of (Turkic) Pecheneg and (Iranic) Khwarezmian languages. This situation is complicated by the fact that not the Iranian Ossetians, but the Turkic Karachay-Balkars, likely descending from the old Bulgars, are called As/Alan both by their neighbors, and by themselves, an ethnic name which is also found in the place names Aslar and Astrakhan. In Greek-Byzantine sources the Jassic language is described to be known to come from line of Besenyo (Badjanak), who live next to Tanais and Meotian Lake. John Scylitzes (§ 5.28.1) also make reference to the Alan princess Áλδή (Alsu), widow of “King George of Abasgia“ and mother of a certain Demetrius. "Alsu" happened to be a popular Turkic female name favoring the Turkic Pecheneg (Badjanak) evidence.

The Jasz people came to the Kingdom of Hungary, together with the Cumanians (Hungarian: Kun people) when their lands to the east, in some in the later Moldavia (see Iaşi and Jaszvasar) were invaded by the Mongol Empire in the mid-13th century. They were admitted by the Hungarian king, Béla IV Árpád, who hoped that the Jaszs would assist in resisting a Mongol-Tatar invasion. Shortly after their entry, the relationship worsened dramatically between the Hungarian nobility and the Cumanian-Jasz tribes, which then abandoned the country. After the end of the Mongol-Tatar invasion they returned and settled in the central part of the Pannonian Plain, near the rivers Zagyva and Tarna.

Initially, their main occupation was animal husbandry. During the next two centuries, they were fully assimilated into the Hungarian population; their language disappeared, but they preserved their Jasz identity. The Hungarian rulers granted the Jasz people special privileges. Thus, the Jasz were able to be more or less self-governing in an area known as Jászság in which Jászberény developed into the regional, cultural and administrative center.

In the 16th–17th centuries, areas populated by the Jasz people were under Ottoman administration, but at the end of the 17th century they were recaptured and returned to the Kingdom of Hungary, which was then part of the Habsburg Monarchy. Habsburg Emperor Leopold I sold the area to the Knights of the Teutonic Order. This saw the end of the privileged position of Jászberény. However, the Jasz people did not want to accept this situation and started to collect money with which they could buy their freedom. By 1745, they had collected half a million Rhenish gold florins, a considerable sum for those days. However, in this time the famous 'Act of Salvation' took place: the Empress Maria Theresa restored the Jasz land and Jasz hereditary privileges. From this point onwards, Jaszberény flourished. The Jasz regional autonomy was preserved until the year 1876, when area populated by the Jasz was administrativelly included into the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County.

After dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1918, areas populated by the Jasz people were included into an independent Hungary. Over a dozen settlements in modern-day Central Hungary (e.g. the names Jászberény, Jászárokszállás, Jászfényszaru, Jászalsószentgyörgy) still include a link to the Jasz). In 1995, the 250th Anniversary of the Act of Salvation was celebrated in Jászberény with the President of Hungary as guest of honor as well as with numerous foreign dignitaries.

Language

The only literary record of the Jász language was found in the 1950s in the Hungarian National Széchényi Library. The language was reconstructed with the help of various Ossetian analogies.

See also

• Jasz dialect
• Ossetians
• Alans
• Hungarians
• Jászság
• Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok
• Iaşi/Jassy
• Szekely
• Saka
• Scythians

References

1. ^ Frederik Coene, The Caucasus: an introduction, Taylor & Francis, 2009, p. 219
2. Karatay O., In Search of the Lost Tribe: The Origins and Making of the Croation Nation, 2003, pp.13-14
3. Agustí Alemany, Sources on Alans, Brill, 2000, p.6.
4. Ios. Bell Jud. Book 7, p.244. In: Agustí Alemany, Sources on Alans, Brill, 2000, pp.6-7. Quote:
   • "...языкъ же ясьский вeдом есть, яко отъ печенежьского рода родися, живуща подлe Тани и Меотьскаго моря..."; where ясьский (= Greek των Αλανών) is an adjective derived from Ясы, a form of the ethnic name *as-.
5. Agustí Alemany, Sources on Alans, Brill, 2000, pp.6-7.

External links

• http://www.yazd.com/features/Jaszbereny/Jaszberenyyazd.htm

• Ethnic groups in Hungary
• Hungarian people
• Ossetian people
• Iranian peoples
• Sarmatians