Megjegyzések a Grönlandiak sagájában szereplő Tyrker etnikai hátterének megítéléséhez

• Main Author: Kiss Máté
• Format: Text
• Language: Hungarian; English
• Published: Szegedi Tudományegyetem Móra Ferenc Szakkollégiuma 2022
• Subjects: 06. Bölcsészettudományok; 06.01. Történettudomány és régészet; greenlander*
• Online Access: http://acta.bibl.u-szeged.hu/76366/; http://acta.bibl.u-szeged.hu/76366/1/moraakademia_010_084-097.pdf

According to widespread scientific belief the so called Vinland sagas, i.e. Saga of Greenlanders and Saga of Eiríkr the Red, perpetuate the story of travellings to the eastern coasts of North America at the turn of the first millennium. The Saga of Greenlanders mentions a foreigner (not Scandinavian) called Tyrker, one of the crew members of Leifr Eiríksson’s ship, whose provenance has long been the subject of scholarly interest. Theories about his German and Hungarian (Magyar) origin have become dominant in historiography. There are only three information in the text which may help to determine where he came from: his name Tyrker, the general term southerner to express his geographical origin and the word for his mother tongue. The conclusions of the paper are as follows. It is uncertain whether Tyrker is a real or fictional character. The term southerner and the word for his language, regardless whether it is þyrskr or þyeskr, may support his German origin, however, his name is quite similar to Tyrkir (pl.) used to denote peoples from the East in Scandinavian written sources. Independently from the strict Tyrker problem, at the turn of the 10–11th centuries Scandinavians may have known Hungarians as Turks primarily due to their connection with the Byzantine Empire, although this term could have denoted other groups like steppe peoples in general.