- published: 14 Jun 2011
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The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns, considerable scholarly effort has been devoted to investigating such a connection. However, there is no scholarly consensus on a direct connection between the dominant element of the Xiongnu and that of the Huns.Priscus mentions that the Huns had a language of their own; little of it has survived and its relationships have been the subject of debate for centuries. Most authorities suppose that it may have been a member of the Oghuric branch of the Turkic language family, with the languages Bulgar, Khazar, Turkic Avar and Chuvash. Numerous other languages were spoken within the Hun pax including East Germanic, which was widely used as a lingua franca in the Hunnic territories. Their main military technique was mounted archery.