OGHURIC
The Khazar language appears to have been an Oghuric tongue, similar to that spoken by the early Bulgars. Therefore, a Hunnish origin has also been postulated.
The Hunnish empire stretched from the steppes of Central Asia into modern Germany, and from the Danube river to the Baltic Sea. Dionysius Periegetes talks of people who may be Huns living next to the Caspian Sea in second century AD. Ptolemy lists the "Chuni" as among the "Sarmatian" tribes in the second century, although it is not known for certain if these people were the Huns. The fifth century Armenian historian Moses of Khorene, in his "History of Armenia," introduces the Hunni near the Sarmatians and goes on to describe how they captured the city of Balk ("Kush" in Armenian) sometime between 194 and 214, which explains why the Greeks call that city Hunuk.
Following the defeat of the Hsiung-nu by the Han, there was a century without significant Hsiung-nu references, followed by attempts by the Liu family of southern Hsiung-nu Tiefu to establish a state in western China (see Han Zhao). Chionites (OIONO/Xiyon) appear on the scene in Transoxiana as the Kidarites begin to press on the Kushans in 320 and the Jie ethnicity Hou/Later Zhao kingdom competes against the Liu family. Back west, the Romans invite the Huns east of the Ukraine to settle Pannonia in 361, and in 372, under the leadership of Balimir their king, the Huns push toward the west and defeat the Alans. Back east again, in the early 5th century Tiefu Xia is the last southern Hsiung-nu dynasty in Western China and the Alchon and Huna appear in what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan. At this point deciphering Hunnish histories for the multi-linguist becomes easier with relatively well-documented events in Byzantine, Armenian, Iranian, Indian, and Chinese sources.
Huns made an appearance in Europe in the Fourth Century AD, appearing first north of the Black Sea area, forcing a large number of Goths to seek refuge in the Roman Empire; then later the Huns appear west of the Carpathians in Pannonia, probably sometime between 400 and 410, which was probably the trigger for the massive migration of Germanic tribes westward across the Rhine in December 406. The establishment of the 5th century Hun Empire marks one of the first well-documented appearances of the culture of horseback migration in history. Under the leadership of Attila the Hun, these tribal people achieved military and diplomatic superiority over their rivals (most of them highly cultured) through weapons like the Hun bow and a system of pay-offs, financed by the plundering of wealthy Roman cities to the south, to retain the loyalties of a diverse number of tribes. Attila's Huns incorporated groups of unrelated tributary peoples. In the European case Alans, Gepids, Sciri, Rugians, Sarmatians, Slavs and Gothic tribes all united under the Hun family military elite. Some of Attila's Huns eventually settled in Pannonia after his death, but the Hun Empire would not survive Attila's passing. After his sons were defeated by Ardaric's coalition at the unidentified river Nedao in 454, the Hunnish empire ceased to exist.
The memory of the Hunnish invasion was transmitted orally among the Germanic peoples and is an important component in the Old Norse Völsunga saga and Hervarar saga, and the Old German Nibelungenlied, all portraying events in the Migrations period, almost one millennium before their recordings. In the Hervarar saga, the Goths make first contact with the bow-wielding Huns and meet them in an epic battle on the plains of the Danube. In the Völsunga saga and the Nibelungenlied, King Attila (Atli in Norse and Etzel in German) defeats the Frankish king Sigebert I (Siguršr or Siegfried) and the Burgundian King Guntram I (Gunnar or Gunther), but is subsequently assassinated by Queen Fredegund (Gudrun or Kriemhild), the sister of the latter and wife of the former.
Many nations have tried to assert themselves as ethnic or cultural successors to the Huns. The Bulgarian khans, for instance, believed to have been descended from Attila. Indeed, the language of Volga Bulghars, currently known as the Chuvash language, is the most divergent of all the Turkic languages, which testifies to its separate existence for centuries before the dissolution of the proto-Turkic unity happened.
The "Kurgan hypothesis" of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origins assumes gradual expansion of the "Kurgan culture" until it encompasses the entire Pontic steppe, Kurgan IV being identified with the Yamna culture of around 3000 BC. Subsequent expansion beyond the steppes leads to hybrid cultures, such as the Globular Amphora culture to the west, the immigration of proto-Greeks to the Balkans and the nomadic Indo-Iranian cultures to the east around 2500 BC. The domestication of the horse, and later the use of early chariots is assumed to have increased the mobility of the Kurgan culture, facilitating the expansion over the entire Yamna region. In the Kurgan hypothesis, the entire pontic steppes are considered the PIE Urheimat, and a variety of late PIE dialects is assumed to have been spoken across the region. The area near the Volga labelled ?Urheimat in the map above marks the location of the earliest known traces of horse-riding (the Samara culture, but see Sredny Stog culture), and would correspond to an early PIE or pre-PIE nucleus of the 5th millennium BC.