structural:scholar_edition
Language

The language or languages spoken by the Avars are unknown. Classical philologist Samu Szádeczky-Kardoss states that most of the Avar words used in contemporaneous Latin or Greek texts appear to have their origins in possibly Mongolian or Turkic languages. Other theories propose a Tungusic origin. According to Szádeczky-Kardoss, many of the titles and ranks used by the Pannonian Avars were also used by Turks, Proto-Bulgars, Uighurs and/or Mongols, including khagan (or kagan), khan, kapkhan, tudun, tarkhan, and khatun. There is also evidence, however, that ruling and subject clans spoke a variety of languages. Proposals by scholars include Caucasian, Iranian, Tungusic, Hungarian and Turkic. A few scholars speculated that Proto-Slavic became the lingua franca of the Avar Khaganate. Historian Gyula László has suggested that the late 9th-century Pannonian Avars spoke a variety of Old Hungarian, thereby forming an Avar-Hungarian continuity with then-newly arrived Hungarians. Based on archeologic and linguistic data, Florin Curta and Johanna Nichols concluded that there is no convincing evidence for the presence of any Turkic or Mongolic languages among the Avars, but evidence for the presence of Iranian languages, further strengthened by Iranian-derived loanwords and toponyms in the region and among languages within the range of the Avars.

Shimunek (2017) proposes that the elite core of the Avars spoke a " Para-Mongolic language " of the "Serbi–Awar" group, that is a sister branch of the Mongolic languages. Together, the Serbi–Awar and Mongolic languages make up the Serbi–Mongolic languages.