The Huns first entered the Balkans as invaders. Then they started settling in the Balkans. We know they were very influential and active in Pannonia. But we know that they had reached as far as the Greek Peninsula. First as marauders then as conquerors and finally as refugees and settlers. What was the linguistic outcome of these political and social events?
This is way out of my linguistic area (I work with the Aboriginal languages of North America), but I think that the first thing that I would do is look for evidence of Gothic words, especially those related to war and government. There is not enough evidence for what Hunnic may or may not have been (e.g., Turkic or Mongolian), so Gothic might be your best bet. Look for Greek words that are more like Germanic words than they should be given their common Indo-European heritage. Good luck!
Thanks for the answer John. Indeed Gothic is another interesting topic related to the matter. There is no doubt that Gothic played an important role in the empire of the Huns. However I am more interested in the socolinguistic impact omade by the ruling class on the Greek Peninsula. By the way, advance resulting from recent research has put forth that the Huns were most probably speaking a Turkic language from the Old West Turkic branch (i.e. Bulgar / -r- Turkic). But I will keep the Gothic idea in mind. Thanks again.
As far as I know, it appears that a Hunnic noun, *kukur, was borrowed into both MGk (as koukouron) and MLat (as cucura ). Romanian has (obs.) cucura 'quiver', which certainly is related to Germanic terms such as Eng quiver, Du koker, Sw koger, etc., all probably based on the same Hunnic loan.
Dear Lourdes, thanks for your interesting answer. There is no doupt that the Hunnic state (empire?) was a multi ethnic and a multi-lingual one like any nomadic horde. However I doubt that the Huns themselves were multi-ethnic or multi-lingual. Perhaps you meant the state. There are many Roman (both eastern and western) records mentioning the Hunnic language, even letters written in this language. If we have to take the Huns as a multi-lingual people, what should we understand by the term "the Hunnic language"?
Dear Adrian, a very enlightinig answer, I am grateful for it. I guess a Hunnic term borrowed by the languages belonging to the three different branches of the Indo-Euorpean language phillum points into the direction of the presence of a sociolinguistically esteemed language in the multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Hunnic society.
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