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| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Jászság,Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County,Hungary | |
| Languages | |
| Hungarian,Jász (extinct) | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity (Catholicism) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Hungarians,Ossetians, otherEastern Iranian peoples,Iranian peoples |
TheJász (Latin:Jazones) are anIranian ethnic group ofEastern Iranic descent who have lived in Hungary since the 13th century. They live mostly in a region known asJászság, which comprises the north-western part ofJász-Nagykun-Szolnok county. They are sometimes known in English by theexonymJassic and are also known by theendonymsIasi andJassy. They originated as a nomadicAlanic people from thePontic steppe.
The cultural and political center of Jászság is the town ofJászberény.[citation needed]
Jászság is sometimes, erroneously, known as "Jazygia", after a somewhat relatedSarmatian people, theIazyges, who lived in a similar area in ancient times.[citation needed]
The Jász people descend from members of a nomadic people, theAlans, who originated on theEurasian steppe and settled in theKingdom of Hungary during the 13th century, following the Mongol invasions.[1] Their language, which belonged to the East Iranian group that includes modernOssetian, had reportedly become extinct by the 16th century, when the Jász adoptedHungarian.
Despite frequent claims to the contrary, their name is unrelated to that of theJazyges, one of theSarmatian tribes which, along with theRoxolani, reached the borders ofDacia during the late 1st century BC, over a thousand years before the Jász accompanied the Cumans into Hungary. This confusion is motivated by a superficial resemblance in the names as they appear in Roman transliteration: Hungariansz is merely a digraph representing a voicelesss sound, while Greek zeta represented originally avoiced affricate (dz), or a combination of fricative and stop (zd), and the initialj in Jász isn't original to the word either. So then the two names actually have no more than ana in common. This confusion has a long history, as medieval scholars with a knowledge of classical history and writing in Latin were already referring to the Jász as Jazygians.
The Jász people came to the Kingdom of Hungary, together with theCumans (Hungarian:Kun people) when their lands to the east, in some in the laterMoldavia (seeIași orJászvásár) wereinvaded by the Mongol Empire in the mid-13th century. They were admitted by the Hungarian king,Béla IVÁrpád, who hoped that the Jász would assist in resisting theMongol-Tatar invasion. Shortly after their entry, the relationship worsened dramatically between theHungarian nobility and the Cuman-Jász tribes, which then abandoned the country. After the end of the Mongol-Tatar invasion they returned and settled in the central part of thePannonian Plain, near the riversZagyva and Tarna.
Initially, their main occupation wasanimal husbandry. Over the next two centuries they were assimilated into the Hungarian population; yet although their language disappeared, they preserved a distinct Jász identity. The Hungarian rulers granted the Jász people special privileges. Thus, the Jász were able to be more or less self-governing in an area known as Jászság in which Jászberény developed into the regional, cultural and administrative center.
In the 16th–17th centuries, areas populated by the Jász people were underOttoman administration, but at the end of the 17th century they were recaptured and returned to theKingdom of Hungary, which was then part of theHabsburg monarchy. Habsburg EmperorLeopold I sold the area to theKnights of the Teutonic Order. This saw the end of the privileged position of Jászberény. However, the Jász people did not want to accept this situation and started to collect money with which they could buy their freedom. By 1745, they had collected half a million Rhenish gold florins, a considerable sum for those days. However, in this time the famous 'Act of Redemption' took place: the EmpressMaria Theresa restored the Jász land and Jász hereditary privileges. From this point onwards, Jászberény flourished. The Jász regional autonomy was preserved until the year 1876, when the area populated by the Jász was administratively included into the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County.
After dissolution ofAustria-Hungary in 1918, areas populated by the Jász people were included into an independent Hungary. Over a dozen settlements in theGreat Hungarian Plain (e.g. the namesJászberény,Jászárokszállás,Jászfényszaru,Jászalsószentgyörgy) still include a link to the Jász. In 1995, the 250th Anniversary of the Act of Redemption was celebrated in Jászberény with the President of Hungary as guest of honor as well as with numerous foreign dignitaries.
Jassic is the common name in English for the original language of the Jász. It was a dialect ofOssetian, anEastern Iranian language. Jassic became extinct and was replaced by Hungarian. The only literary record of the Jász language was found in the 1950s in the HungarianNational Széchényi Library. The language was reconstructed with the help of various Ossetian analogies.[citation needed]
Genetic studies on people from various Jász regions, have established a firm link towards other Hungarian ethnic groups, while simultaneously having shown a significant shift towardsIranian peoples, and especiallyTurkic ethnic groups with significantSarmatian-related ancestry such as theBashkirs ofBashkortostan.[2]
Y-DNA haplogroups among people from Jász regions have been shown to be more diverse than those of other Hungarian people.[2]