While modern Hungarians look like any other European, they speak an Asiatic language related to Turkish. In the 9th century, Hungary was overrun and settled by Magyars, oriental nomads on horseback. This all began when, about 460 AD, the Magyars migrated from the Ural mountains to the northern Caucasus mountains. In the 800s, they fled to Romania to escape a more numerous group of incoming Turkic people (the Pechenegs). Under their leader Arpad, the Magyars fought their way past the Bulgars (more Asian nomads) and entered Hungary in 985. They conquered Moravia and raided into Germany each year until defeated in 955 by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I. In the 11th century they adopted Christianity and by the 14th century (when the Arpad line died out) they were recognized as one of great nations of Europe, even if few outsiders could understand their Asiatic language. And because they had intermarried with the Slavs and Germans they found in the 800s, they didn't look like Asiatic nomads any more.