Hungarian language

Hungarian
magyar
Pronunciation	[ˈmɒɟɒr̪]
Native to	Hungary and areas of Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, Ukraine, Croatia, Austria, and Slovenia
Native speakers	14.5 million
Language family	Uralic Finno-Ugric Ugric Hungarian
Writing system	Latin alphabet (Hungarian variant)
Official status
Official language in	Hungary, European Union, Slovenia (regional language), Serbia (regional language), Austria (regional language), Various localities in Romania, Some official rights in Ukraine, Croatia and Slovakia
Regulated by	Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Language codes
ISO 639-1	hu
ISO 639-2	hun
ISO 639-3	hun

Hungarian (magyar nyelv listen^ⓘ) is a Uralic language (more specifically an Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in seven neighbouring countries. The Hungarian name for the language is magyar IPA: [ˈmɒɟɒr̪].

As one of the small number of modern European languages that do not belong to the Indo-European language family, Hungarian has always been of great interest to linguists. Due to the Ugric heritage, Hungarian often sounds completely foreign to speakers of Indo-European languages. It is commonly estimated to be one of the hardest of European languages for foreigners to learn well.

There are about 14.5 million native speakers, of whom 9.5-10 million live in modern-day Hungary. Some two million speakers live in areas that were part of the Kingdom of Hungary before World War I. Of these, the largest group lives in Romania, where there are approximately 1.4 million Hungarians (see Hungarian minority in Romania). Hungarian-speaking people are also to be found in Slovakia, Serbia, Ukraine, Croatia, Austria, and Slovenia, as well as about a million people scattered in other parts of the world (see Geographic distribution). As with many European languages, there are a few hundred thousand in the United States as well.

History

Main article: History of Hungarian

Classification

Hungarian is a Uralic language, more specifically an Ugric language. Connections between the Ugric and Finnic languages were noticed in the 1670s and established, along with the entire Uralic family, in 1717, although the classification of Hungarian continued to be a matter of political controversy into the 18th and even 19th centuries. Today the Uralic family is considered one of the best demonstrated large language families, along with Indo-European and Austronesian. The name of Hungary could be a corruption of Ugrian, and the fact that the Eastern Slavs referred to them as Ugrin (pl. Ugrove) seemed to confirm that . However, current literature favors the hypothesis that the Turkic "On-ogur" ("Ten arrows" or "Ten tribes") is the origin for the word Hungarian .

There are numerous regular sound correspondences between Hungarian and the other Ugric languages. For example, Hungarian /aː/ corresponds to Khanty /o/ in certain positions, and Hungarian /h/ corresponds to Khanty /x/, while Hungarian final /z/ corresponds to Khanty final /t/. For example, Hungarian ház (IPA: [haːz]) "house" vs. Khanty xot (IPA: [xot]) "house", and Hungarian száz (IPA: [saːz]) "hundred" vs. Khanty sot (IPA: [sot]) "hundred".

The distance between the Ugric and Finnic languages is greater, but the correspondences are also regular.

See also: Regular sound correspondences between Hungarian and other Uralic languages

Antiquity and the early Middle Ages

As Uralic linguists claim, Hungarian separated from its closest relatives approximately 3000 years ago, so the history of the language begins around 1000 BC. The Hungarians gradually changed their way of living from settled hunters to nomadic cattle-raising, probably as a result of early contacts with Iranian nomads. Their most important animals included sheep and cattle. There are no written resources on the era, thus only a little is known about it. However, research has revealed some extremely early loanwords, such as szó ('word'; from the Turkic languages) and daru ('crane', from the related Permic languages.)

The Turkic languages later, especially between the 5th and the 9th centuries, had a great influence on the language. Several words related to agriculture, to state administration or even to family relations have such backgrounds. Interestingly, Hungarian syntax and grammar was not influenced in a similarly dramatic way.

The Funeral Sermon and Prayer

The Hungarians migrated to the Carpathian Basin around 896 and came into contact with Slavic peoples, borrowing many words from them (for example tégla – "brick", mák – "poppy", or karácsony – "Christmas"). In exchange, the neighbouring Slavic languages also contain some words of Hungarian origin (such as Croatian čizma – "boot", or Serbian ašov – "spade").

The first written accounts of Hungarian, mostly personal and place names, are dated back to the 10th century. Hungarians also had their own writing system, the Old Hungarian script, but no significant texts remained from the time.

Since the foundation of the Kingdom of Hungary

The Kingdom of Hungary was founded in 1000, by Stephen I of Hungary (I. István király). The country was a western-styled Christian state, and Latin held an important position, as it was usual in the Middle Ages.

Therefore, Hungarian was also heavily influenced by Latin. The first extant text of the language is the Funeral Sermon and Prayer, written once in the 1190s. The earliest example of Hungarian religious poetry is the Old Hungarian 'Lamentations of Mary', a poem about the afflictions of Mary when she saw the death of her son. More extensive literature in the Hungarian language arose after 1300. The first Bible translation is the Hussite Bible from the 1430s.

The language lost its diphthongs, and several postpositions transformed into suffixes, such as reá 'onto' – 1055: utu rea 'onto the way'; later: útra). Vowel harmony was also developed. At one time, Hungarian used six verb tenses; today, only two (the future not being counted as one, as it's a compound formed with an auxiliary verb).

The first printed Hungarian book was published in Cracow in 1533, by Benedek Komjáti. The work's title is Az Szent Pál levelei magyar nyelven, i.e. The letters of Saint Paul in the Hungarian language. In the 17th century, the language was already very similar to its present-day form, although two of the past tenses were still used. German, Italian and French loans also appeared in the language by these years.

In the 18th century, the language was incapable of clearly expressing scientific concepts, and several writers found the vocabulary a bit scant for literary purposes. Thus, a group of writers, most notably Ferenc Kazinczy, began to compensate for these imperfections. Some words were shortened (győzedelem > győzelem 'triumph'); a number of dialectical words spread nationally (e. g. cselleng 'dawdle'); extinct words were reintroduced (dísz 'décor'); a wide range of expressions were coined using the various derivative suffixes; and some other, less frequently used methods of expanding the language were utilized. This movement was called the 'language reform' (Hungarian: nyelvújítás), and produced more than ten thousand words, many of which are used actively today. The reforms lead to the installment of Hungarian as the official language over Latin in the multiethnic country in 1844.

The 19th and 20th centuries saw further standardization of the language, and differences between the mutually already comprehensible dialects gradually lessened. In 1920, by signing the Treaty of Trianon, Hungary lost several territories, and along with these, 33% of the ethnic Hungarian population. Today, the language is official in Hungary, and regionally also in Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia.

Geographic distribution

Regions in Europe where the Hungarian language is spoken. Based on recent censuses and on the CIA World Factbook 2006

Hungarian language in Vojvodina, Serbia (2002 census)

Hungarian is spoken in the following countries as a mother tongue:

Country	Speakers
Hungary	10 million (census 2001)
Romania (mainly Transylvania)	1,443,970 (census 2002)
Slovakia	520,528 (census 2001)
Serbia (mainly Vojvodina)	293,299 (census 2002)
Ukraine (mainly Zakarpattia)	149,400 (census 2001)
United States	117,973 (census 2000)
Canada	75,555 (census 2001)
Israel	70,000
Austria (mainly Burgenland)	22,000
Croatia	16,500
Slovenia	9,240
Total	12-13 million

Source: National censuses, Ethnologue

About a million more Hungarian speakers live in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Venezuela, and in other parts of the world.

Official status

Hungarian is the official language of Hungary, and thus an official language of the European Union. Hungarian is also one of the official languages of Vojvodina and an official language of three municipalities in Slovenia: Hodoš, Dobrovnik and Lendava, along with Slovene. Hungarian is officially recognized as a minority or regional language in Austria, Croatia, Romania, Bukovina, Zakarpattia in Ukraine, and Slovakia. In Romania and Slovakia, it is an official language at local level in all communes, towns and municipalities with an ethnic Hungarian population of over 20%.

Dialects

The dialects of Hungarian identified by Ethnologue are: Alföld, West Danube, Danube-Tisza, King's Pass Hungarian, Northeast Hungarian, Northwest Hungarian, Székely and West Hungarian. These dialects are, for the most part, mutually intelligible. The Hungarian Csángó dialect, which is not listed by Ethnologue, is spoken mostly in Bacău County, Romania. The Csángó minority group has been largely isolated from other Hungarians, and they therefore preserved a dialect closely resembling medieval Hungarian.

Phonology

File:Correct Hungarian vowel chart.png

Hungarian vowels

Main article: Hungarian phonology

Hungarian has 14 vowel phonemes and 25 consonant phonemes. The vowel phonemes can be grouped as pairs of long and short vowels, e.g. o and ó. Most of these pairs have a similar pronunciation, only varying in their duration; the pairs <a>/<á> and <e>/<é> differ both in closedness and length, however.

Consonant length is also distinctive in Hungarian. Most of the consonant phonemes can occur as geminates.

The sound voiced palatal plosive /ɟ/, written <gy>, sounds similar to 'd' in British English 'duty'. It occurs in the name of the country, "Magyarország" (Hungary), pronounced /ˈmɒɟɒrorsaːg/.

Primary stress is always on the first syllable of a word, as with its cousin Finnish and neighboring languages, Slovak (Standard dialect) and Czech. There is sometimes secondary stress on other syllables, especially in compounds, e.g. viszontlátásra ("goodbye") pronounced /ˈvisontˌlaːtaːʃrɒ/.

Front-back vowel harmony is an important feature of Hungarian phonology. See the details about Hungarian language in the linked article.

Single /r/s are tapped, like the Spanish pero; double /r/s are trilled, like the Spanish perro.

Grammar and syntax

Main article: Hungarian grammar

Hungarian is an agglutinative language – it uses a number of different affixes, including suffixes, prefixes and a circumfix to define the meaning or the grammatical function. Instead of prepositions, which are common in English, Hungarian uses only postpositions.

There are two articles in Hungarian:

• the definite, which is a before words beginning with consonants and az before vowels, (equivalent to the in English)
• the indefinite egy, literally ‘one’, (equivalent to a(n) in English).

Nouns have as many as eighteen cases. Of these, some are grammatical, e.g. the unmarked nominative (for example, az alma ‘the apple’), and the accusative marked with the suffix –t (az almát). The latter is used when the noun in question is used as the object of a verb. Hungarian does not have a genitive case, and numerous English prepositions are equivalent not to an affix, but to a postposition, as in az alma mellett ‘next to the apple’. Plurals are formed using the suffix –k (az almák ‘the apples’). Adjectives precede nouns, e. g. a piros alma ‘the red apple’. They have three degrees, including base (piros ‘red’), comparative (pirosabb ‘more red’), and superlative (legpirosabb ‘the most red’). If the noun takes the plural or a case, the adjective, used attributively, does not agree with it: a piros almák ‘the red apples’. However, when the adjective is used in a predicative sense, it must agree with the noun: az almák pirosak ‘the apples are red’. Adjectives also take cases when they are used without nouns: Melyik almát kéred? - A pirosat. 'Which apple would you like? - The red one.'

Verbs developed a complex conjugation system during the centuries. Every Hungarian verb has two conjugations (definite and indefinite), two tenses (past and present-future), and three moods (indicative, conditional and imperative), two numbers (singular or plural), and three persons (first, second and third). Out of these features, the two different conjugations are the most characteristic: the "definite" conjugation is used for a transitive verb with a definite object. The "indefinite" conjugation is used for an intransitive verb or for a transitive verb with an indefinite object. These rules, however, do not apply everywhere. The following examples demonstrate this system:

John lát egy almát. ‘John sees an apple.’ (indefinite: the apple can be any of the world’s apples)

John látja az almát. ‘John sees the apple.’ (definite: John sees a specific apple)

See also: Definite and indefinite conjugations.

Present tense is unmarked, while past is formed using the suffix –t or sometimes –tt: lát 'sees'; látott 'saw', past. Futurity is often expressed with the present tense, or using the auxiliary verb fog ‘will’. The first most commonly applies when the sentence also defines the time of the future event, for example John pénteken moziba megy – literally ‘John on Friday into cinema goes’, i.e. ‘On Friday, John will go to the cinema.’ In the other case, the verb’s infinitive (formed using –ni) and the ‘fog’ auxiliary verb is used: John moziba fog menni – ‘John will go to the cinema.’ This is sometimes counted as a tense, especially by non-specialist publications.

Indicative mood is used in all tenses; the conditional only in the present and the past, finally the imperative just in the present. Indicative is always unmarked. Verbs also have verbal prefixes. Most of them define movement direction (lemegy – goes down, felmegy – goes up), but some of them give an aspect to the verb, such as the prefix meg-, which defines a finite action.

Hungarian word order is often mentioned as free, i.e. because of marking the object using –t, it is not always necessary to place the subject before the verb, and the object after it, as in English. This feature makes Hungarian able to focus on particular sections of the sentence – generally, the beginning of the sentence contains the most important information:

John lát egy almát. ‘John sees an apple.’ (when it is important to stress that it's John, not someone else, who sees an apple; or when no special stress is required)

John egy almát lát. (or even Egy almát lát John) ‘John sees an apple.’ (when it is important that it's an apple John sees, and not something else. The same emphasis could be translated as 'What John sees is an apple.')

Lexicon

Example with ad

Hungarian	English
Derived terms
ad	he is giving sth
adó	tax
adózik	he pays tax
adózó	taxpayer
adós	debtor
adósság	debt
adalék	aggregate n
adomány	donation
adat	data
With verbal prefixes
megad	he is giving sth (e.g. debt etc.) back
hozzáad	he is adding sth to sth
As part of compounds
adóhivatal	revenue office
rádióadó	transmitter

Giving an exact estimate for the total word count is difficult, since it is hard to define what to call "a word" in agglutinating languages, due to the existence of compound words. To have a meaningful definition of compound words, we have to exclude such compounds whose meaning is the mere sum of its elements. The largest dictionaries from Hungarian to another language contain 120,000 words and phrases (but this may include redundant phrases as well, because of translation issues). The new desk lexicon of Hungarian language contains 75,000 words and the Comprehensive Dictionary of Hungarian Language (to be published in 18 volumes in the next twenty years) will contain 110,000 words. The default Hungarian lexicon is usually estimated to comprise 60,000 to 100,000 words. (Independently of specific languages, speakers actively use at most 10,000 to 20,000 words, with an average intellectual using 25-30 thousand words.) However, all the Hungarian lexemes collected from technical texts, dialects etc. would all together add up to 1,000,000 words.

Hungarian words are built around so-called word-bushes. (See an example on the right.) Thus, words with similar meaning often arise from the same root.

The basic vocabulary shares a couple of hundred word roots with other Uralic languages like Finnish, Estonian, Mansi and Khanty. Examples of such include the numbers kettő 'two', három 'three', négy 'four' (cf. Finnish kaksi, kolme, neljä, Estonian kaks, kolm, neli, Mansi китыг kitig, хурум khurum, нила nila), as well as víz 'water', kéz 'hand, arm', vér 'blood', fej 'head' (cf. Finnish and Estonian vesi, käsi, veri, Finnish pää, Estonian pea or 'pää).

The proportion of the word roots in Hungarian lexicon is as follows: Finno-Ugric 21 %, Slavic 20 %, German 11 %, Turkic 9.5 %, Latin and Greek 6 %, Romance 2.5 %, Other of known origin 1 %, Other of uncertain origin 30%. Except for a few Latin and Greek loan-words, these differences are unnoticed even by native speakers; the words have been entirely adopted into the Hungarian lexicon. There are an increasing number of English loan-words, especially in technical fields.

Word formation

Words can be compound (as in German) and derived (with suffixes).

Compounds

Compounds are present since the Proto-Uralic era in the language. Numerous ancient compounds transformed to base words during the centuries. Today, compounds play an important role in vocabulary.

One good example for these is the word arc:

orr (nose) + száj (mouth) → orca (face) (colloquial until the end of the 19th century and still in use in some dialects) → arc (face)

Compounds are made up of two base words: the first is the prefix, the latter is the suffix. A compound can be subordinative: the prefix is in logical connection with the suffix. If the prefix is the subject of the suffix, the compound is generally classified as a subjective one. There are objective, determinative, and adjunctive compounds as well. Some examples are given below:

Subjective:

menny (heaven) + dörög (thunder) → mennydörög (thundering)

nap (Sun) + sütötte (baked) → napsütötte (sunlit)

Objective:

fa (tree, wood) + vágó (cutter) → favágó (lumberjack, literally "woodcutter")

Determinative:

új (new) + já (modification of -vá, -vé a suffix meaning "making it to something") + építés (construction) → újjáépítés (reconstruction, literally "making something to be new by construction")

Adjunctive:

sárga (yellow) + réz (copper) → sárgaréz (brass)

According to current orthographic rules, a subordinative compound word has to be written as a single word, without spaces; however, if the length of a compound is over six syllables, a hyphen must be inserted at the appropriate boundary to avoid ambiguity.

Other compound words are coordinatives: there is no concrete relation between the prefix and the suffix. Subcategories include word duplications (to emphasise the meaning; olykor-olykor 'really occasionally'), twin words (where a base word and a distorted form of it makes up a compound: gizgaz, where the suffix 'gaz' means 'weed' and the prefix giz is the distorted form; the compound itself means 'inconsiderable weed'), and such compounds which have meanings, but neither their prefixes, nor their suffixes make sense (for example, hercehurca 'long-lasting, frusteredly done deed').

A compound also can be made up by multiple (i.e., more than two) base words: in this case, at least one word element, or even both the prefix and the suffix is a compound. Some examples:

elme [mind; standalone base] + (gyógy [medical] + intézet [institute]) → elmegyógyintézet (asylum)

(hadi [militarian] + fogoly [prisoner]) + (munka [work] + tábor [camp]) → hadifogoly-munkatábor (work camp of prisoners of war)

Noteworthy lexical items

Points of the compass

The words relating to the points of the compass are in direct and logical link with the time of the day. This way a specific direction, or "place" is linked with a specific time.

• North = észak ("éjszak") = can mean also midnight (the time with the least sunlight, also, the least sunlight is coming from North)
• South = dél = can mean also noon (the time with the most sunlight, also, the most sunlight is coming from South)
• East = kelet = means also "wakening", "raising", "rising" (ie. the Sun)
• West = nyugat = means also "the going to rest" (ie. the Sun)

(Hungary is in the Northern hemisphere, so it relates to conditions in this area.)

Two words for "red"

There are two basic words for "red" in Hungarian, piros and vörös (variant: veres; compare with Estonian 'verev' or Finnish 'verevä'). (They are basic in the sense that one is not a sub-type of the other, like e.g. scarlet is a kind of red.) The word vörös is related to vér "blood". When they refer to an actual difference in colour (as on a colour chart), vörös usually refers to the deeper hue of red. While many languages have multiple names for this colour, Hungarian is special in having two distinct basic colour words for red.

However, the two words are also used independently of the above in collocations. Piros is first taught to children, as it is generally used to describe inanimate, artificial things, or things seen as cheerful or neutral, while vörös typically refers to animate or nature-related things (biological, geological, physical and astronomical objects), as well as serious or emotionally charged subjects.

When the rules outlined above are in contradiction, typical collocations usually prevail. In some cases where a typical collocation doesn't exist, the use of either of the two words may be equally adequate.

Examples:

• Expressions where "red" typically translates to piros: a red road sign, the red line of the Budapest Metro, a holiday shown in red in the calendar, ruddy complexion, the red nose of a clown, some red flowers (those with a "cold" property, e.g. tulip), red peppers and paprika, red cards (hearts and diamonds), red traffic lights, red light district, red stripes on a flag, etc.
• Expressions where "red" typically translates to vörös: red army, red wine, red carpet (for receiving important guests), red hair / beard, red lion (as a mythical animal), the Red Cross, The Red and the Black, the Red Sea, redshift, red giant, red blood cells, red oak, some red flowers (those with a "passionate" property, e.g. rose), red fox, names of ferric and other red minerals, red copper, rust, red phosphorus, the colour of blushing with anger or shame, etc.

Kinship terms

In Hungarian there exist separate words for brothers and sisters depending on relative age:

	younger	elder	unspecified relative age
brother	öcs	báty	fivér or fiútestvér
sister	húg	nővér	nővér or lánytestvér
unspecified gender	kistestvér	nagytestvér	testvér

(There existed a separate word for "elder sister", néne, but it has become obsolete [except to mean "aunt" in some dialects] and has been replaced by the generic word for "sister".)

Besides, separate prefixes exist for up to the 6th ancestors and descendants (although there are ambiguities and dialectical differences affecting the prefixes for the 4th (and above) ancestors):

parent	grandparent	great- grandparent	great-great- grandparent	great-great-great- grandparent	great-great-great- great-grandparent
szülő	nagyszülő	dédszülő	ükszülő	szépszülő (OR ük-ükszülő)	ősszülő / ószülő (OR ük-ük-ükszülő)
child	grandchild	great- grandchild	great-great- grandchild	great-great-great- grandchild	great-great-great- great-grandchild
gyer(m)ek	unoka	dédunoka	ükunoka	szépunoka (OR ük-ükunoka)	óunoka (OR ük-ük-ükunoka)

On the other hand, no lexical items exist for "son" and "daughter", but the words for "boy" and "girl"; are applied with possessive suffixes. Nevertheless, the terms are differentiated with different declension or lexemes:

	boy/girl	(his/her) son/daughter	(his/her) boy/girl (-friend)
male	fiú	fia	barátja
female	lány	lánya	barátnője

Fia is only used in this, irregular possessive form; it has no nominative on its own. However, the word fiú can also take the regular suffix, in which case the resulting word (fiúja) will be synonymous with barátja ("his/her boyfriend").

The word fiú (boy) is also often noted as an extreme example of the ability of the language to add suffixes to a word, by forming fiaiéi, adding vowel-form suffixes only, where the result is quite a frequently used word:

fiú	boy
fia	his/her son
fiai	his/her sons
fiaié	his/her sons' (singular object)
fiaiéi	his/her sons' (plural object)

Extremely long words

• Megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért

Partition to root and suffixes with explanations:

meg-	verb prefix; in this case, it means "completed"
szent	holy (the word root)
-ség	like English "-ness", as in "holiness"
-t(e)len	variant of "-tlen", noun suffix expressing the lack of something; like English "-less", as in "useless"
-ít	constitutes a verb from an adjective
-het	expresses possibility; somewhat similar to the English auxiliaries "may" or "can"
-(e)tlen	another variant of "-tlen"
-ség	(see above)
‑es	constitutes an adjective from a noun; like English "-y" as in "witty"
-ked	attached to an adjective (e.g. "strong"), produces the verb "to pretend to be (strong)"
-és	constitutes a noun from a verb; there are various ways this is done in English, e.g. "-ance" in "acceptance"
-eitek	plural possessive suffix, second person plural (e.g. "apple" -> "your apples", where "your" refers to multiple people)
-ért	approximately translates to "because of", or in this case simply "for"

Translation: "for your [plural] repeated pretending to be undesecratable"

• Legeslegmegszentségteleníttethetetlenebbeiteknek

"to those of you whom it is the very least possible to have desecrated"

• Töredezettségmentesítőtleníttethetetlenségtelenítőtlenkedhetnétek tör - ed - ez - ett - ség - mentes - ít - ő - tlen - ít - tet - het - etlen - ség - telen - ítő - tlen - ked(ik) - het - né - tek

"you [plural] could constantly mention the lack [of a thing] that makes it impossible to make someone make something defragmenter-free"

These words are never used in practice (and hard to understand even for native speakers), but only invented to show, in a somewhat facetious way, the ability of the language to form long words. They are not compound words – they are formed by adding a series of one and two-syllable suffixes (and a few prefixes) to a simple root ("szent" in the first two and "tör" in the third).

See also: Hungarian tongue-twisters.

Writing system

Main article: Hungarian alphabet

The oldest surviving words written in Hungarian, from the founding declaration of the Benedictine Abbey of Tihany, 1055

Medieval Hungarian book (a copy of the Hussite Bible), 1466

Before the year 1000, Hungarians had a different writing system. When Stephen I of Hungary established the Kingdom of Hungary, the old system was gradually discarded. However, although not used at all in everyday life, it is still known and practiced by some enthusiasts. For more information about this writing system, see Old Hungarian script.

Hungarian is written using an expanded Latin alphabet, and has a phonemic orthography, i.e. pronunciation can generally be predicted from the written language. In addition to the standard letters of the Latin alphabet, Hungarian uses several modified Latin characters to represent the additional vowel sounds of the language. These include letters with acute accents (á,é,í,ó,ú) to represent long vowels, and umlauts (ö and ü) and their long counterparts ő and ű to represent front wovels. Sometimes (usually as a result of a technical glitch on a computer) ô or õ is used for ő and û for ű. This is often due to the limitations of the Latin-1 / ISO-8859-1 code page. These letters are not part of the Hungarian language, and are considered misprints. Hungarian can be properly represented with the Latin-2 / ISO-8859-2 code page, but this code page is not always available. (Hungarian is the only language using both ő and ű.) Of course, Unicode includes them, and so they can be used on the Internet.

For a complete table of the pronunciation of the Hungarian alphabet, see the X-SAMPA description in the Hungarian Wikipedia (in Hungarian, but the table is obvious), which transliterates Hungarian letters into IPA and X-SAMPA characters.

Additionally, the letter pairs <ny>, <ty>, and <gy> represent the palatal consonants /ɲ/, /c/, and /ɟ/ (a little like the "d+y" sounds in British "duke" or American "would you") - a bit like saying "d" with your tongue pointing to your upper palate. Hungarian uses <s> for /ʃ/ and <sz> for /s/, which is the reverse of Polish usage. The letter <zs> is /ʒ/ and <cs> is /ʧ/. These digraphs are considered single letters in the alphabet. The letter <ly> is also a "single letter digraph", but is pronounced like /j/ (English <y>), and appears mostly in old words. The letters <dz> and <dzs> /ʤ/ are exotic remnants and are hard to find even in longer texts. Some examples still in common use are madzag ("string"), edzeni ("to train (athletically)") and dzsungel ("jungle").

Hungarian distinguishes between long and short vowels, with long vowels written with acutes. It also distinguishes between long and short consonants, with long consonants being doubled. For example, lenni ("to be"), hozzászólás ("comment"). The digraphs, when doubled, become trigraphs: <sz>+<sz>=<ssz>, e.g. művésszel ("with an artist"). But when the digraph occurs at the end of a line, all of the letters are written out. For example ("with a bus"):

... busz-

szal...

When the first lexeme of a compound ends in a digraph and the second lexeme starts with the same digraph, both digraphs are written out: lány + nyak = lánynyak ("girl's neck").

Usually a trigraph is a double digraph, but there are a few exceptions: tizennyolc ("eighteen") is a concatenation of tizen + nyolc. There are doubling minimal pairs: tol ("push") vs. toll ("feather" or "pen").

While to English speakers they may seem unusual at first, once the new orthography and pronunciation are learned, written Hungarian is almost completely phonemic.

Order of words

Basic rule is that the order is from general to specific. This is a typical analytical approach and is used generally in Hungarian.

Name order

Main article: Hungarian name

The Hungarian language uses the so-called eastern name order, in which the family name (general, deriving from the family) comes first and the given name (specific, relates to the person) comes last. However, as a rule, names are represented in the western name order when used in foreign languages. Thus for example Edward Teller, the Hungarian-born physicist, is known in Hungary as Teller Ede. Prior to the mid-20^th century, given names were usually translated along with the name order; this is no longer as common. For example, the pianist uses András Schiff when abroad, not Andrew Schiff.

In modern usage, foreign names retain their order when used in Hungarian. Therefore:

• Amikor Kiss János Los Angelesben volt, John Travoltát látta.

translates to

• When János Kiss was in Los Angeles, he saw John Travolta.

Pre-20^th-century foreign personalities have often had their names Hungarianized even in recent times: Verne Gyula (rather than Jules Verne), Marx Károly (rather than Karl Marx) and Engels Frigyes (rather than Friedrich Engels). Other exceptional forms include Kolumbusz Kristóf (Christopher Columbus), Luther Márton (Martin Luther), Husz János (Jan Hus) and Kálvin János (John Calvin).

Dates

The Hungarian convention on dates is: 2000. január 1.

The order is big endian: 1., year (general) 2., month (more specific) 3., day (most specific)

Address

Although nowadays addresses are getting confusing from Indo-European influence, the correct address is like:

1052 Budapest, Deák tér 1.

So the order is 1. post office number, 2., city (most general) 3., street (more specific) 4., number of the house on the street (most specific)

Vocabulary examples

Note: The stress is always placed on the first syllable of each word. The remaining syllables all receive an equal, lesser stress. All syllables are pronounced clearly and evenly, even at the end of a sentence, unlike in English.

• Hungarian (person, language): magyar [mɒɟɒr]
• Hello!:
  • Formal, when addressing a stranger: "Good day!": Jó napot (kívánok)! [joːnɒpot ki:vaːnok].
  • Informal, when addressing someone you know very well: Szia! [siɒ] (it sounds almost exactly like American colloquialism "See ya!")
• Good-bye!: Viszontlátásra! (formal) (see above), Viszlát! [vislaːt] (semi-informal), Szia (informal: same stylistic remark as for "Hello!" )
• Excuse me: Elnézést! [ɛlneːzeːʃt]
• Please:
  • Kérem (szépen) [keːrɛm seːpɛn] (This literally means "I'm asking (it/you) beautifully", as in German Danke schön, "I thank (you) beautifully". See next for a more common form of the polite request.)
  • Legyen szíves! [lɛɟɛn sivɛʃ] (literally: "Be (so) kind!")
• I would like ____, please: Szeretnék ____ [sɛrɛtneːk] (this example illustrates the use of the conditional tense, as a common form of a polite request)
• Sorry!: Bocsánat! [botʃaːnɒt]
• Thank you: Köszönöm [køsønøm]
• that/this: az [ɒz], ez [ɛz]
• How much?: Mennyi? [mɛɲɲi]
• How much does it cost?: Mennyibe kerül? [mɛɲɲibe kɛryl]
• Yes: Igen [iɡɛn]
• No: Nem [nɛm]
• I don't understand: Nem értem [nɛm eːrtɛm]
• I don't know: Nem tudom [nɛm tudom]
• Where's the toilet?:
  • Hol van a vécé? [hol vɒn ɒ veːtseː] (vécé/veːtseː is the Hungarian pronouncation of the English abbreviation of "Water Closet")
  • Hol van a mosdó? [hol vɒn ɒ moʒdoː] – more polite (and word-for-word) version
• generic toast: Egészségünkre! [ɛɡeːʃʃeːgynkrɛ] (literally: "To our health!")
• juice: gyümölcslé [ɟymøltʃleː]
• water: víz [viːz]
• wine: bor [bor]
• beer: sör [ʃør]
• tea: tea [tɛɒ]
• milk: tej [tɛj]
• Do you speak English?: Tud(sz) angolul? [tud(s) ɒngolul] Note that the fact of asking is only shown by the proper intonation: continually rising until the penultimate syllable, then falling for the last one.
• I love you: Szeretlek [sɛrɛtlɛk]
• Help!: Segítség! [ʃɛgiːtʃeːg]
• It is needed: kell
• I need to go: Mennem kell

Controversy over origins

Mainstream linguistics holds that Hungarian is part of the Uralic family of languages, related ultimately to languages such as Finnish and Nenets.

• For many years (from 1869), it was a matter of dispute whether Hungarian was a Finno-Ugric/Uralic language, or was more closely related to the Turkic languages, a controversy known as the "Ugric-Turkish war". Hungarians did absorb some Turkic influences during several centuries of co-habitation. For example, it appears that the Hungarians learned animal breeding techniques from the Turkic Chuvash, as a high proportion of words specific to agriculture and livestock are of Chuvash origin. There was also a strong Chuvash influence in burial customs. Furthermore, all Ugric languages, not just Hungarian, have Turkic loanwords related to horse riding. Nonetheless, the science of linguistics shows that the basic wordstock and morphological patterns of the Hungarian language are solidly based on a Uralic heritage.
• There have been historical attempts to link Hungarian with e.g. Etruscan, Turkic, and Sumerian. Such alternative theories are usually only advocated by non-specialists today. See Pseudoscientific language comparison.
• Hungarian has often been claimed to be related to Hunnish, since Hungarian legends and histories show close ties between the two peoples (although the name Hunor, preserved in legends and still used as a given name in Hungary, can also show a link with Khanty or Onogur). Some people believe that the Székelys, a Hungarian ethnic group living in Romania, are descended from the Huns. However, the link with Hunnish is uncertain, and it is not even known which languages the Huns spoke.

There have been attempts, dismissed by mainstream linguists, to show that Hungarian is related to other languages including Hebrew, Egyptian, Basque, Persian, Pelasgian, Greek, Chinese, Sanskrit, English, Tibetan, Magar, Quechua, Armenian and at least 42 other Asian, European and even American languages.

See also

• Hungarian grammar
• Hungarian alphabet
• Old Hungarian script
• Hungarian phonology
• Hungarian literature
• List of English words of Hungarian origin
• Hungary
• History of the Hungarian language
• Hungarian people
• Old Hungarian 'Lamentations of Mary' - The first Hungarian written poem from the 14^th century

Bibliography

Courses

• Colloquial Hungarian - The complete course for beginners. Rounds, Carol H.; Sólyom, Erika (2002). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-242584.

This book gives an introduction to the Hungarian language in 15 chapters. The dialogues are available on cassette or CDs.

• Teach Yourself Hungarian - A complete course for beginners. Pontifex, Zsuzsa (1993). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. ISBN 0-340-56286-2.

This is a complete course in spoken and written Hungarian. The course consists of 21 chapters with dialogues, culture notes, grammar and exercises. The dialogues are available on cassette.

• Hungarolingua 1 - Magyar nyelvkönyv. Hoffmann, István; et al. (1996). Debreceni Nyári Egyetem. ISBN 963-472-083-8
• Hungarolingua 2 - Magyar nyelvkönyv. Hlavacska, Edit; et al. (2001). Debreceni Nyári Egyetem. ISBN 963-036-698-3
• Hungarolingua 3 - Magyar nyelvkönyv. Hlavacska, Edit; et al. (1999). Debreceni Nyári Egyetem. ISBN 963-472-083-8

These course books were developed by the University of Debrecen Summer School program for teaching Hungarian to foreigners. The books are written completely in Hungarian. There is an accompanying 'dictionary' for each book with translations of the Hungarian vocabulary in English, German, and French.

• "NTC's Hungarian and English Dictionary" by Magay and Kiss. ISBN 0-8442-4968-8 (You may be able to find a newer edition also. This one is 1996.)

Grammars

• A practical Hungarian grammar (3rd, rev. ed.). Keresztes, László (1999). Debrecen: Debreceni Nyári Egyetem. ISBN 963-472-300-4.
• Practical Hungarian grammar: [a compact guide to the basics of Hungarian grammar]. Törkenczy, Miklós (2002). Budapest: Corvina. ISBN 963-13-5131-9.
• Hungarian verbs and essentials of grammar: a practical guide to the mastery of Hungarian (2nd ed.). Törkenczy, Miklós (1999). Budapest: Corvina; Lincolnwood, [Ill.]: Passport Books. ISBN 963-13-4778-8.
• Hungarian: an essential grammar. Rounds, Carol (2001). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-22612-0.
• Hungarian: Descriptive grammar. Kenesei, István, Robert M. Vago, and Anna Fenyvesi (1998). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-02139-1.
• Hungarian Language Learning References (including the short reviews of three of the above books)
• Noun Declension Tables - HUNGARIAN. Budapest: Pons. Klett. ISBN 9789639641044
• Verb Conjugation Tables - HUNGARIAN. Budapest: Pons. Klett. ISBN 9789639641037

External links

• Hungarian - A Strange Cake on the Menu - article by Nádasdy Ádám
• Ethnologue report for Hungarian
• Introduction to Hungarian
• Hungarian Profile
• The old site of the Indiana University Institute of Hungarian Studies (various resources)
• Hungarian Language Learning References on the Hungarian Language Page (short reviews of useful books)
• Hungarian Language Review at How-to-learn-any-language.com
• One of the oldest Hungarian texts - A Halotti Beszéd (The Funeral Oration)
• Live stream of Hungarian news radio station InfoRádió - example of Hungarian speech

Encyclopaedia Humana Hungarica

• Introduction to the History of the Language; The Pre-Hungarian Period; The Early Hungarian Period; The Old Hungarian Period
• The Linguistic Records of the Early Old Hungarian Period; The Linguistic System of the Age
• The Old Hungarian Period; The System of the Language of the Old Hungarian Period
• The Late Old Hungarian Period; The System of the Language
• The First Half of the Middle Hungarian Period; Turkish Loan Words

Dictionaries

• Hungarian-English dictionary
• Hungarian Dictionary: from Webster's Dictionary
• English-Hungarian-Finnish - three language freely editable online dictionary
• Hungarian-English False friends (False friend)
• Hungarian slang

Online translators

• Free Hungarian-English translation service - does not translate texts longer than 500 characters

Online language courses

• A Hungarian Language Course by Aaron Rubin