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'Hungarian' (''magyar nyelv'' ) is a Finno-Ugric 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'' .
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.
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 live 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).

Contents

History

Classification

Geographic distribution

Official status

Dialects

Phonology

Grammar and syntax

Lexicon

Word formation

Compounds

Noteworthy lexical items

Two words for "red"

Kinship terms

Extremely long words

Writing system

Name order

Vocabulary examples

Controversy over origins

See also

Bibliography

Books for learning Hungarian

Hungarian grammar books

References

External links

Linguistic chapters from the ''Encyclopaedia Humana Hungarica'' (1–5)

Dictionaries

Online Language Courses

History

Main articles: 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 ^[1]. However, current literature favors the hypothesis that the Turkic "On-ogur" ("Ten arrows" or "Ten tribes") is the origin for the word Hungarian ^{[2] [3] [4]}.
There are numerous regular sound correspondences between Hungarian and the other Ugric languages. For example, Hungarian corresponds to Khanty in certain positions, and Hungarian corresponds to Khanty , while Hungarian final corresponds to Khanty final . For example, Hungarian ''ház'' () "house" vs. Khanty ''xot'' () "house", and Hungarian ''száz'' () "hundred" vs. Khanty ''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''
===The 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 Hungarians migrated to the Carpathian Basin around 896. Thus, they also got in contact with Slavic peoples, and borrowed several words from them, for example ''tégla'', ''mák'', or ''karácsony''. In exchange, the neighbouring Slavic languages also contain some words of Hungarian origin (such as Croatian ''čizma'', or Serbian ''ašov'').
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. 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: ''út'ra'''). 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''^[5], 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 thousands 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 the even originally inconsiderable differences between dialects gradually became less. 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

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

Main articles: 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 /<á> and /<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 , written , is unlike any in English. It occurs in the name of the country, "Magyarország" (Hungary), pronounced .
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 .
Front-back vowel harmony is an important feature of Hungarian phonology. See the details about Hungarian language in the linked article.

Grammar and syntax

Main articles: 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. Although common in English, Hungarian does not use any prepositions, but only postpositions.
There are two articles in Hungarian: a definite (’a’ before words beginning with consonants, else ’az’) and an indefinite (’egy’.) Nouns have as many as eighteen cases. Out 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 equal not to an affix, but to a postposition, such as ''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 does not agree with it: ''a piros almák'' ’the red apples’.
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 exotic: 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 egy almát lát''. ’John sees an apple.’ (indefinite, the apple can be any of the world’s apples)

''John a piros almát látja.'' ’John sees the red apple.’ (definite, as it was pointed out he sees the red one)

::''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 to be able to focus on particular sections of the sentence – generally, the beginning of the sentence contains the most important information:

''Lát John egy almát.'' ’John sees an apple.’ (when it is important to stress out John really sees an apple)

''Egy almát lát John.'' ’John sees an apple.’ (when it is important that John sees an apple, and not something else.)

Lexicon

Example with '''ad'''

Hungarian	English
Derived terms
ad	he is giving sth
adó	tax
adózik	he pays tax
adózó	taxpayer
adós	debtor
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^[6] (but this may include redundant phrases as well, because of translation issues). The new desk lexicon of Hungarian language contains 75,000 words⁶ and the Comprehensive Dictionary of Hungarian Language (to be published in 18 volumes in the next twenty years) will contain 110,000 words. ^[7] The default Hungarian lexicon is usually estimated to comprise 60,000 to 100,000 words.^[8] (Independently of specific languages, speakers actively use at most 10,000 to 20,000 words^[9], with an average intellectual using 25-30 thousand words.⁸) However, all the Hungarian lexemes collected from technical texts, dialects etc. would all together add up to 1,000,000 words.^[10]
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%.^[11] 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.
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 may 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 stress out 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

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. According to Berlin, B and Kay, P (1969) ''Basic Color Terms'', Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, Hungarian is unique in having two 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	unspecified gender
brother	''öcs''	''báty''	''fivér'' or ''fiútestvér''	''testvér''
sister	''húg''	''nővér''	''nővér'' or ''lánytestvér''

(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". "Testvér" is a compound word too: testvér = test(body) + vér(blood). )
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").

Extremely long words

★ ''Megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért''
: Partition to root and suffixes with translations:

meg-	szent	-ség	-telen	-ít	-hetetlen	-ség	‑eskedés	-e	-i	-tek	-ért
modifies the meaning of a verb; usually means completed	saint, holy	English "-ness" suffix	negation, English "un-" prefix	constitutes a verb from a noun	negation, approximately translates to "the impossibility of [place of the verb]"	constitutes a noun from a verb	refers to a constant (and sometimes annoying) habit; English: repeated	expresses possession by a single person (simple example: ''hegye'' "his mountain")	constitutes plurality; only directly after -e (simple example: ''hegyei'' "his mountains")	suffix of plural ''your'' (simple example: ''hegyetek'' "your mountain")	approximately translates to ''because of'' (simple example: ''a tettért'' "because of the deed")

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

★ ''Legeslegmegszentségteleníttethetetlenebbeiteknek''
:"to those of you whom it is the very least possible to have desecrated"

★ ''Töredezettségmentesítőtleníttethetetlenségtelenítőtlenkedhetnétek'' tör-edez-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"
:Partition to root and suffixes with translations:

tör	edez	ett	ség	mentes	ít	ő	tlen	ít	tet
break	repetition, together with previous means "break into tiny parts"	constitutes a past participle from a verb	constitutes a noun from an adjective or participle	expresses the nonexistence of something in something, English equivalent: "-free', "-less"	constitutes a transitive verb from an adjective	constitutes a noun from a verb, like English "-er", as in "worker"	negation	as before	to make someone do something
het	etlen	ség	telen	ít	ő	tlen	ked(ik)	het	né	tek
expresses possibility	negation	as before	negation	as before	as before	as before	expresses repetition	again, possibility	makes the verb conditional	sets the subject/agent as plural second party ("you")

These words are not 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: .

Writing system

Main articles: 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 AD 1000, Hungarians had a different writing system. When Stephen I of Hungary established the Kingdom of Hungary, the old system gradually became unused. However, although it is 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 a variant of the 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 additional letters. These include letters with acute accents ''(á,é,í,ó,ú)'' which represent long vowels, with umlauts (''ö'' and ''ü'') and their long counterparts ''ő'' and ''ű''. Sometimes (usually as a result of a technical glitch) ''ô'' or ''õ'' is used for ''ő'' and ''û'' for ''ű'', due to the limitations of the Latin-1 / ISO-8859-1 code page, though these 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 they therefore can be used on the Internet.
For a complete table of the pronunciation of the Hungarian alphabet, see (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 , , and (a little like the "d+y" sounds in British "''du''ke" or American "woul''d y''ou"). Also like saying d with your tongue pointing to your upper palate.
Hungarian uses <s> for and <sz> for /s/, which is the reverse of Polish. is and <cs> is . All these digraphs are considered single letters. is also a "single letter digraph", but is pronounced like /j/ (English <y>), and mostly appears in old words. More exotic letters are <dz> and <dzs> . They are hard to find even in a longer text. Examples are ''madzag'' ("string"), ''edzeni'' ("to train (athletically)") and ''dzsungel'' ("jungle").
Single R's are tapped, like the Spanish "pero"; Double R's and initial R's are trilled, like the Spanish "perro".
Hungarian distinguishes between long and short vowels, where the long vowels are written with acutes, and between long consonants and short consonants, where the long consonants are written double. The digraphs, when doubled, become trigraphs: +=, but when the digraph occurs at the end of a line, all letters are written out:
:... ''busz-''
:''szal''...
When a prefix ends in a digraph and the suffix starts with the same digraph, both digraphs are written out: ''lány'' + ''nyak'' = ''lánynyak''.
Usually a trigraph is a double digraph, but there are a few exceptions: ''tizennyolc'' "eighteen" is ''tizen'' + ''nyolc''. There are doubling minimal pairs: ''tol'' (''push'') vs. ''toll'' (''feather'' or ''pen'').
While it seems unusual to English speakers at first, once one learns the new orthography and pronunciations, written Hungarian is nearly totally phonemic.

Name order

Main articles: Hungarian name

The Hungarian language uses the so-called eastern name order, in which the family name comes first and the given name 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 járt, látta ''John Travoltát''.
translates to

★ When ''János Kiss'' went to 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).

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''

★ Hello!:

★
★ Formal, when addressing a stranger: "Good day!": ''Jó napot (kívánok)!''

★
★ Informal, when addressing someone you know very well: ''Szia!'' (it sounds almost exactly like American colloquialism "See ya!")

★ Good-bye!: ''Viszontlátásra!'' (formal) (see above), ''Viszlát!'' (semi-informal), ''Szia'' (informal: same stylistic remark as for "Hello!" )

★ Excuse me: ''Elnézést!''

★ Please:

★
★ ''Kérem (szépen)'' (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!'' (literally: "Be (so) kind!")

★ I would like ____, please: ''Szeretnék ____'' (this example illustrates the use of the conditional tense, as a common form of a polite request)

★ Sorry!: ''Bocsánat!''

★ Thank you: ''Köszönöm''

★ that/this: ''az'' , ''ez''

★ How much?: ''Mennyi?''

★ How much does it cost?: ''Mennyibe kerül?''

★ Yes: ''Igen''

★ No: ''Nem''

★ I don't understand: ''Nem értem''

★ I don't know: ''Nem tudom''

★ Where's the toilet?:

★
★ ''Hol van a vécé?'' (vécé/veːtseː is the Hungarian pronouncation of the English abbreviation of "Water Closet")

★
★ ''Hol van a mosdó?'' – more polite (and word-for-word) version

★ generic toast: ''Egészségünkre!'' (literally: "To our health!")

★ juice: ''gyümölcslé''

★ water: ''víz''

★ wine: ''bor''

★ beer: ''sör''

★ tea: ''tea''

★ milk: ''tej''

★ Do you speak English?: ''Tud(sz) angolul?'' 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''

★ Help!: ''Segítség!''

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). 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.^[12]

See also

★ Hungarian grammar

★ Hungarian alphabet

★ Hungarian phonology

★ Hungarian literature

★ List of English words of Hungarian origin

★ Hungary

★ History of Hungarian

★ Hungarian people

★ Old Hungarian 'Lamentations of Mary' - The first Hungarian written poem from the 14^th century

Bibliography

Books for learning Hungarian

★ ''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.)

Hungarian grammar books

★ ''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: Descritpive 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

References

1. Lebedynsky, Iaroslav. ''Les Nomades: Les peuples nomades de la steppe des origines aux invasions mongoles''. Paris: Errance, 2003: p. 191
2. Sugar, P.F..''A History of Hungary''. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996: p. 9
3. Maxwell, A.''Magyarization, Language Planning and Whorf: The word Uhor as a Case Study in Linguistic Relativism''Multilingua 23: 319, 2004.
4. Marcantonio, Angela. ''The Uralic Language Family: Facts, Myths and Statistics''. Blackwell Publishing, 2002: p. 19
5. In original spelling: ''Az zenth Paal leueley magyar nyeluen''
6. ''A nyelv és a nyelvek'' ("Language and languages"), edited by István Kenesei. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2004, ISBN 963-05-7959-6, p. 77)
7. The first two volumes of the 20-volume series were introduced on 13 November, 2006, at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (in Hungarian)
8. "Hungarian is not difficult" (interview with Ádám Nádasdy)
9. ''A nyelv és a nyelvek'' ("Language and languages"), edited by István Kenesei. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2004, ISBN 963-05-7959-6, p. 86)
10. ''A nyelv és a nyelvek'' ("Language and languages"), edited by István Kenesei. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2004, ISBN 963-05-7959-6, pp. 76 and 86)
11. ''A nyelv és a nyelvek'' ("Language and languages"), edited by István Kenesei. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2004, ISBN 963-05-7959-6, p. 134)
12. 'Zsirai Miklós': ''Őstörténeti csodabogarak''. Budapest, 1943.

External links

★ Hungarian - A Strange Cake on the Menu - ''article by Nádasdy Ádám''

★ HungarianBookstore.com Online dictionary, Hungarian-English, English-Hungarian language books, links, related tools

★ Ethnologue report for Hungarian

★ Numerals of some Uralic languages

★ Uralic page

★ Introduction to Hungarian

★ Hungarian Profile

★ "The Hungarian Language: A Short Descriptive Grammar" by Beáta Megyesi (PDF document)

★ A very good list of formative suffixes in Hungarian

★ The old site of the Indiana University Institute of Hungarian Studies (various resources)

★ Let's try to learn Hungarian (Magyar) and Turkish! - with Japanese translation

★ Grammar, phonology and syntax plus some history of the language

★ Hungarian Language Learning References on the Hungarian Language Page (short reviews of useful books)

★ Debrecen Summer School with Hungarian Language and Culture Courses offered in Budapest, Debrecen and Sopron all year round. The Language School is part of the University of Debrecen and has been teaching Hungarian as a foreign language since 1927.

★ Balassi Bálint Institute (Hungarian language teaching)

★ Hungarian Language School (available with Internet Explorer and Netscape)

★ Hungarian Language Review at How-to-learn-any-language.com

★ One of the oldest Hungarian texts - A Halotti Beszéd (The Funeral Oration)

★ Hungarian runic writing

★ Rokonszenv - A very good and precise study about the Uralic languages, in Hungarian only

★ Live stream of Hungarian news radio station InfoRádió - example of Hungarian speech

Linguistic chapters from the ''Encyclopaedia Humana Hungarica'' (1–5)

★ 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

★ (The English translations of volumes 6 to 9 are in preparation.)

Dictionaries

★ Hungarian Dictionary: from Webster's Dictionary

★ Hungarian<->English created by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences - Computer and Automation Research Institute MTA SZTAKI
Also includes dictionaries for the following languages to and from Hungarian : German, French, Italian, Dutch, and Polish.

★ English-Hungarian-Finnish - three language freely editable online dictionary

★ Dictionary with Hungarian - English Translations from Webster's Online Dictionary - the Rosetta Edition

★ Hungarian-English False friends (False friend)

★ Hungarian slang

★ Hungarian-Japanese-Hungarian online dictionary

★ Hungarian bilingual dictionaries

Online Language Courses

★ A Hungarian Language Course by Aaron Rubin

★ STELLA HUNGARIAN – free online course Hungarian for beginners

★ Online course hungarotips.com

★ Study Hungarian! (AFS.com)

★ Hungarian Phrase Guides

★ Magyaróra: New paths to the Hungarian language

★ Hungarian Language Lessons - Puzzles, Quizzes, Sound Files