The establishing charter of the abbey of Tihany is a document known for including the oldest written words in the

Hungarian language Hungarian () is an Uralic language spoken in Hungary and parts of several neighbouring countries. It is the official language of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Outside Hungary, it is also spoken by Hungar ...

. The document, dated to 1055, lists the lands the king donated to the newly founded

Tihany Abbey The Tihany Abbey is a Benedictine monastery established in Tihany in the Kingdom of Hungary in 1055. Its patrons are the Virgin Mary and Saint Aignan of Orleans. Foundation The Benedictine monastery in Tihany was established in 1055 by King And ...

. It is mostly in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

, but contains several Hungarian words and expressions, the longest of which is ''feheruuaru rea meneh hodu utu rea'' (in modern Hungarian: ''Fehérvárra menő hadi útra,'' 'onto the military road leading to Fehérvár').

Background

The Benedictine abbey of

Tihany Tihany /ˈtihɒɲ/ is a village on the northern shore of Lake Balaton on the Tihany Peninsula (Hungary, Veszprém County). The whole peninsula is a historical district. The center of the district is the Benedictine Tihany Abbey, which was founde ...

was founded by King Andrew I and was dedicated to the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

and Aignan of Orleans. The establishing charter is likely to have been composed by Bishop Nicholas. The Benedictine monks were settled in Tihany by King Andrew, who had a church and a monastery built for them on the hill of the

Tihany peninsula Tihany /ˈtihɒɲ/ is a village on the northern shore of Lake Balaton on the Tihany Peninsula (Hungary, Veszprém County). The whole peninsula is a historical district. The center of the district is the Benedictine Tihany Abbey, which was found ...

near

Lake Balaton Lake Balaton () is a freshwater lake in the Transdanubian region of Hungary. It is the largest lake in Central Europe, and one of the region's foremost tourist destinations. The Zala River provides the largest inflow of water to the lake, and ...

. The charter, written on

vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anim ...

, is today in the Benedictine abbey of Pannonhalma. The road mentioned must have been a military road from Roman times, still used in medieval times. It was the most important road from Fehérvár to the south. Fehérvár – today

Székesfehérvár Székesfehérvár (; german: Stuhlweißenburg ), known colloquially as Fehérvár ("white castle"), is a city in central Hungary, and the country's ninth-largest city. It is the regional capital of Central Transdanubia, and the centre of Fej� ...

– was one of the most important cities of medieval Hungary.Zelliger Erzsébet: Első nyelvemlékeink és a 950 éves Tihanyi alapítólevél, Új Ember, 2005. november 20.
, www.benceskiado.hu

Content

The Hungarian words in the text reflect 11th century Hungarian language. Not only proper nouns, but common nouns and expressions are included. The longest of these, ''& feheruuaru rea meneh hodu utu rea'' clearly shows a language stage in which the ''-ra'' suffix (''-re'' after front vowels) has not yet evolved into a suffix from a

postposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...

, and in which the final vowels are still preserved (compare 'Feheruuaru' with modern 'Fehérvár' and 'utu' with modern 'út' – don't pay attention to the diacritics as in 1055 Hungarian spelling was not yet developed to show the a/á and u/ú difference, although they must have existed in pronunciation). In total, the document includes 58 Hungarian words, among them ''Tichon,'' an early spelling of the name Tihany.

Footnotes

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References

PDF copy of the document
* Mons Sacer 996-1996. Pannonhalma ezer éve. Szerkesztő: Takács Imre. Pannonhalma, 1996 * Browsing by Citation "Tanulmányok a 950 éves Tihanyi alapítólevél tiszteletére / Szerkesztő: Érszegi Géza. - Tihany, Tihanyi Bencés Apátság, 2007 * Géza Bárczi: A tihanyi apátság alapítólevele mint nyelvi emlék. Budapest, 1951. * Erzsébet Zelliger: A Tihanyi Alapítólevél. Bencés kiadó * István Hoffmann: A Tihanyi alapítólevél három szórványáról: Huluoodi, Turku, Ursa Medieval charters and cartularies of Hungary 11th century in Hungary 1050s works Hungarian language Hungarian literature Earliest known manuscripts by language

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