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Hungarian () is an
Uralic language The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (w ...
spoken in
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...
and parts of several neighbouring countries. It is the
official language An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Outside Hungary, it is also spoken by
Hungarian communities Hungarian may refer to: * Hungary, a country in Central Europe * Kingdom of Hungary, state of Hungary, existing between 1000 and 1946 * Hungarians, ethnic groups in Hungary * Hungarian algorithm, a polynomial time algorithm for solving the assignme ...
in southern Slovakia, western
Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
( Subcarpathia), central and western
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
( Transylvania), northern
Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...
(
Vojvodina Vojvodina ( sr-Cyrl, Војводина}), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia. It lies within the Pannonian Basin, bordered to the south by the national capital ...
), northern
Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...
, northeastern
Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
(
Prekmurje Prekmurje (; dialectically: ''Prèkmürsko'' or ''Prèkmüre''; hu, Muravidék) is a geographically, linguistically, culturally and ethnically defined region of Slovenia, settled by Slovenes and a Hungarian minority, lying between the Mur R ...
), and eastern
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
. It is also spoken by
Hungarian diaspora Hungarian diaspora ( hu, magyar diaszpóra) is a term that encompasses the total ethnic Hungarian population located outside current-day Hungary. There are two main groups of the diaspora. The first group includes those who are autochthonous to ...
communities worldwide, especially in North America (particularly the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
) and
Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
. With 17 million speakers, it is the Uralic family's largest member by number of speakers.


Classification

Hungarian is a member of the
Uralic language family The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian ...
. Linguistic connections between Hungarian and other Uralic languages were noticed in the 1670s, and the family itself (then called Finno-Ugric) was established in 1717. Hungarian has traditionally been assigned to the Ugric along with the
Mansi Mansi may refer to: People * Mansi people, an indigenous people living in Tyumen Oblast, Russia ** Mansi language * Giovanni Domenico Mansi Gian (Giovanni) Domenico Mansi (16 February 1692 – 27 September 1769) was an Italian prelate, theolog ...
and
Khanty The Khanty ( Khanty: ханти, ''hanti''), also known in older literature as Ostyaks (russian: остяки) are a Ugric indigenous people, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as "Yugra" in Russia, togethe ...
languages of western Siberia (
Khanty–Mansia Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug–Yugra ( Russian and Mansi: Ханты-Мансийский автономный округ — Югра, ''Khanty-Mansiysky avtonomny okrug — Yugra;'' Khanty: Хӑнты-Мансийской Aвтономно� ...
region), but it is no longer clear that it is a valid group. When the Samoyed languages were determined to be part of the family, it was thought at first that Finnic and Ugric (Finno-Ugric) were closer to each other than to the Samoyed branch of the family, but that is now frequently questioned. The
name of Hungary A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A personal ...
could be a result of regular sound changes of ''Ungrian/Ugrian'', and the fact that the Eastern Slavs referred to Hungarians as ''Ǫgry/Ǫgrove'' (sg. ''Ǫgrinŭ'') seemed to confirm that. Current literature favors the hypothesis that it comes from the name of the Turkic tribe Onoğur (which means "ten arrows" or "ten tribes"). There are numerous regular sound correspondences between Hungarian and the other Ugric languages. For example, Hungarian corresponds to
Khanty The Khanty ( Khanty: ханти, ''hanti''), also known in older literature as Ostyaks (russian: остяки) are a Ugric indigenous people, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as "Yugra" in Russia, togethe ...
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.


History


Prehistory


Scholarly consensus

The traditional view holds that the Hungarian language diverged from its Ugric relatives in the first half of the 1st millennium BC, in western Siberia east of the southern Urals. The Hungarians gradually changed their lifestyle from being settled hunters to being
nomadic pastoralists Nomadic pastoralism is a form of pastoralism in which livestock are herded in order to seek for fresh pastures on which to graze. True nomads follow an irregular pattern of movement, in contrast with transhumance, where seasonal pastures are fix ...
, probably as a result of early contacts with Iranian nomads ( Scythians and
Sarmatians The Sarmatians (; grc, Σαρμαται, Sarmatai; Latin: ) were a large confederation of ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples of classical antiquity who dominated the Pontic steppe from about the 3rd century BC to the 4th cen ...
) or Turkic nomads. In Hungarian, Iranian loanwords date back to the time immediately following the breakup of Ugric and probably span well over a millennium. Among these include ''tehén'' ‘cow’ (cf. Avestan ''daénu''); ''tíz'' ‘ten’ (cf. Avestan ''dasa''); ''tej'' ‘milk’ (cf. Persian ''dáje'' ‘wet nurse’); and ''nád'' ‘reed’ (from late
Middle Iranian The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian languages are groupe ...
; cf.
Middle Persian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle ...
''nāy'' and Modern Persian ''ney''). Archaeological evidence from present-day southern Bashkortostan confirms the existence of Hungarian settlements between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains. The Onoğurs (and Bulgars) later had a great influence on the language, especially between the 5th and 9th centuries. This layer of Turkic loans is large and varied (e.g. ''szó'' "word", from Turkic; and ''daru'' "crane", from the related Permic languages), and includes words borrowed from Oghur Turkic; e.g. ''borjú'' "calf" (cf. Chuvash ''păru'', ''părăv'' vs. Turkish ''buzağı''); ''dél'' ‘noon; south’ (cf. Chuvash ''tĕl'' vs. Turkish dial. ''düš''). Many words related to agriculture,
state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...
administration and even family relationships show evidence of such backgrounds. Hungarian syntax and
grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...
were not influenced in a similarly dramatic way over these three centuries. After the arrival of the Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin, the language came into contact with a variety of speech communities, among them Slavic, Turkic, and German. Turkic loans from this period come mainly from the Pechenegs and Cumanians, who settled in Hungary during the 12th and 13th centuries: e.g. ''koboz'' "
cobza The ''cobza'' (also ''cobsa'', ''cobuz'', ''koboz'') is a multi-stringed instrument of the lute family of folk origin popular in the Romanian folklore from both Romania and Republic of Moldova (it is considered the oldest accompaniment instrumen ...
" (cf. Turkish ''kopuz'' ‘lute’); ''
komondor The Komondor (), also known as the Hungarian sheepdog, is a large, white-coloured Hungarian breed of livestock guardian dog with a long, corded coat. Sometimes referred to as 'mop dogs', the Komondor is a long-established dog breed commonly e ...
'' "mop dog" (< *''kumandur'' < ''Cuman''). Hungarian borrowed 20% of words from neighbouring
Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...
: e.g. ''tégla'' ‘brick’; ''mák'' ‘poppy seed’; ''szerda'' ‘Wednesday’; ''csütörtök'' ‘Thursday’...; ''karácsony'' ‘Christmas’.''A nyelv és a nyelvek'' ("Language and languages"), edited by István Kenesei. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2004, , p. 134. These languages in turn borrowed words from Hungarian: e.g.
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...
''ašov'' from Hungarian ''ásó'' ‘spade’. About 1.6 percent of the Romanian lexicon is of Hungarian origin. In the 21st century, studies support an origin of the Uralic languages, including early Hungarian, in eastern or central Siberia, somewhere between the Ob and Yenisei river or near the Sayan mountains in the
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
n–
Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...
n border region. A 2019 study based on genetics, archaeology and linguistics, found that early Uralic speakers arrived in Europe from the east, specifically from eastern Siberia.


Alternative views

Hungarian historian and archaeologist Gyula László claims that
geological Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other E ...
data from
pollen analysis Palynology is the "study of dust" (from grc-gre, παλύνω, palynō, "strew, sprinkle" and ''-logy'') or of "particles that are strewn". A classic palynologist analyses particulate samples collected from the air, from water, or from deposits ...
seems to contradict the placing of the ancient Hungarian homeland near the Urals.


Historical controversy over origins

Today, the consensus among linguists is that Hungarian is a member of the Uralic family of languages. The classification of Hungarian as a Uralic/Finno-Ugric rather than a Turkic language continued to be a matter of impassioned political controversy throughout the 18th and into the 19th centuries. During the latter half of the 19th century, a competing hypothesis proposed a Turkic affinity of Hungarian, or, alternatively, that both the Uralic and the Turkic families formed part of a superfamily of Ural–Altaic languages. Following an academic debate known as ''Az ugor-török háború'' ("the Ugric-Turkic war"), the Finno-Ugric hypothesis was concluded the sounder of the two, mainly based on work by the German linguist Josef Budenz. Hungarians did, in fact, absorb some Turkic influences during several centuries of cohabitation. The influence on Hungarians was mainly from the Turkic Oghur speakers such as
Sabirs The Sabirs (Savirs, Suars, Sawar, Sawirk among others; el, Σάβιροι) were nomadic people who lived in the north of the Caucasus beginning in the late-5th -7th century, on the eastern shores of the Black Sea, in the Kuban area, and possibly ...
, Bulgars of
Atil Atil (also Itil) , was the capital of the Khazar Khaganate from the middle of the 8th century until the end of the 10th century. Known to have been situated on the Silk Road in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea, its precise location has long bee ...
,
Kabars The Kabars ( el, Κάβαροι), also known as Qavars (Qabars) or Khavars were Khazar rebels who joined the Magyar confederation possibly in the 9th century as well as the Rus' Khaganate. Sources The Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII is th ...
and Khazars. The Oghur tribes are often connected with the Hungarians whose exoethnonym is usually derived from Onogurs (> (H)ungars), a Turkic tribal confederation. The similarity between customs of Hungarians and the
Chuvash people The Chuvash people ( , ; cv, чӑваш ; russian: чуваши ) are a Turkic ethnic group, a branch of Oghurs, native to an area stretching from the Volga-Ural region to Siberia. Most of them live in Chuvashia and the surrounding areas, a ...
, the only surviving member of the Oghur tribes, is visible. For example, the Hungarians appear to have learned animal husbandry techniques from the Oghur speaking
Chuvash people The Chuvash people ( , ; cv, чӑваш ; russian: чуваши ) are a Turkic ethnic group, a branch of Oghurs, native to an area stretching from the Volga-Ural region to Siberia. Most of them live in Chuvashia and the surrounding areas, a ...
(or historically Suvar people), as a high proportion of words specific to agriculture and livestock are of Chuvash origin. A strong Chuvash influence was also apparent in Hungarian burial customs.


Old Hungarian

The first written accounts of Hungarian date to the 10th century, such as mostly Hungarian personal names and place names in '' De Administrando Imperio'', written in Greek by Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII. No significant texts written in
Old Hungarian script The Old Hungarian script or Hungarian runes ( hu, Székely-magyar rovás, 'székely-magyar runiform', or ) is an alphabetic writing system used for writing the Hungarian language. Modern Hungarian is written using the Latin-based Hungarian alph ...
have survived, because the medium of writing used at the time, wood, is perishable. The Kingdom of Hungary was founded in 1000 by Stephen I. The country became a
Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...
-styled Christian (
Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
) state, with
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...
replacing
Hungarian runes The Old Hungarian script or Hungarian runes ( hu, Székely-magyar rovás, 'székely-magyar runiform', or ) is an alphabetic writing system used for writing the Hungarian language. Modern Hungarian is written using the Latin-based Hungarian alph ...
. The earliest remaining fragments of the language are found in the
establishing charter of the abbey of Tihany The establishing charter of the abbey of Tihany is a document known for including the oldest written words in the Hungarian language. The document, dated to 1055, lists the lands the king donated to the newly founded Tihany Abbey. It is mostly in ...
from 1055, intermingled with Latin text. The first extant text fully written in Hungarian is the
Funeral Sermon and Prayer The Funeral Sermon and Prayer ( hu, Halotti beszéd és könyörgés) is the oldest known and surviving contiguous Hungarian text, written by one scribal hand in the Latin script and dating to 1192–1195. It is found on f.154a of the Codex Pr ...
, which dates to the 1190s. Although the
orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...
of these early texts differed considerably from that used today, contemporary Hungarians can still understand a great deal of the reconstructed spoken language, despite changes in grammar and vocabulary. A more extensive body of
Hungarian literature Hungarian literature is the body of written works primarily produced in Hungarian,
arose after 1300. The earliest known example of Hungarian religious poetry is the 14th-century '' Lamentations of Mary''. The first
Bible translation The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. all of the Bible has been translated into 724 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,617 languages, and ...
was the
Hussite Bible The Hussite Bible ( hu, Huszita Biblia; sometimes also "The Bible of the Franciscans") is the oldest known Bible translations into Hungarian, Hungarian, as well as general Uralic languages, Uralic Bible translation, dated to the 1420s–1430s. His ...
in the 1430s. The standard language lost its diphthongs, and several
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 ...
s transformed into suffixes, including ''reá'' "onto" (the phrase ''utu rea'' "onto the way" found in the 1055 text would later become ''útra''). There were also changes in the system of vowel harmony. At one time, Hungarian used six verb tenses, while today only two or three are used.The future is formed with an
auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb ( abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or a ...
and so is sometimes not counted as a separate tense. (See also: periphrasis.)


Modern Hungarian

In 1533,
Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...
printer Benedek Komjáti published (modern orthography: ), the first Hungarian-language book set in
movable type Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuation m ...
. By the 17th century, the language already closely resembled its present-day form, although two of the past tenses remained in use. German, Italian and French loans also began to appear. Further Turkish words were borrowed during the period of
Ottoman rule Ottoman is the Turkish spelling of the Arabic masculine given name Uthman ( ar, عُثْمان, ‘uthmān). It may refer to: Governments and dynasties * Ottoman Caliphate, an Islamic caliphate from 1517 to 1924 * Ottoman Empire, in existence fro ...
(1541 to 1699). In the 19th century, a group of writers, most notably Ferenc Kazinczy, spearheaded a process of ''nyelvújítás'' (
language revitalization Language revitalization, also referred to as language revival or reversing language shift, is an attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one. Those involved can include linguists, cultural or community groups, o ...
). Some words were shortened (''győzedelem'' > ''győzelem'', 'victory' or 'triumph'); a number of
dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
al 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 produced more than ten thousand words, most of which are used actively today. The 19th and 20th centuries saw further standardization of the language, and differences between
mutually comprehensible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as a ...
dialects gradually diminished. In 1920, Hungary signed the Treaty of Trianon, losing 71 percent of its territory and one-third of the ethnic Hungarian population along with it. Today, the language holds official status nationally in Hungary and regionally in
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
, Slovakia,
Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...
,
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
and
Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
.


Geographic distribution

:''Source: National censuses, Ethnologue'' Hungarian has about 13 million native speakers, of whom more than 9.8 million live in Hungary. According to the 2011 Hungarian census, 9,896,333 people (99.6% of the total population) speak Hungarian, of whom 9,827,875 people (98.9%) speak it as a first language, while 68,458 people (0.7%) speak it as a second language. About 2.2 million speakers live in other areas that were part of the Kingdom of Hungary before the Treaty of Trianon (1920). Of these, the largest group lives in Transylvania, the western half of present-day
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
, where there are approximately 1.25 million Hungarians. There are large Hungarian communities also in Slovakia,
Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...
and
Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
, and Hungarians can also be found in
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
,
Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...
, and
Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
, as well as about a million additional people scattered in other parts of the world. For example, there are more than one hundred thousand Hungarian speakers in the
Hungarian American Hungarian Americans ( Hungarian: ''amerikai magyarok'') are Americans of Hungarian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau has estimated that there are approximately 1.396 million Americans of Hungarian descent as of 2018. The total number of people wit ...
community and 1.5 million with Hungarian ancestry in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
.


Official status

Hungarian is the
official language An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
of Hungary, and thus an official language of the European Union. Hungarian is also one of the official languages of Serbian province of
Vojvodina Vojvodina ( sr-Cyrl, Војводина}), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia. It lies within the Pannonian Basin, bordered to the south by the national capital ...
and an official language of three municipalities in
Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
: Hodoš, Dobrovnik and
Lendava Lendava (; formerly ''Dolnja Lendava'', in older sources also ''Dolenja Lendava''; hu, Lendva, formerly ''Alsólendva''; german: Lindau, formerly ''Unter-Limbach'') is a town in Slovenia in the region of Prekmurje. It is the seat of the Municip ...
, along with Slovene. Hungarian is officially recognized as a minority or
regional language * A regional language is a language spoken in a region of a sovereign state, whether it be a small area, a federated state or province or some wider area. Internationally, for the purposes of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Lan ...
in
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
,
Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...
,
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
, Zakarpattia in
Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
, and Slovakia. In
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
it is a recognized minority language used at local level in communes, towns and municipalities with an ethnic Hungarian population of over 20%.


Dialects

The
dialects The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
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 mentioned but not listed separately by Ethnologue, is spoken primarily in Bacău County in eastern Romania. The Csángó Hungarian group has been largely isolated from other Hungarian people, and therefore preserved features that closely resemble earlier forms of Hungarian.


Phonology

Hungarian has 14 vowel phonemes and 25 consonant phonemes. The vowel phonemes can be grouped as pairs of short and long vowels such as ''o'' and ''ó''. Most of the pairs have an almost similar pronunciation and vary significantly only in their duration. However, pairs ''a''/''á'' and ''e''/''é'' differ both in closedness and length. Consonant length is also distinctive in Hungarian. Most consonant phonemes can occur as geminates. The sound
voiced palatal plosive The voiced palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound in some vocal languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a barred dotless that was initially created by turning the type for a ...
, written , sounds similar to 'd' in
British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
'duty'. It occurs in the name of the country, "Magyarország" (Hungary), pronounced . It is one of three
palatal The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
consonants, the others being and . Historically a fourth palatalized consonant existed, still written . A single 'r' is pronounced as an
alveolar tap Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit. Uses in anatomy and zoology * Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs ** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte ** Alveolar duct ** Alveolar macrophage * M ...
(''akkora'' 'of that size'), but a double 'r' is pronounced as an
alveolar trill The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ...
(''akkorra'' 'by that time'), like in
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
and
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...
.


Prosody

Primary stress is always on the first syllable of a word, as in Finnish and the neighbouring Slovak and
Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...
. There is a secondary stress on other syllables in compounds: ''viszontlátásra'' ("goodbye") is pronounced . Elongated vowels in non-initial syllables may seem to be stressed to an English-speaker, as length and stress correlate in English.


Grammar

Hungarian is an
agglutinative language An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) tend to r ...
. It uses various affixes, mainly
suffixes In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry g ...
but also some prefixes and a circumfix, to change a word's meaning and its grammatical function.


Vowel harmony

Hungarian uses vowel harmony to attach suffixes to words. That means that most suffixes have two or three different forms, and the choice between them depends on the vowels of the head word. There are some minor and unpredictable exceptions to the rule.


Nouns

Nouns have 18 cases, which are formed regularly with suffixes. The nominative case is unmarked (''az alma'' 'the apple') and, for example, the accusative is marked with the suffix ''–t'' (''az almát'' ' eatthe apple'). Half of the cases express a combination of the source-location-target and surface-inside-proximity ternary distinctions (three times three cases); there is a separate case ending –''ból'' / ''–ből'' meaning a combination of source and insideness: 'from inside of'. Possession is expressed by a possessive suffix on the possessed object, rather than the possessor as in English (Peter's apple becomes ''Péter almája'', literally 'Peter apple-his'). Noun plurals are formed with ''–k'' (''az almák'' ‘the apples’), but after a numeral, the singular is used (''két alma'' ‘two apples’, literally ‘two apple’; not ''*két almák''). Unlike English, Hungarian uses case suffixes and nearly always
postpositions 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 ...
instead of prepositions. There are two types of articles in Hungarian, definite and indefinite, which roughly correspond to the equivalents in English.


Adjectives

Adjectives precede nouns (''a piros alma'' 'the red apple') and have three degrees: positive (''piros'' 'red'), comparative (''pirosabb'' 'redder') and superlative (''a legpirosabb'' 'the reddest'). If the noun takes the plural or a case, an attributive adjective is invariable: ''a piros almák'' 'the red apples'. However, a predicative adjective agrees with the noun: ''az almák pirosak'' 'the apples are red'. Adjectives by themselves can behave as nouns (and so can take case suffixes): ''Melyik almát kéred? – A pirosat.'' 'Which apple would you like? – The red one'.


Verbs


Word order

The neutral word order is subject–verb–object (SVO). However, Hungarian is a topic-prominent language, and so has a word order that depends not only on syntax but also on the
topic–comment In linguistics, the topic, or theme, of a sentence is what is being talked about, and the comment (rheme or focus) is what is being said about the topic. This division into old vs. new content is called information structure. It is generally ...
structure of the sentence (for example, what aspect is assumed to be known and what is emphasized). A Hungarian sentence generally has the following order: topic, comment (or focus), verb and the rest. The topic shows that the proposition is only for that particular thing or aspect, and it implies that the proposition is not true for some others. For example, in "''Az almát János látja".'' ('It is John who sees the apple'. Literally 'The apple John sees.'), the apple is in the topic, implying that other objects may be seen by not him but other people (the pear may be seen by Peter). The topic part may be empty. The focus shows the new information for the listeners that may not have been known or that their knowledge must be corrected. For example, "Én vagyok az apád". ('I am your father'. Literally, 'It is I who am your father'.), from the movie ''
The Empire Strikes Back ''The Empire Strikes Back'' (also known as ''Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back'') is a 1980 American epic space opera film directed by Irvin Kershner from a screenplay by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, based on a stor ...
'', the pronoun I (''én'') is in the focus and implies that it is new information, and the listener thought that someone else is his father. Although Hungarian is sometimes described as having free word order, different word orders are generally not interchangeable, and the neutral order is not always correct to use. Also, the intonation is also different with different topic-comment structures. The topic usually has a rising intonation, the focus having a falling intonation. In the following examples, the topic is marked with italics, and the focus (comment) is marked with boldface. *János látja az almát. - 'John sees the apple'. Neutral sentence. *''János'' látja az almát. - 'John sees the apple'. (Peter may not see the apple.) *János látja az ''almát''. - 'It is John who sees the apple'. (The listener may have thought that it is Peter.) *Látja János az ''almát''. - 'John does see the apple'. (The listener may have thought that John does not see the apple.) *''János'' az almát látja. - 'What John sees is the apple'. (It is the apple, not the pear, that John specifically sees. However, Peter may see the pear.) *''Az almát'' látja János. - 'It is the apple that is seen by John'. (The pear may not be seen by John, but it may be smelled, for example.) *''Az almát'' János látja. - 'It is by John that the apple is seen'. (It is not seen by Peter, but the pear may be seen by Peter, for example.)


Politeness

Hungarian has a four-tiered system for expressing levels of politeness. From highest to lowest: *''Ön'' (''önözés''): Use of this form in speech shows respect towards the person addressed, but it is also the common way of speaking in official texts and business communications. Here "you", the second person, is grammatically addressed in the third person. *''Maga'' (''magázás'', ''magázódás''): Use of this form serves to show that the speakers wish to distance themselves from the person they address. A boss could also address a subordinate as ''maga''. Aside from the different pronoun it is grammatically the same as "''önözés''". *''Néni/bácsi'' (''tetszikezés''): This is a somewhat affectionate way of expressing politeness and is grammatically the same as "''önözés''" or "''magázódás''", but adds a certain verb in auxiliary role "''tetszik''" ("like") to support the main verb of the sentence. For example, children are supposed to address adults who are not parents, close friends or close relatives by using "''tetszik''" ("you like"): "''Hogy vagy?''" ("How are you?") here becomes "''Hogy tetszik lenni?''" ("How do you like to be?"). The elderly, especially women, are generally addressed this way, even by adults. *''Te'' (''tegezés'', ''tegeződés'' or ''pertu'', per tu from
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the 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 the power of the ...
): Used generally, i.e. with persons with whom none of the above forms of politeness is required, and, in religious contexts, to address
God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
. The highest rank, the
king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
, was traditionally addressed "per tu" by all, peasants and noblemen alike, though with Hungary not having had any crowned king since 1918, this practice survives only in folk tales and children's stories. Use of "''tegezés''" in the media and advertisements has become more frequent since the early 1990s. It is informal and is normally used in families, among friends, colleagues, among young people, and by adults speaking to children; it can be compared to addressing somebody by their first name in English. Perhaps prompted by the widespread use of English (a language without
T–V distinction The T–V distinction is the contextual use of different pronouns that exists in some languages and serves to convey formality or familiarity. Its name comes from the Latin pronouns '' tu'' and '' vos''. The distinction takes a number of forms ...
in most contemporary dialects) on the Internet, "''tegezés''" is also becoming the standard way to address people over the Internet, regardless of politeness. The four-tiered system has somewhat been eroded due to the recent expansion of "''tegeződés''" and "''önözés''". Some anomalies emerged with the arrival of multinational companies who have addressed their customers in the ''te'' (least polite) form right from the beginning of their presence in Hungary. A typical example is the Swedish furniture shop IKEA, whose web site and other publications address the customers in ''te'' form. When a news site asked IKEA—using the ''te'' form—why they address their customers this way, IKEA's PR Manager explained in his answer—using the ''ön'' form—that their way of communication reflects IKEA's open-mindedness and the Swedish culture. However IKEA in France uses the polite (''vous'') form. Another example is the communication of Telenor (a mobile network operator) towards its customers. Telenor chose to communicate towards business customers in the polite ''ön'' form while all other customers are addressed in the less polite ''te'' form.


Vocabulary

During the first early phase of Hungarian
language reform Language reform is a kind of language planning by widespread change to a language. The typical methods of language reform are simplification and linguistic purism. Simplification regularises vocabulary, grammar, or spelling. Purism aligns the langu ...
s (late 18th and early 19th centuries) more than ten thousand words were coined, several thousand of which are still actively used today (see also Ferenc Kazinczy, the leading figure of the Hungarian language reforms.) Kazinczy's chief goal was to replace existing words of German and Latin origins with newly created Hungarian words. As a result, Kazinczy and his later followers (the reformers) significantly reduced the formerly high ratio of words of Latin and German origins in the Hungarian language, which were related to social sciences, natural sciences, politics and economics, institutional names, fashion etc. Giving an accurate estimate for the total word count is difficult, since it is hard to define a "word" in
agglutinating An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) tend to remai ...
languages, due to the existence of affixed words and compound words. To obtain a meaningful definition of compound words, it is necessary to exclude compounds whose meaning is the mere sum of its elements. The largest dictionaries giving translations from Hungarian to another language contain 120,000 words and phrases''A nyelv és a nyelvek'' ("Language and languages"), edited by István Kenesei. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2004, , p. 77. (but this may include redundant phrases as well, because of translation issues). The new desk lexicon of the Hungarian language contains 75,000 words, and the Comprehensive Dictionary of Hungarian Language (to be published in 18 volumes in the next twenty years) is planned to contain 110,000 words. The default Hungarian lexicon is usually estimated to comprise 60,000 to 100,000 words."Hungarian is not difficult"
(interview with Ádám Nádasdy).
(Independently of specific languages, speakers actively use at most 10,000 to 20,000 words,''A nyelv és a nyelvek'' ("Language and languages"), edited by István Kenesei. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2004, , p. 86. with an average intellectual using 25,000 to 30,000 words.) However, all the Hungarian
lexemes A lexeme () is a unit of lexical meaning that underlies a set of words that are related through inflection. It is a basic abstract unit of meaning, a unit of morphological analysis in linguistics that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken ...
collected from technical texts, dialects etc. would total up to 1,000,000 words.''A nyelv és a nyelvek'' ("Language and languages"), edited by István Kenesei. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2004, , pp. 76, 86. Parts of the lexicon can be organized using word-bushes (see an example on the right). The words in these bushes share a common root, are related through inflection, derivation and compounding, and are usually broadly related in meaning. The basic vocabulary shares several hundred word roots with other Uralic languages like
Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...
, Estonian,
Mansi Mansi may refer to: People * Mansi people, an indigenous people living in Tyumen Oblast, Russia ** Mansi language * Giovanni Domenico Mansi Gian (Giovanni) Domenico Mansi (16 February 1692 – 27 September 1769) was an Italian prelate, theolog ...
and
Khanty The Khanty ( Khanty: ханти, ''hanti''), also known in older literature as Ostyaks (russian: остяки) are a Ugric indigenous people, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as "Yugra" in Russia, togethe ...
. Examples are the verb ''él'' "live" (Finnish ''elää''), the numbers ''kettő'' (2), ''három'' (3), ''négy'' (4) (cf.
Mansi Mansi may refer to: People * Mansi people, an indigenous people living in Tyumen Oblast, Russia ** Mansi language * Giovanni Domenico Mansi Gian (Giovanni) Domenico Mansi (16 February 1692 – 27 September 1769) was an Italian prelate, theolog ...
китыг kitig, хурум khurum, нила ''nila'',
Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...
''kaksi, kolme, neljä'', Estonian ''kaks, kolm, neli''), as well as ''víz'' 'water', ''kéz'' 'hand', ''vér'' 'blood', ''fej'' 'head' (cf. Finnish and Estonian ''vesi, käsi, veri'', Finnish ''pää'', Estonian ''pea'' or ''pää''). Words for elementary kinship and nature are more Ugric, less
r-Turkic The Oghuric, Onoguric or Oguric languages (also known as Bulgar, Pre-Proto-Bulgaric or Lir-Turkic and r-Turkic) are a branch of the Turkic language family. The only extant member of the group is the Chuvash language. The first to branch off from ...
and less Slavic. Agricultural words are about 50% r-Turkic and 50% Slavic; pastoral terms are more r-Turkic, less Ugric and less Slavic. Finally, Christian and state terminology is more Slavic and less r-Turkic. The Slavic is most probably proto-Slovakian and/or -Slovenian. This is easily understood in the Uralic paradigm, proto-Magyars were first similar to Ob-Ugors, who were mainly hunters, fishers and gatherers, but with some horses too. Then they accultured to Bulgarian r-Turks, so the older layer of agriculture words (wine, beer,
wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
, barley etc.) are purely r-Turkic, and many terms of statesmanship and religion were, too. Except for a few Latin and Greek loanwords, 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 loanwords, especially in technical fields. Another source''The Structure and Development of the Finnish Language'', The Uralic and Altaic Series: 1960–1993 V.1-150, By Denis Sinor, John R. Krueger, Lauri Hakulinen, Gustav Bayerle, Translated by John R. Krueger, Compiled by Gustav Bayerle, Contributor Denis Sinor, Published by Routledge, 1997, , , 383 pages. p. 307. differs in that loanwords in Hungarian are held to constitute about 45% of bases in the language. Although the lexical fraction of native words in Hungarian is 55%, their use accounts for 88.4% of all words used (the fraction of loanwords used being just 11.6%). Therefore, the history of Hungarian has come, especially since the 19th century, to favor neologisms from original bases, whilst still having developed as many terms from neighboring languages in the lexicon.


Word formation

Words can be compounds or derived. Most derivation is with suffixes, but there is a small set of derivational prefixes as well.


Compounds

Compounds have been present in the language since the Proto-Uralic era. Numerous ancient compounds transformed to base words during the centuries. Today, compounds play an important role in vocabulary. A good example 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 Objective may refer to: * Objective (optics), an element in a camera or microscope * ''The Objective'', a 2008 science fiction horror film * Objective pronoun, a personal pronoun that is used as a grammatical object * Objective Productions, a Brit ...
,
determinative A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they may ...
, and adjunctive compounds as well. Some examples are given below: : Subjective: :: ''menny'' ( heaven) + ''dörgés'' (rumbling) → ''mennydörgés'' (thundering) :: ''Nap'' (Sun) + ''sütötte'' (lit by) → ''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 a compound of three or more words (not counting one-syllable verbal prefixes) is seven or more syllables long (not counting case suffixes), a hyphen must be inserted at the appropriate boundary to ease the determination of word boundaries for the reader. Other compound words are ''coordinatives'': there is no concrete relation between the prefix and the suffix. Subcategories include reduplication (to emphasise the meaning; ''olykor-olykor'' 'really occasionally'), twin words (where a base word and a distorted form of it makes up a compound: , where the suffix 'gaz' means 'weed' and the prefix 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, 'complex, obsolete procedures'). 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'' ind; standalone base+ (''gyógy'' edical+ ''intézet'' nstitute → ''elmegyógyintézet'' (
asylum Asylum may refer to: Types of asylum * Asylum (antiquity), places of refuge in ancient Greece and Rome * Benevolent Asylum, a 19th-century Australian institution for housing the destitute * Cities of Refuge, places of refuge in ancient Judea ...
) : (''hadi'' ilitarian+ ''fogoly'' risoner + (''munka''
ork Ork or ORK may refer to: * Ork (folklore), a mountain demon of Tyrol folklore * ''Ork'' (video game), a 1991 game for the Amiga and Atari ST systems * Ork (''Warhammer 40,000''), a fictional species in the ''Warhammer 40,000'' universe * ''Ork!'' ...
+ ''tábor'' amp → ''hadifogoly-munkatábor'' (work camp of prisoners of war)


Noteworthy lexical items


Points of the compass

Hungarian words for the points of the compass are directly derived from the position of the Sun during the day in the Northern Hemisphere. * North = észak (from "éj(szaka)", 'night'), as the Sun never shines from the north * South = dél ('noon'), as the Sun shines from the south at noon * East = kelet ('rising'), as the Sun rises in the east * West = nyugat ('setting'), as the Sun sets in the west


Two words for "red"

There are two basic words for "red" in Hungarian: "piros" and "vörös" (variant: "veres"; compare with Estonian "verev" or Finnish "punainen"). (They are basic in the sense that one is not a sub-type of the other, as the English "scarlet" is of "red".) The word "vörös" is related to "vér", meaning "blood" (Finnish and Estonian "veri"). When they refer to an actual difference in colour (as on a colour chart), "vörös" usually refers to the deeper (darker and/or more red and less orange) hue of red. In English similar differences exist between "scarlet" and "red". While many languages have multiple names for this colour, often Hungarian scholars assume that this is unique in recognizing two shades of red as separate and distinct " folk colours".Berlin, B. and Kay, P. (1969). ''Basic Color Terms''. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. However, the two words are also used independently of the above in collocations. "Piros" is learned by children first, as it is generally used to describe inanimate, artificial things, or things seen as cheerful or neutral, while "vörös" typically refers to animate or natural 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 does not 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, red traffic lights, the red line of
Budapest Metro The Budapest Metro ( hu, Budapesti metró) is the rapid transit system in the Hungarian capital Budapest. It is the world's oldest electrified underground railway system, and the second oldest underground railway system with multiple stations, ...
, red (now called express) bus lines in Budapest, a holiday shown in red in the calendar, ruddy complexion, the red nose of a clown, some red flowers (those of a neutral nature, e.g.
tulip Tulips (''Tulipa'') are a genus of spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes (having bulbs as storage organs). The flowers are usually large, showy and brightly coloured, generally red, pink, yellow, or white (usually in warm ...
s), red peppers and paprika, red card suits (hearts and diamonds), red stripes on a flag (but the red flag and its variants translate to "vörös"), etc. * Expressions where "red" typically translates to "vörös": a red railway signal (unlike traffic lights, see above),
Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...
,
Red Square Red Square ( rus, Красная площадь, Krasnaya ploshchad', ˈkrasnəjə ˈploɕːətʲ) is one of the oldest and largest squares in Moscow, the capital of Russia. Owing to its historical significance and the adjacent historical build ...
, Red Army,
Red Baron Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...
, Erik the Red, red wine, red carpet (for receiving important guests), red hair or beard, red lion (the mythical animal), the Red Cross, the novel ''
The Red and the Black ''Le Rouge et le Noir'' (; meaning ''The Red and the Black'') is a historical psychological novel in two volumes by Stendhal, published in 1830. It chronicles the attempts of a provincial young man to rise socially beyond his modest upbringing ...
'', redshift, red giant,
red blood cell Red blood cells (RBCs), also referred to as red cells, red blood corpuscles (in humans or other animals not having nucleus in red blood cells), haematids, erythroid cells or erythrocytes (from Greek ''erythros'' for "red" and ''kytos'' for "holl ...
s,
red oak The genus ''Quercus'' contains about 500 species, some of which are listed here. The genus, as is the case with many large genera, is divided into subgenera and sections. Traditionally, the genus ''Quercus'' was divided into the two subgenera ''C ...
, some red flowers (those with passionate connotations, e.g. roses), red fox, names of ferric and other red minerals, red copper, rust, red phosphorus, the colour of blushing with anger or shame, the red nose of an alcoholic (in contrast with that of a clown, see above), the red posterior of a
baboon Baboons are primates comprising the genus ''Papio'', one of the 23 genera of Old World monkeys. There are six species of baboon: the hamadryas baboon, the Guinea baboon, the olive baboon, the yellow baboon, the Kinda baboon and the chacma ...
, red meat, regular onion (not the red onion, which is "lila"), litmus paper (in acid), cities, countries, or other political entities associated with leftist movements (e.g. Red Vienna, Red Russia), etc.


Kinship terms

The Hungarian words for brothers and sisters are differentiated based upon relative age. There is also a general word for "sibling": ''testvér'', from ''test'' "body" and ''vér'' "blood"; i.e., originating from the same body and blood. (There used to be a separate word for "elder sister", ''néne'', but it has become obsolete xcept to mean "aunt" in some dialectsand has been replaced by the generic word for "sister".) In addition, there are separate prefixes for several ancestors and descendants: The words for "boy" and "girl" are applied with possessive suffixes. Nevertheless, the terms are differentiated with different declension or lexemes: ''Fia'' is only used in this, irregular possessive form; it has no nominative on its own (see inalienable possession). However, the word ''fiú'' can also take the regular suffix, in which case the resulting word ''(fiúja)'' will refer to a lover or partner (boyfriend), rather than a male offspring. 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:


Extremely long words

* ''megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért'' : Partition to root and suffixes with explanations: : Translation: "for your luralrepeated pretending to be indesecrable" The above word is often considered to be the longest word in Hungarian, although there are longer words like: * ''legeslegmegszentségteleníttethetetlenebbjeitekként'' : ''leges-leg-meg-''szent''-ség-telen-ít-tet-het-etlen-ebb-je-i-tek-ként'' : "like those of you that are the very least possible to get desecrated" Words of such length are not used in practice and are difficult to understand even for natives. They were invented to show, in a somewhat facetious way, the ability of the language to form long words (see
agglutinative language An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) tend to r ...
). They are not compound words but are formed by adding a series of one- and two-syllable suffixes (and a few prefixes) to a simple root ("szent", saint or holy). There is virtually no limit for the length of words, but when too many suffixes are added, the meaning of the word becomes less clear, and the word becomes hard to understand and will work like a riddle even for native speakers.


Hungarian words in English

The English word best known as being of Hungarian origin is probably '' paprika'', from Serbo-Croatian ''papar'' "pepper" and the Hungarian diminutive ''-ka''. The most common, however, is '' coach'', from ''kocsi'', originally ''kocsi szekér'' "car from/in the style of
Kocs Kocs () is a village in Komárom-Esztergom county, Hungary. It lies west of Tata and north-west of Budapest. A site of horse-drawn vehicle manufacture from the 1400s, the name is the source of the word ''coach'' and its equivalent in other lang ...
". Others are: *
shako A shako (, , or ) is a tall, cylindrical military cap, usually with a visor, and sometimes tapered at the top. It is usually adorned with an ornamental plate or badge on the front, metallic or otherwise; and often has a feather, plume (see hackle) ...
, from ''csákó'', from ''csákósüveg'' "peaked cap" *
sabre A sabre ( French: �sabʁ or saber in American English) is a type of backsword with a curved blade associated with the light cavalry of the early modern and Napoleonic periods. Originally associated with Central European cavalry such as th ...
, from ''szablya'' * heyduck, from ''hajdúk'', plural of ''hajdú'' "brigand" * tolpatch, from ''talpas'' "foot-soldier", apparently derived from ''talp'' " sole".


Writing system

The Hungarian language was originally written in right-to-left Old Hungarian runes, superficially similar in appearance to the better-known
futhark Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialis ...
runes but unrelated. After
Stephen I of Hungary Stephen I, also known as King Saint Stephen ( hu, Szent István király ; la, Sanctus Stephanus; sk, Štefan I. or Štefan Veľký; 975 – 15 August 1038), was the last Grand Prince of the Hungarians between 997 and 1000 or 1001, and the ...
established the Kingdom of Hungary in the year 1000, the old system was gradually discarded in favour of the Latin alphabet and left-to-right order. Although now not used at all in everyday life, the old script is still known and practised by some enthusiasts. Modern Hungarian is written using an expanded
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
and has a
phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...
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 vowels. Sometimes (usually as a result of a technical glitch on a computer) or is used for , and for . 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 and .)
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
includes them, and so they can be used on the Internet. Additionally, the letter pairs , , and represent the palatal consonants , , and (roughly analogous to the "d+y" sounds in British "''du''ke" or American "woul''d y''ou")—produced using a similar mechanism as the letter "d" when pronounced with the tongue pointing to the
palate The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
. Hungarian uses for and for , which is the reverse of Polish usage. The letter is and is . These digraphs are considered single letters in the alphabet. The letter is also a "single letter digraph", but is pronounced like (English ) and appears mostly in old words. The letters and 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"). Sometimes additional information is required for partitioning words with digraphs: házszám ("street number") = ''ház'' ("house") + ''szám'' ("number"), not an unintelligible ''házs'' + ''zám''. 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: + = , 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: + = ("engagement/wedding ring", means "sign", "mark". The term means "to be engaged"; means "ring"). Usually a trigraph is a double digraph, but there are a few exceptions: ("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 (except for etymological spellings and "ly, j" representing ).


Word order

The word order is basically from general to specific. This is a typical analytical approach and is used generally in Hungarian.


Name order

The Hungarian language uses the so-called eastern
name order A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is known, ...
, in which the surname (general, deriving from the family) comes first and the
given name A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a ...
comes last. If a second given name is used, this follows the first given name.


Hungarian names in foreign languages

For clarity, in foreign languages Hungarian names are usually represented in the western name order. Sometimes, however, especially in the neighbouring countries of Hungary – where there is a significant Hungarian population – the Hungarian name order is retained, as it causes less confusion there. For an example of foreign use, the birth name of the Hungarian-born physicist called the "father of the hydrogen bomb" was ''Teller Ede'', but he immigrated to the United States in the 1930s and thus became known as ''
Edward Teller Edward Teller ( hu, Teller Ede; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" (see the Teller–Ulam design), although he did not care for ...
''. Prior to the mid-20th 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 Hungarian ''Schiff András''). If a second given name is present, it becomes a middle name and is usually written out in full, rather than truncated to an initial.


Foreign names in Hungarian

In modern usage, foreign names retain their order when used in Hungarian. Therefore: *Amikor ''Kiss János'' Los Angelesben volt, látta ''John Travoltát.'' (means: When János Kiss was in
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
he saw John Travolta.) :The Hungarian name ''Kiss János'' is in the Hungarian name order (''János'' is equivalent to ''John''), but the foreign name ''John Travolta'' remains in the western name order. Before the 20th century, not only was it common to reverse the order of foreign personalities, they were also "Hungarianised": ''Goethe János Farkas'' (originally Johann Wolfgang Goethe). This usage sounds odd today, when only a few well-known personalities are referred to using their Hungarianised names, including ''Verne Gyula'' ( Jules Verne), ''Marx Károly'' (
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
), ''Kolumbusz Kristóf'' ( Christopher Columbus; note that the last of these is also translated in English from the original Italian or possibly Ligurian). Some native speakers disapprove of this usage; the names of certain historical religious personalities (including popes), however, are always Hungarianised by practically all speakers, such as ''Luther Márton'' ( Martin Luther), ''Husz János'' (
Jan Hus Jan Hus (; ; 1370 – 6 July 1415), sometimes anglicized as John Hus or John Huss, and referred to in historical texts as ''Iohannes Hus'' or ''Johannes Huss'', was a Czech theologian and philosopher who became a Church reformer and the insp ...
), ''Kálvin János'' ( John Calvin); just like the names of monarchs, for example the king of Spain, Juan Carlos I is referred to as ''I. János Károly'' or the late queen of the UK,
Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...
would be referred to as ''II. Erzsébet''.
Japanese names in modern times consist of a family name (surname) followed by a given name, in that order. Nevertheless, when a Japanese name is written in the Roman alphabet, ever since the Meiji era, the official policy has been to cater to Western expecta ...
, which are usually written in western order in the rest of Europe, retain their original order in Hungarian, e. g. ''Kuroszava Akira'' instead of
Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed thirty films in a career spanning over five decades. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dyna ...
.


Date and time

The Hungarian convention for date and time is to go from the generic to the specific: 1. year, 2. month, 3. day, 4. hour, 5. minute, (6. second) The year and day are always written in Arabic numerals, followed by a full stop. The month can be written by its full name or can be abbreviated, or even denoted by Roman or Arabic numerals. Except for the first case (month written by its full name), the month is followed by a full stop. Usually, when the month is written in letters, there is no leading zero before the day. On the other hand, when the month is written in Arabic numerals, a leading zero is common, but not obligatory. Except at the beginning of a sentence, the name of the month always begins with a lower-case letter. Hours, minutes, and seconds are separated by a colon (H:m:s). Fractions of a second are separated by a full stop from the rest of the time. Hungary generally uses the 24-hour clock format, but in verbal (and written) communication
12-hour clock The 12-hour clock is a time convention in which the 24 hours of the day are divided into two periods: a.m. (from Latin , translating to "before midday") and p.m. (from Latin , translating to "after midday"). For different opinions on represen ...
format can also be used. See below for usage examples. Date and time may be separated by a comma or simply written one after the other. *2020. február 9. 16:23:42 ''or'' 2020. február 9., 16:23:42 *2020. febr. 9. *2020. 02. 09. ''or'' 2020. 2. 9. (rarely) *2020. II. 9. Date separated by hyphen is also spreading, especially on datestamps. Here – just like the version separated by full stops – leading zeros are in use. *2020-02-09 When only hours and minutes are written in a sentence (so not only "displaying" time), these parts can be separated by a full stop (e.g. "Találkozzunk 10.35-kor." – "Let's meet at 10.35."), or it is also regular to write hours in normal size, and minutes put in superscript (and not necessarily) underlined (e.g. "A találkozó 1035-kor kezdődik." ''or'' "A találkozó 1035-kor kezdődik." – "The meeting begins at 10.35."). Also, in verbal and written communication it is common to use "délelőtt" (literally "before noon") and "délután" (lit. "after noon") abbreviated as "de." and "du." respectively. Délelőtt and délután is said or written before the time, e.g. "Délután 4 óra van." – "It's 4 p.m.". However e.g. "délelőtt 5 óra" (should mean "5 a.m.") or "délután 10 óra" (should mean "10 p.m.") are never used, because at these times the sun is not up, instead "hajnal" ("dawn"), "reggel" ("morning"), "este" ("evening") and "éjjel" ("night") is used, however there are no exact rules for the use of these, as everybody uses them according to their habits (e.g. somebody may have woken up at 5 a.m. so he/she says "Reggel 6-kor ettem." – "I had food at ''*morning'' 6.", and somebody woke up at 11 a.m. so he/she says "Hajnali 6-kor még aludtam." – "I was still sleeping at ''*dawn'' 6."). Roughly, these expressions mean these times: * * "Dél" and "éjfél" mean these exact times, so using time after them is incorrect. So there is no "Éjfél 0-kor még buliztunk" ("We were still partying at ''*midnight 0''.") or "Dél 12-kor süt a nap." ("The sun shines at ''*noon 12''."). Instead "Éjfélkor még buliztunk." and "Délben süt a nap." is correct. (More confusingly, one can say "Déli 12-kor süt a nap.", meaning "The sun shines at 12 of noon.", i.e. "The sun shines at 12, which is the 12 of daytime.") "Délen süt a nap" on the other hand means "The sun shines in the south", as Dél means both noon and south.


Addresses

Although address formatting is increasingly being influenced by standard European conventions, the traditional Hungarian style is: 1052 Budapest, Deák Ferenc tér 1. So the order is: 1) postcode 2) settlement (most general), 3) street/square/etc. (more specific), 4) house number (most specific). The house number may be followed by the storey and door numbers. Addresses on envelopes and postal parcels should be formatted and placed on the right side as follows: Name of the recipient
Settlement
Street address (up to door number if necessary)
(HU-)postcode The HU- part before the postcode is only for incoming postal traffic from foreign countries.


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.''


Example text

Article 1 of the '' Universal Declaration of Human Rights'' in Hungarian: :''Minden emberi lény szabadon születik és egyenlő méltósága és joga van. Az emberek, ésszel és lelkiismerettel bírván, egymással szemben testvéri szellemben kell hogy viseltessenek.'' Article 1 of the ''Universal Declaration of Human Rights'' in English: :''All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.''


Numbers

Source: Wiktionary


Time

Source: Wiktionary Source:''Wiktionary''


Conversation

*Hungarian (person, language): ''magyar'' *Hello!: **Formal, when addressing a stranger: "Good day!": ''Jó napot (kívánok)!'' **Informal, when addressing a close acquaintance: ''Szia!'' Szia is a version of the Latin origin loanword Servus. *Good-bye!: ''Viszontlátásra!'' (formal) (see above), ''Viszlát!'' (semi-informal), ''Szia!'' (informal: same stylistic remark as for "See you" or "Hello!" ) *Excuse me: ''Elnézést!'' *Please: **''Kérem (szépen)'' (This literally means "I'm asking (it/you) ''nicely''", as in German ''Bitte schön''. 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; it literally means "I would like".) *Sorry!: ''Bocsánat!'' *Thank you: ''Köszönöm'' *that/this: ''az'' , ''ez'' *How much?: ''Mennyi?'' *How much does it cost?: ''Mennyibe kerül?'' *Yes: ''Igen'' *No: ''Nem'' *I do not understand: ''Nem értem'' *I do not know: ''Nem tudom'' *Where's the toilet?: **''Hol (van) a vécé?'' (vécé/veːtseː is the Hungarian pronunciation 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?: 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!'' *It is needed: ''kell'' *I need to go: ''Mennem kell''


Recorded examples

WIKITONGUES-_Orsolya_speaking_Hungarian.webm, A Hungarian speaker WIKITONGUES-_Norbert_speaking_Hungarian.webm, A Hungarian speaker recorded in Taiwan WIKITONGUES-_M%C3%A1ria_speaking_Swabian_and_Hungarian.webm, A bilingual speaker of Hungarian and Swabian, recorded in Perbál, Hungary WIKITONGUES- Gabriel speaking Hungarian.webm, A native Icelandic speaker speaking Hungarian


See also

* Hungarian grammar * Hungarian verbs * Hungarian noun phrase *
Hungarian phonology The phonology of the Hungarian language is notable for its process of vowel harmony, the frequent occurrence of geminate consonants and the presence of otherwise uncommon palatal stops. Consonants This is the standard Hungarian consonanta ...
* History of the Hungarian language * Regular sound correspondences between Hungarian and other Uralic languages *
Hungarian dialects Hungarian has ten dialects. These are fully mutually intelligible, and do not differ significantly from standard Hungarian except for the Csángó dialect. They are mostly distinguished by pronunciation; although there are differences in vocab ...
* Hungarian Cultural Institute *
List of English words of Hungarian origin This is a partial list of known or supposed Hungarian loanwords in English: ; biro : From ''László Bíró'', the Hungarian inventor of the ballpoint pen. Bíró originally means judge. ; coach : From ''kocsi'', a horse‐drawn wagon with spri ...
* BABEL Speech Corpus *'' Magyar szótár'' (Dictionary of the Hungarian Language) * Szabadkai Friss Újság (1901), Hungarian language daily newspaper


Bibliography


Courses

* ''MagyarOK – Text book and exercise book for beginners''. Szita, Szilvia; Pelcz, Katalin (2013). Pécs; Pécsi Tudományegyetem
MagyarOK website
. *''Colloquial Hungarian – The complete course for beginners''. Rounds, Carol H.; Sólyom, Erika (2002). London; New York: Routledge. . :This book gives an introduction to the Hungarian language in 15 chapters. The dialogues are available on CDs. *''Teach Yourself Hungarian – A complete course for beginners''. Pontifex, Zsuzsa (1993). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing. . :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
*''Hungarolingua 2 – Magyar nyelvkönyv''. Hlavacska, Edit; et al. (2001)
Debreceni Nyári Egyetem
*''Hungarolingua 3 – Magyar nyelvkönyv''. Hlavacska, Edit; et al. (1999).
Debreceni Nyári Egyetem
: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 and therefore unsuitable for self study. There is an accompanying 'dictionary' with translations of the Hungarian vocabulary into English, German, and French for the words used in the first two books. *"NTC's Hungarian and English Dictionary" by Magay and Kiss. (You may be able to find a newer edition also. This one is 1996.)


Grammars

* ''Gyakorló magyar nyelvtan / A Practical Hungarian grammar'' (2009, 2010). Szita Szilvia, Görbe Tamás. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. 978 963 05 8703 7. * ''A practical Hungarian grammar'' (3rd, rev. ed.). Keresztes, László (1999). Debrecen: Debreceni Nyári Egyetem. . *'' Simplified Grammar of the Hungarian Language'' (1882). Ignatius Singer. London: Trübner & Co. *''Practical Hungarian grammar: compact guide to the basics of Hungarian grammar'. Törkenczy, Miklós (2002). Budapest: Corvina. . *''Hungarian verbs and essentials of grammar: a practical guide to the mastery of Hungarian'' (2nd ed.). Törkenczy, Miklós (1999). Budapest: Corvina; Lincolnwood, ll. Passport Books. . *''Hungarian: an essential grammar'' (2nd ed.). Rounds, Carol (2009). London; New York: Routledge. . *''Hungarian: Descriptive grammar''. Kenesei, István, Robert M. Vago, and Anna Fenyvesi (1998). London; New York: Routledge. .
Hungarian Language Learning References
(including the short reviews of three of the above books) *''Noun Declension Tables – HUNGARIAN''. Budapest
PonsKlett
*''Verb Conjugation Tables – HUNGARIAN''. Budapest
PonsKlett


Others

* Abondolo, Daniel Mario: ''Hungarian Inflectional Morphology''. Akadémiai publishing. Budapest, 1988. * Balázs, Géza: ''The Story of Hungarian. A Guide to the Language.'' Translated by Thomas J. DeKornfeld. Corvina publishing. Budapest, 1997. * Stephanides, Éva H. (ed.): ''Contrasting English with Hungarian''. Akadémiai publishing. Budapest, 1986. *


Notes


References


External links


Free downloadable Hungarian teaching and learning material

Introduction to Hungarian

Hungarian Profile


* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20060805202844/http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/hungarian/index.html Hungarian Language Reviewat How-to-learn-any-language.com
"The Hungarian Language: A Short Descriptive Grammar"
by Beáta Megyesi (PDF document)

* ttp://www.rpi.edu/~sofkam/magyar.html Hungarian Language Learning Referenceson the Hungarian Language Page (short reviews of useful books)
One of the oldest Hungarian texts – A Halotti Beszéd (The Funeral Oration)

WikiLang
nbsp;– Hungarian Page (Hungarian grammar / lessons, in English)
Hungarian Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words
(from Wiktionary'
Swadesh-list appendix

Basic Hungarian language course (book + audio files)
USA Foreign Service Institute (FSI)
Old Hungarian Corpus


''Encyclopaedia Humana Hungarica''



* ttp://mek.oszk.hu/01900/01955/html/index2.html 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





Dictionaries


Hungarian ↔ English
created by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences – Computer and Automation Research Institutebr>MTA SZTAKI
(also includes dictionaries for the following languages to and from Hungarian : German, French, Italian, Dutch, and Polish)
bab.la
- Online Hungarian-English dictionary and language learning portal
English-Hungarian-Finnish
nbsp;– three-language freely editable online dictionary
Collection of Hungarian Technical DictionariesHungarian bilingual dictionaries

Hungarian-English dictionary

English-Hungarian dictionary

Hungarian Verb Conjugation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hungarian Language Agglutinative languages Languages of Austria Languages of Croatia Languages of Hungary Languages of Moldova Languages of Romania Languages of Slovakia Languages of Slovenia Languages of Serbia Languages of Vojvodina Vowel-harmony languages Subject–object–verb languages Languages of Ukraine