Hungarian language

Hungarian

magyar

Pronunciation [ˈmɒɟɒr]

Spoken in

Hungary and areas of
Romania
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Ukraine
Croatia
Austria
Israel

USA

Native speakers 12.5 million (2001)

Language family

Uralic

Ugric
- Hungarian

Writing system Latin (Hungarian alphabet)

Official status

Official language in Hungary, European Union, Slovakia (regional language), Slovenia (regional language), Serbia (regional language), Austria (regional language), some official rights in Romania, Ukraine and Croatia

Regulated by Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Language codes

ISO 639-1 hu

ISO 639-2 hun

ISO 639-3 hun

Regions of the Carpathian Basin where the Hungarian language is spoken

This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Hungarian language
Closeup view of a Hungarian keyboard
Alphabet
ő ű cs · dz · dzs · gy ly · ny · sz · ty · zs
Grammar
Noun phrases · Verbs T-V distinction
History
Sound correspondences with other Uralic languages
Other features
Phonetics and phonology Vowel harmony Orthography (Old Hungarian script) Hungarian names Tongue-twisters
Hungarian and English
Hungarian pronunciation of English English words from Hungarian
Regulatory body
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Hungarian (magyar nyelv listen (help·info)) is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe.

It is the official language in the Central European country of Hungary and is also spoken by Hungarian communities in the seven neighboring countries and by diaspora communities worldwide. There are about 14 million native speakers, of whom 9.5–10 million live in present-day Hungary. About 2.5 million speakers live outside present-day Hungary, but in 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, where there are approximately 1.4 million Hungarians. There are large Hungarian communities also in Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine, but Hungarian speakers can also be found in Croatia, Austria, and Slovenia, 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 community in the United States.

The Hungarian name for the language is magyar [ˈmɒɟɒr], which is also occasionally used as an English word to refer to the Hungarian people as an ethnic group.

History

Main article: History of the Hungarian language

Classification

Hungarian is a Uralic language, more specifically an Ugric language; the most closely related languages are Mansi and Khanty of western Siberia. Connections between the Ugric and many other languages were noticed in the 1670s and established, along with the entire Uralic family in 1717, although the classification of Hungarian continued to be a matter of political controversy into the 18th and even 19th centuries. The name of Hungary could be a result of regular sound changes of Ungrian/Ugrian, and the fact that the Eastern Slavs referred to them as Ǫgry/Ǫgrove (sg. Ǫgrinŭ) seemed to confirm that.^[1] As to the source of this ethnonym in the Slavic languages, current literature favors the hypothesis that it comes from the name of the Turkic tribe Onogur (which means "ten arrows" or "ten tribes").^[2]^[3]^[4]

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

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

Prehistory

The Old Hungarian script, the so-called "Rovás alphabet" The country switched to using the Latin language and alphabet under king Stephen I of Hungary (reigned: 997-1038), and as late as 1844, Latin remained the official language of Hungary

It is thought that Hungarian separated from its closest relatives approximately 3000 years ago, probably in the vicinity of the Urals,^[5] so the history of the language begins around 1000 BC. The Hungarians gradually changed their way of living from settled hunters to nomadic cattle-raising, probably as a result of early contacts with Iranian nomads. Their most important animals included sheep and cattle. There are no written resources on the era, thus only a little is known about it. However, research has revealed some extremely early loanwords, such as szó ('word'; from the Turkic languages) and daru ('crane', from the related Permic languages.)

A small number of anthropologists dispute this theory. Among others, Hungarian historian and archaeologist, Gyula László claims that geological data from pollen analysis seems to contradict placing the ancient homeland of the Magyars near the Urals.^[6]

The Turkic languages later had a great influence on the language, especially between the 5th and the 9th centuries. Many words related to agriculture,^[7] to state administration or even to family relations have such backgrounds. Hungarian syntax and grammar were not influenced in a similarly dramatic way during these 300 years.

The Funeral Sermon and Prayer

The Hungarians migrated to the Carpathian Basin around 896 and came into contact with Slavic peoples – as well as with the Romance speaking Vlachs, borrowing many words from them (for example tégla – "brick", mák – "poppy", or karácsony – "Christmas"). In exchange, the neighbouring Slavic languages also contain some words of Hungarian origin (such as Serbian ašov – "spade"). 1.43% of the Romanian vocabulary is of Hungarian origin.^[8]

Old Hungarian

The first written accounts of Hungarian, mostly personal and place names, are dated back to the 10th century. Hungarians also had their own writing system, the Old Hungarian script, but no significant texts remain from that time, as the usual medium of writing, wooden sticks, is perishable.

The Kingdom of Hungary was founded in 1000, by Stephen I of Hungary. The country was a western-styled Christian (Roman Catholic) state, and Latin held an important position, as was usual in the Middle Ages. Additionally, the Latin alphabet was adopted to write the Hungarian language.

Therefore, Hungarian was also heavily influenced by Latin. The first extant text of the language is the Funeral Sermon and Prayer, written once in the 1190s. More extensive Hungarian literature arose after 1300. The earliest example of Hungarian religious poetry is the Old Hungarian 'Lamentations of Mary', a poem about the afflictions of Mary when she saw the death of her son – from the 14th century. The first Bible translation is the Hussite Bible from the 1430s.

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

Modern Hungarian

The first printed Hungarian book was published in Kraków in 1533, by Benedek Komjáti. The work's title is Az Szent Pál levelei magyar nyelven (In original spelling: Az zenth Paal leueley magyar nyeluen), i.e. The letters of Saint Paul in the Hungarian language. In the 17th century, the language was already very similar to its present-day form, although two of the past tenses were still used. German, Italian and French loans also appeared in the language by these years. Further Turkish words were borrowed during the Ottoman occupation of much of Hungary between 1541 and 1699.

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

The 19th and 20th centuries saw further standardization of the language, and differences between the mutually already comprehensible dialects gradually lessened. In 1920, by signing the Treaty of Trianon, Hungary lost 71% of its territories, and along with these, 33% of the ethnic Hungarian population. Today, the language is official in Hungary, and regionally also in Romania, in Slovakia, and in Serbia.

Geographic distribution

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

Areas of Transylvania where Hungarian has co-official status (in the localities of those areas, at least 20% of the population speaks Hungarian).

Hungarian is spoken in the following countries as a native language:

Country	Speakers
Hungary	10,177,223 (2001 census)
Romania (mainly Transylvania)	1,443,970 (census 2002)
Slovakia	520,528 (census 2001)
Serbia (mainly Vojvodina)	293,299 (census 2002)
Ukraine (mainly Zakarpattia)	149,400 (census 2001)
United States	117,973 (census 2000)
Canada	75,555 (census 2001)
Israel	70,000
Austria (mainly Burgenland)	22,000
Croatia	16,500
Slovenia (mainly Prekmurje)	9,240
Total	12-13 million (in Carpathian Basin)

Source: National censuses, Ethnologue

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

Official status

Official usage of Hungarian language in Vojvodina, Serbia

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

Dialects

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

Phonology

Hungarian vowels

Main article: Hungarian phonology

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

Consonant phonemes of Hungarian^[9]
	Bilabial	Labio- dental	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		n		ɲ
Plosive	p b		t d			k ɡ
Affricate			t͡s d͡z	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	c͡ç ɟ͡ʝ
Fricative		f v	s z	ʃ ʒ			h
Trill			r
Approximant					j
Lateral			l

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

The sound voiced palatal plosive /ɟ/, written <gy>, sounds similar to 'd' in British English 'duty' (in fact, more similar to 'd' in French 'dieu', or to the Macedonian phoneme 'ѓ' as in 'ѓакон'). It occurs in the name of the country, "Magyarország" (Hungary), pronounced /ˈmɒɟɒrorsaːɡ/.

Primary stress is always on the first syllable of a word, as with its cousin Finnish and neighboring languages, Slovak (Standard dialect) and Czech. There is sometimes secondary stress on other syllables, especially in compounds, e.g. viszontlátásra ("goodbye") pronounced /ˈvisontˌlaːtaːʃrɒ/. Elongated vowels in non-initial syllables can also seem to be stressed to the ear of an English speaker, since length and stress correlate in English.

Front-back vowel harmony is an important feature of Hungarian phonology.

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

Grammar and syntax

Main article: Hungarian grammar

János lát. ‘John can see.’ (indefinite: he has the ability of vision)	János lát egy almát. ‘John sees an apple.’ (indefinite: it does not matter which apple)	János látja az almát. ‘John sees the apple.’ (definite: John sees the specific apple that was talked about earlier)

János lát egy almát. ‘John sees an apple.’ (when it is important to stress that it's John, not someone else, who sees an apple; or when no special stress is required)	János egy almát lát. (or even Egy almát lát János) ‘John an apple sees.’ (when it is important that it's an apple John sees, and not something else. The same emphasis could be translated as 'What John sees is an apple.')

Politeness

Main article: T-V distinction#Hungarian

Hungarian has a four-tiered system for expressing levels of politeness.

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 speaker wishes to distance himself/herself from the person he/she addresses. 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 way of politeness is grammatically the same as "önözés" or "magázódás", but adds a certain phrase, an additional verb "tetszik" ("like") to support the main verb of the sentence. For example children are supposed to address adults who are not close friends by using "tetszik" ("you like") as a sort of an auxiliary verb with all other verbs. "Hogy vagy?" ("How are you?") here becomes "Hogy tetszik lenni?" ("How do you like to be?"). The elderly are generally addressed this way, even by adults. When using this way of speaking, one will not use normal greetings, but can only say "(kezét) csókolom" ("I kiss (your hand)"). This way of speaking is perceived as somewhat awkward in certain situations and sometimes creates impossible grammatical structures, but is still widely in use. In such cases the smooth solution is usually using the simple "önözés" formula without "tetszik". Another problem created by this form is that when children grow up into their 20s or 30s, they are not sure of how to address family friends that are their parents' age, but whom they have known since they were young. "Tetszik" would make these people feel too old, but "tegeződés" seems too familiar. There are two ways to avoid this dilemma: one is to use the "tegeződés" in grammatical structures, but show the respect in the title: "John bácsi, hogy vagy?", and the other is using "önözés" to show respect in grammatical structures, while marking the person in a friendly, closer way with the title "bátyám" ("brother").
Te (tegezés, tegeződés or pertu, per tu from Latin): Used generally, i.e. with persons with whom none of the above forms of politeness is required. Interestingly, the highest rank, the king was traditionally addressed "per tu" by all, peasants and noblemen alike, though with Hungary not having 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, adults speaking to children; 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) 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".

Lexicon

Examples with ad
Hungarian	English
Derived terms
ad	to give
adás	transmission
adó	tax or transmitter
adózik	to pay tax
adózó	taxpayer
adós	debtor
adósság	debt
adat	data
adakozik	to give (practise charity)
adalék	additive (ingredient)
adag	dose, portion
adomány	donation
adoma	anecdote
With verbal prefixes
átad	to hand over
bead	to hand in
elad	to sell
felad	to give up, to mail
hozzáad	to augment, to add to
kiad	to rent out, to publish, to extradite
lead	to lose weight, to deposit (an object)
megad	to repay (debt), to call (poker), to grant (permission)
összead	to add (to do mathematical addition)

Giving an accurate estimate for the total word count is difficult, since it is hard to define what to call "a word" in agglutinating languages, due to the existence of affixed words and compound words. To have a meaningful definition of compound words, we have to exclude such compounds whose meaning is the mere sum of its elements. The largest dictionaries from Hungarian to another language contain 120,000 words and phrases^[10] (but this may include redundant phrases as well, because of translation issues). The new desk lexicon of the Hungarian language contains 75,000 words^[10] and the Comprehensive Dictionary of Hungarian Language (to be published in 18 volumes in the next twenty years) will contain 110,000 words.^[11] The default Hungarian lexicon is usually estimated to comprise 60,000 to 100,000 words.^[12] (Independently of specific languages, speakers actively use at most 10,000 to 20,000 words,^[13] with an average intellectual using 25-30 thousand words.^[12]) However, all the Hungarian lexemes collected from technical texts, dialects etc. would all together add up to 1,000,000 words.^[14]

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

The basic vocabulary shares a couple of hundred word roots with other Uralic languages like Finnish, Estonian, Mansi and Khanty. Examples of such include the verb él 'live' (Finnish elää^[15]), the numbers kettő 'two', három 'three', négy 'four' (cf. Mansi китыг kitig, хурум khurum, нила nila, Finnish kaksi, kolme, neljä,^[15] Estonian kaks, kolm, neli, ), as well as víz 'water', kéz 'hand', vér 'blood', fej 'head' (cf. Finnish^[15] and Estonian vesi, käsi, veri, Finnish pää,^[15] Estonian pea or 'pää).

Origin of word roots in Hungarian^[16]

Uncertain			30%
Finno-Ugric			21%
Slavic			20%
German			11%
Turkic			9.5%
Latin and Greek			6%
Romance			2.5%
Other known			1%

Except for a few Latin and Greek loan-words, these differences are unnoticed even by native speakers; the words have been entirely adopted into the Hungarian lexicon. There are an increasing number of English loan-words, especially in technical fields.

Another source ^[17] differs in that loanwords in Hungarian are held to constitute about 45% of bases in the language. Although the lexical percentage of native words in Hungarian is 55%, their use accounts for 88.4% of all words used (the percentage 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)^[18]

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

Subjective:

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

nap (Sun) + sütötte (baked 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 the length of 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 word duplications (to emphasise the meaning; olykor-olykor 'really occasionally'), twin words (where a base word and a distorted form of it makes up a compound: gizgaz, where the suffix 'gaz' means 'weed' and the prefix giz is the distorted form; the compound itself means 'inconsiderable weed'), and such compounds which have meanings, but neither their prefixes, nor their suffixes make sense (for example, hercehurca 'long-lasting, frusteredly done deed').

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

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

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

Noteworthy lexical items

Points of the compass

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 ('rise'), as the Sun rises in the East
West = nyugat ('set'), 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 "veri"). When they refer to an actual difference in color (as on a color 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 color, often Hungarian scholars assume this is unique in recognizing two shades of red as separate and distinct "folk colours."^[19]

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, 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. tulips), red peppers and paprika, red card suits (hearts and diamonds), red stripes on a flag, etc.
Expressions where "red" typically translates to "vörös": Red Sea, Red Square, Red Army, Red Baron, 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, redshift, red giant, red blood cells, red oak, 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, red meat, 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.

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

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

In addition, there are separate prefixes for up to the eleventh ancestors and tenth descendants (although there are ambiguities and dialectical differences affecting the prefixes for the fourth (and above) ancestors): Apa (father) -> Nagyapa (grandfather) -> Dédapa (great-grandfather) -> Dédnagyapa (great-great-grandfather) Ükapa (great-great-great-grandfather) Üknagyapa (great-great-great-great-grandfather) -> Szépapa (great-great-great-great-great-grandfather)-> Szépnagyapa (great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather) -> Óapa (great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather) -> Ónagyapa (8X great-grandfather) -> Ősapa (9X great-grandfather) -> Ősnagyapa (10X great-grandfather) -> Boldogapa (11X great-grandfather) -> Boldognagyapa (12X great-grandfather)

parent	grandparent	great- grandparent	great-great- grandparent	great-great-great- grandparent
szülő	nagyszülő	dédszülő	ükszülő	szépszülő (OR ük-ükszülő)
child	grandchild	great- grandchild	great-great- grandchild	great-great-great- grandchild
gyerek	unoka	dédunoka	ükunoka	szépunoka (OR ük-ükunoka)

The words for "boy" and "girl" are applied with possessive suffixes. Nevertheless, the terms are differentiated with different declension or lexemes:

	boy/girl	(his/her) son/daughter	lover, partner
male	fiú	fia	fiúja/barátja
female	lány	lánya	barátnője

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:

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

Extremely long words

megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért

Partition to root and suffixes with explanations:

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

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

The above word is often considered to be the longest word in Hungarian, although there are longer words like:

legeslegmegszentségteleníttethetetlenebbjeitekként

leg|es|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"

These words are not used in practice, but when spoken they are easily understood by natives. They were invented to show, in a somewhat facetious way, the ability of the language to form long words (see agglutinative language). They are not compound words—they are formed by adding a series of one and two-syllable suffixes (and a few prefixes) to a simple root ("szent", saint). 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.

Writing system

Main article: Hungarian alphabet

The oldest surviving words written in Hungarian, from the founding declaration of the Benedictine Abbey of Tihany, 1055.
It reads "feheruuaru rea meneh hodu utu rea" (in modern Hungarian "Fehérvárra menő hadi útra", meaning "to the military road going to Fehérvár")

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

The Hungarian language was originally written in Old Hungarian runes, superficially similar in appearance to the better-known futhark runes but unrelated. When Stephen I of Hungary established the Kingdom of Hungary in the year 1000, the old system was gradually discarded in favour of the Latin alphabet. Although now not used at all in everyday life, the old script is still known and practiced by some enthusiasts.

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

Additionally, the letter pairs <ny>, <ty>, and <gy> represent the palatal consonants /ɲ/, /c/, and /ɟ/ (a little like the "d+y" sounds in British "duke" or American "would you") – a bit like saying "d" with your tongue pointing to your upper palate. (In other words, if Hungarian orthography was totally consistent, <gy> would have been written as <dy> instead.)

Hungarian uses <s> for /ʃ/ and <sz> for /s/, which is the reverse of Polish usage. The letter <zs> is /ʒ/ and <cs> is /t͡ʃ/. These digraphs are considered single letters in the alphabet. The letter <ly> is also a "single letter digraph", but is pronounced like /j/ (English <y>), and appears mostly in old words. The letters <dz> and <dzs> /d͡ʒ/ 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: <sz>+<sz>=<ssz>, e.g. művésszel ("with an artist"). But when the digraph occurs at the end of a line, all of the letters are written out. For example ("with a bus"):

... busz-

szal...

When the first lexeme of a compound ends in a digraph and the second lexeme starts with the same digraph, both digraphs are written out: jegy + gyűrű = jegygyűrű ("engagement/wedding ring", "jegy" means "sign", "mark". The term "jegyben lenni/járni" means "to be engaged"; "gyűrű" means "ring").

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

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

Order of words

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

Name order

Main article: Hungarian names

The Hungarian language uses the so-called eastern name order, in which the family name (general, deriving from the family) comes first and the given name (specific, relates to the person) comes last. If a second given name is used, this follows the first given name. This is comparable to the Anglo-Saxon custom of middle names.

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 neighboring 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, the "father of the hydrogen bomb" was Teller Ede, but he became known internationally as Edward Teller. 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.

The Hungarian name Kiss János is in the Hungarian name order (János means 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 "Hungarianized": Goethe János Farkas (originally Johann Wolfgang Goethe). This usage sounds odd today, when only a few well-known personalities are referred to using their Hungarianized names, including Verne Gyula (Jules Verne), Marx Károly (Karl Marx), Kolumbusz Kristóf (Christopher Columbus, note that it is also translated in English).

Some native speakers disapprove of this usage; the names of certain religious personalities (including popes), however, are always Hungarianized by practically all speakers, such as Luther Márton (Martin Luther), Husz János (Jan Hus), 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 queen of the UK, Elizabeth II is referred to as II. Erzsébet.

Japanese names, which are usually written in western order in Europe, retain their original order in Hungarian.

Date and time

The Hungarian convention on date and time is to go from generic to specific: 1. year, 2. month, 3. day, 4. hour, 5. minute, (6. second)

Year and day are always written in Arabic numerals and a full stop follows. Month can be written in its full name or can be abbreviated, or even denote it in Roman or Arabic numerals. Except for the first case (month written in its full name) a full stop follows. Usually, when month is written by letters, then there is no leading zero before the day. On the other hand, when month is written in Arabic numerals, a leading zero is common, but not obligate. The name of the month always begins with a lower-case letter (not in the beginning of a sentence, of course).

Parts of the time are separated by a colon, but only between its first three parts (H:m:s). When it comes to fractions of a second, they 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 format can also be used, for the usage of this, see below the examples.

Date and time may be separated by a comma or simply written one after the other.

2008. február 9. 16:23:42 or 2008. február 9., 16:23:42
2008. feb. 9.
2008. 02. 09. or 2008. 2. 9. (rarely)
2008. 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.

2008-02-09

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(i)" ("dawn"), "reggel" ("morning"), "este" ("evening") and "éjjel" ("night") is used, however there is no exact rules for the use of these, as everybody use them according to their habits (e.g. somebody may has 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:

Expression	Approximate time
Hajnal(i)	4–6 a.m.
Reggel	6–9 a.m.
Délelőtt (de.)	9 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Dél*	=12 p.m. (="noon")
Délután (du.)	12–6 p.m.
Este	6–11 p.m.
Éjjel	11 p.m. – 4 a.m.
Éjfél*	=12 a.m. (="midnight")

* "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.

Addresses

Although address formatting is increasingly being influenced by Indo-European conventions, traditional Hungarian style is:

1052 Budapest, Deák tér 1.

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

Vocabulary examples

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

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

Controversy over origins

Mainstream linguistics has demonstrated that Hungarian is part of the Uralic family of languages, related ultimately to languages such as Finnish and Estonian, although it is particularly close to Khanty and Mansi languages located near the Ural Mountains.

For many years (from 1869), it was a matter of dispute whether Hungarian was a Finno-Ugric/Uralic language, or was more closely related to the Turkic languages, a controversy known as the "Ugric-Turkish war", or whether indeed both the Uralic and the Turkic families formed part of a superfamily of "Ural–Altaic languages". Hungarians did absorb some Turkic influences during several centuries of co-habitation. For example, it appears that the Hungarians learned animal breeding techniques from the Turkic Chuvash, as a high proportion of words specific to agriculture and livestock are of Chuvash origin. There was also a strong Chuvash influence in burial customs. Furthermore, all Ugric languages, not just Hungarian, have Turkic loanwords related to horse riding.
A fringe theory that is well-known is that the Hungarian language is a descendant of Sumerian. Some nationalist linguists and historians (like Ida Bobula, Ferenc Badiny Jós, dr Tibor Baráth and others) have published this theory.^[20] There are some artifacts which they claim support this view (like the Tartaria tablets). Mainstream linguists reject the Sumerian theory as pseudoscience.
Hungarian has often been claimed to be related to Hunnish, since Hungarian legends and histories show close ties between the two peoples; also, the name Hunor is preserved in legends and (along with a few Hunnic-origin names, such as Attila) is still used as a given name in Hungary. Many people share the belief that the Székelys, a Hungarian ethnic group living in Romania, are descended from the Huns. However, the link with Hunnish has no linguistic foundation since most linguists consider the Hunnic language to be part of the Turkic language family.

There have been attempts, dismissed by mainstream linguists, to show that Hungarian is related to other languages including Hebrew, Egyptian, Etruscan, Basque, Persian, Pelasgian, Greek, Chinese, Sanskrit, English, Tibetan, Magar, Quechua, Armenian, Japanese and at least 42 other languages.^[21]

Comparison of some Finno-Ugric words

Wiktionary: Swadesh lists for Finno-Ugric languages

Hungarian	Finnish	Estonian	Mordvinic (Erzya dialect)	Komi-Permyak	English meaning	# by the Swadesh-list
én	minä	mina	мон mon	ме me	I, myself, me	1
te	sinä, te (formal)	sina, teie (formal)	тон ton	тэ te	you/thou	2
mi	me	meie, me	минь miń	ми mi	we	4
ti	te	teie, te	тынь tyń	ти ti	you (plural)	5
ez/itt	tämä/täällä	see	те te	тайö tajö	this/here	7
az/ott	tuo/tuolla	too	што što	сійö sijö	that/there	8
ki?	kuka?	kes?	кие? kije?	коді? kodi?	who?	11
mi?	mikä?	mis?	мезе? meze?	мый? myj?	what?	12
egy	yksi	üks	вейке vejke	öтік ötik	one	22
kettő	kaksi	kaks	кавто kavto	кык kyk	two	23
három	kolme	kolm	колмо kolmo	куим kuim	three	24
négy	neljä	neli	ниле nile	нёль ńol	four	25
öt	viisi	viis	вете vete	вит vit	five	26
nej	nainen 'woman'	naine	ни ni	гöтыр götyr	wife	40
anya	äiti	ema	(тиринь) ава (tiriń) ava	мам mam	mother	42
fa	puu	puu	чувто čuvto	пу pu	tree, wood	51
vér	veri	veri	верь veŕ	вир vir	blood	64
haj	hius, hiukset	juuksed	черь čeŕ	юрси jursi	hair	71
fej	pää	pea	пря pŕa	юр jur	head	72
fül	korva	kõrv	пиле pile	пель peĺ	ear	73
szem	silmä	silm	сельме seĺme	син sin	eye	74
orr	nenä	nina	судо sudo	ныр nyr	nose	75
száj	suu	suu	курго kurgo	вом vom	mouth	76
fog	hammas	hammas	пей pej	пинь piń	tooth	77
láb	jalka	jalg	пильге piĺge	кок kok	foot	80
kéz	käsi	käsi	кедь ked́	ки ki	hand	83
szív/szűny	sydän	süda	седей sedej	сьöлöм śölöm	heart	90
inni	juoda	jooma	симемс simems	юны juny	to drink	92
tudni	tietää	teadma	содамс sodams	тöдны tödny	to know	103
élni	elää	elama	эрямс eŕams	овны ovny	to live	108
víz	vesi	vesi	ведь ved́	ва va	water	150
kő	kivi	kivi	кев kev	из iz	stone	156
ég/menny	taivas	taevas	менель meneĺ	енэж jenezh	sky/heaven	162
szél	tuuli	tuul	варма varma	тöв töv	wind	163
tűz	tuli	tuli	тол tol	би bi	fire	167
éj	yö	öö	ве ve	вой voj	night	177

Bibliography

Courses

Colloquial Hungarian – The complete course for beginners. Rounds, Carol H.; Sólyom, Erika (2002). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-24258-4.

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. ISBN 0-340-56286-2.

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

Hungarolingua 1 – Magyar nyelvkönyv. Hoffmann, István; et al. (1996). Debreceni Nyári Egyetem. ISBN 963-472-083-8
Hungarolingua 2 – Magyar nyelvkönyv. Hlavacska, Edit; et al. (2001). Debreceni Nyári Egyetem. ISBN 963-03-6698-3
Hungarolingua 3 – Magyar nyelvkönyv. Hlavacska, Edit; et al. (1999). Debreceni Nyári Egyetem. ISBN 963-472-083-8

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

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

Grammars

A practical Hungarian grammar (3rd, rev. ed.). Keresztes, László (1999). Debrecen: Debreceni Nyári Egyetem. ISBN 963-472-300-4.
Practical Hungarian grammar: [a compact guide to the basics of Hungarian grammar]. Törkenczy, Miklós (2002). Budapest: Corvina. ISBN 963-13-5131-9.
Hungarian verbs and essentials of grammar: a practical guide to the mastery of Hungarian (2nd ed.). Törkenczy, Miklós (1999). Budapest: Corvina; Lincolnwood, [Ill.]: Passport Books. ISBN 963-13-4778-8.
Hungarian: an essential grammar. Rounds, Carol (2001). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-22612-0.
Hungarian: Descriptive grammar. Kenesei, István, Robert M. Vago, and Anna Fenyvesi (1998). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-02139-1.
Hungarian Language Learning References (including the short reviews of three of the above books)
Noun Declension Tables – HUNGARIAN. Budapest: Pons. Klett. ISBN 978-963-9641-04-4
Verb Conjugation Tables – HUNGARIAN. Budapest: Pons. Klett. ISBN 978-963-9641-03-7

References

^ Lebedynsky, Iaroslav. Les Nomades: Les peuples nomades de la steppe des origines aux invasions mongoles. p. 191
^ Sugar, P.F..A History of Hungary. University Press, 1996: p. 9
^ Maxwell, A.Magyarization, Language Planning and Whorf: The word Uhor as a Case Study in Linguistic RelativismMultilingua 23: 319, 2004.
^ Marcantonio, Angela. The Uralic Language Family: Facts, Myths and Statistics. Blackwell Publishing, 2002: p. 19
^ Daniel Abondolo. 1998. "Introduction," The Uralic Languages, ed. Daniel Abondolo (Routledge). Pp. 1–42.
^ Laszlo Gyula, The Magyars: Their Life and Civilization, (1996) On pg. 37 he states, "This seemed to be an impeccable conclusion until attention was paid to the actual testimony of tree-pollen analyses, and these showed that the linguists had failed to take into account changes in the vegetation zones over the millennia. After analysis of the plant pollens in the supposed homeland of the Magyars, which were preserved in the soil, it became clear to scientists that the taiga and deciduous forests were only in contact during the second millennium B.C., which is much too late to have an impact on Finno-Ugrian history. So the territory sought by the linguists as the location of the putative ‘ancient homeland’ never existed. At 5,000-6,000B.C., the period at which the Uralic era has been dated, the taiga was still thousands of kilometers away from the Ural mountains and the mixed deciduous forest had only just begun its northward advance."
^ "Hungary – Early history". Library of Congress (public domain). http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/hutoc.html. Retrieved 2008-06-29.
^ Marius Sala. Vocabularul reprezentativ al limbilor romanice, Editura Ştiinţifică şi Enciclopedică, Bucureşti, 1988
^ Szende (1994:91)
^ ^a ^b A nyelv és a nyelvek ("Language and languages"), edited by István Kenesei. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2004, ISBN 963-05-7959-6, p. 77)
^ The first two volumes of the 20-volume series were introduced on 13 November, 2006, at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (in Hungarian)
^ ^a ^b "Hungarian is not difficult" (interview with Ádám Nádasdy)
^ A nyelv és a nyelvek ("Language and languages"), edited by István Kenesei. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2004, ISBN 963-05-7959-6, p. 86)
^ A nyelv és a nyelvek ("Language and languages"), edited by István Kenesei. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2004, ISBN 963-05-7959-6, pp. 76 and 86)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ""Related words" in Finnish and Hungarian". Helsinki University Bulletin. http://www.helsinki.fi/~jolaakso/f-h-ety.html. Retrieved 2008-06-15.
^ A nyelv és a nyelvek ("Language and languages"), edited by István Kenesei. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2004, ISBN 963-05-7959-6, p. 134)
^ 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 ISBN 0-7007-0380-2, 9780700703807, 383 pages. p. 307
^ "It's written in chapter Testrészek". Nemzetismeret.hu. http://www.nemzetismeret.hu/?id=3.2. Retrieved 2010-01-31.
^ Berlin, B and Kay, P (1969). "Basic Color Terms." Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press
^ "Myths – The Hungarian Identity". Imninalu.net. http://www.imninalu.net/myths-Huns.htm. Retrieved 2010-01-31. http://www.acronet.net/~magyar/english/96-07/baraeast.html
^ Zsirai Miklós: Őstörténeti csodabogarak. Budapest, 1943.

External links

Ethnologue report for Hungarian
Hungarian phrasebook at Wikitravel
Introduction to Hungarian
Hungarian Profile
List of formative suffixes in Hungarian
The relationship between the Finnish and the Hungarian languages
Hungarian Language Review at How-to-learn-any-language.com
"The Hungarian Language: A Short Descriptive Grammar" by Beáta Megyesi (PDF document)
The old site of the Indiana University Institute of Hungarian Studies (various resources)
Hungarian Language Learning References on the Hungarian Language Page (short reviews of useful books)
One of the oldest Hungarian texts – A Halotti Beszéd (The Funeral Oration)
A short English–Hungarian–Japanese phraselist(renewal) incl.sound file
WikiLang – Hungarian Page (Hungarian grammar / lessons, in English)
Hungarian Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)

Encyclopaedia Humana Hungarica

Dictionaries

Hungarian Dictionary: from Webster's Dictionary
Hungarian ↔ English created by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences – Computer and Automation Research Institute MTA SZTAKI (also includes dictionaries for the following languages to and from Hungarian : German, French, Italian, Dutch, and Polish)
English-Hungarian-Finnish – three-language freely editable online dictionary
Collection of Hungarian Technical Dictionaries
Hungarian–English False friends (False friend)
Hungarian slang
Hungarian bilingual dictionaries
Hungarian-English dictionary
English-Hungarian dictionary
Hungarian Verb Conjugation

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Permic	Komi (Zyrian · Permyak · Yodzyak) · Udmurt

Ugric	Hungarian · Khanty · Mansi

Samoyedic	Enets · Yurats · Forest Nenets · Tundra Nenets · Nganasan · Kamassian · Koibal · Mator · Selkup

Italics indicate extinct languages

Categories:

Hungarian language
Agglutinative languages
Languages of Austria
Languages of Croatia
Languages of Hungary
Languages of Romania
Languages of Slovakia
Languages of Slovenia
Languages of Serbia
Languages of Vojvodina
Vowel harmony languages
SOV languages

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Hungarian language — Finno Ugric language of Hungary, with substantial minority populations in Slovakia, Transylvania in Romania, and northern Serbia. Hungarian has about 14.5 million speakers worldwide more than any other Uralic language including 400,000–500,000 in … Universalium
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History of the Hungarian language — The Funeral Sermon and Prayer . This text, dated to 1192, is the oldest longer Hungarian only document. Earlier, Hungarian sentences and words appeared in Latin context. Hungarian is an Ugric language. It has been spoken in the region of modern… … Wikipedia
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Hungarian literature — is literature written in the Hungarian language, predominantly by Hungarians. Hungarian literature may also include literature written in another language than Hungarian (mostly Latin) which is significant due to its Hungary related topic or if… … Wikipedia
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Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

Wikipedia

Hungarian language

Contents

History

Classification

Prehistory

Old Hungarian

Modern Hungarian

Geographic distribution

Official status

Dialects

Phonology

Grammar and syntax

Politeness

Lexicon

Word formation

Compounds

Noteworthy lexical items

Points of the compass

Two words for "red"

Kinship terms

Extremely long words

Writing system

Order of words

Name order

Hungarian names in foreign languages

Foreign names in Hungarian

Date and time

Addresses

Vocabulary examples

Controversy over origins

Comparison of some Finno-Ugric words

See also

Bibliography

Courses

Grammars

References

External links

Encyclopaedia Humana Hungarica

Dictionaries

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