Hungarian language


The Hungarian language is a Finno-Ugric language spoken in Hungary and in adjacent areas of Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia, Austria, Slovenia (all territories lost after World War I). The Hungarian name for the language is Magyar. There are about 14.5 million speakers, of whom 10 million live in Hungary.

Classification

Hungarian is generally believed to be a member of the Ugric languages, a sub-group of the Finno-Ugric language family, which in turn is a branch of the Uralic languages. There are various alternative theories about the origins of Hungarian language, but these are dismissed by most linguists owing to a lack of evidence:

Geographic distribution

Hungarian is spoken in the following countries:
Hungary 10,298,820
Romania
(mainly Transylvania) 		1,700,000 - 3,000,000 (
  • )
Slovakia 597,400
Serbia and Montenegro 293,000
Ukraine 187,000
Israel 70,000
Sweden 35,000
Austria 22,000
Croatia 16,500
Slovenia 9,240
( :''Source: Ethnologue Hungarian speakers are also found in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and at other parts of the world, in number altogether about a million people.

Official status

Hungarian is the official language of Hungary, and thus an official language of the EU. Besides, Hungarian is one of official languages of Vojvodina and an official language of three municipalities in Slovenia (Hodos, Dobranak and Lendva), along with Slovene. Hungarian is officially recognized as a minority or regional language in Austria, Croatia and Slovakia.

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. They are all mutually understandable to native Hungarians.

Phonology

main article: Hungarian phonology There are some sounds which do not exist in English, such as /ɟ/. For example the pronunciation of "Magyarország" (Hungary) is /mɑɟɑrorsaːg/, with the stress on the first syllable.

Grammar

The order of words in a sentence is determined not by syntactic roles, but rather by pragmatic - i.e., discourse-driven - factors. Words can be compound (as in German) and derived (with suffixes). The passive voice is almost extinct, but can be found in old literary texts.

Vowel Harmony

Vowel harmony is typical for agglutinating languages like Sumerian, Hungarian or Turkish. Vowels can be high/front (''eéiíöőüű'') or deep/back (''aáoóuú''). Set of hungarian words can be partitionated in the view of vowel harmony into three groups: # Words of deep sound order (''Mély hangrendű szavak''): These words contain only deep vowels - ablak, ajtó, hordár, búsul. # Words of high sound order (''Magas hangrendű szavak''): These words contain only high vowels - kefél, zizzen, kézfej; # Words of composite sound order (''Vegyes hangrendű szavak''): These words contain also deep and high vowels - ásít, papír, birtok, kazetta. # The sound order of compound words (words divisible into two or more meaningful subwords) is the sound order of their last component (''kalapács|vető'' is high-ordered, because vető is high-ordered, hang|kazetta is composit-ordered etc.). Old Hungarian words typically contain either only front or only back vowels (''malac'': deep, egér: high). ('''''The law of vowel harmony'''''): An ending must be the same type as the sound order of the word, so a word of high order gets high suffixes (''szekrény'' - szekrénye''k''), and a word of deep order gets deep suffixes (''ház - ház'''a'''k'', ablak - ablako''k'' ), but a word of composite order generally gets deep-ordered suffixes, except some unused archaisms and some loanwords from foreign languages (''szirt''-''ok'', farmer-''ben'' = farmer-''ban''), or old but frequently used words containing neutral vowels (e,í) (''híd''-''on'', híd-''ra''; egy-''kor'', egy-''ben''). See vowel harmony for a more detailed explanation. Suffixes (containing vowels) generally have two or three variants, one with a high vowel and one with a deep vowel (''in'': -ban, or -ben; into: -ba, or -be). So, for example, the word kartonpapír, because it is a compound word (''karton-papír'') with a composite ordered last component (''papír''), gets deep suffixes (kartonpapírr''a''l, kartonpapírh''o''z, etc.), even though its last vowel is high.

Nouns

Many grammatical and syntactic functions, elements and constructions are based on suffixes. The mark for the plural of a noun is a suffix -k, preceded by a vowel if the word ends in a consonant. Usually, vowels are inserted between the word and its suffix to prevent a buildup of consonants (and hence to prevent unpronounceable words). The inserted vowels must follow the rules of vowel harmony. Hungarian grammar uses endings to express the relation of things, which are in other languages usually called cases. For example: at the table = az asztalnál'''' (space relation), at 5 o'clock = öt órakor'''' (time relation). The concept of grammatical cases was first used in Latin grammar. During the centuries the terminology was also applied to describe non-Indo-European grammars, with very different grammatical structures from Latin. This couldn't be done without reinterpreting to a certain extent the notion of what a case is for agglutinating languages, such as those in the Finno-Ugric language group. Nowadays the term "case" is less widely used among Hungarian linguists to describe Hungarian grammar compared to centuries ago. Several Hungarian linguists believe that the concept doesn't fit agglutinating languages very well, and they prefer to use the term "(case) suffixes" and "endings" instead. For students, the case system for Hungarian is only taught in higher education. Most common of the cases in Hungarian are the nominative case, accusative case and dative case; some express location and placement (see the chart below); and some express other relations (terminative case, essive-formal case, instrumental-comitative case, translative case, causal-final case). There are further cases of restricted use (locative case, essive-modal case, distributive case, distributive-temporal case, sociative case). For examples of these cases, refer to the article List of grammatical cases.
ház - house
  interior surface adjacency
from házból
(Elative case) 		házról
(Delative case) 		háztól
(Ablative case)
at házban
(Inessive case) 		házon
(Superessive case) 		háznál
(Adessive case)
to házba
(Illative case) 		házra
(Sublative case) 		házhoz
(Allative case)
Hungarian uses plural sparsely, ie. only if no quantity is marked. Plural is not used with definite or indefinite numerals. Examples: öt fiú five boys; sok fiú many boys; fiúk'''' boys.

Verbs

General information

Hungarian verbs have two conjugations: a definite and an indefinite. The definite conjugation is mostly used in case of a direct and definite object. For example: várom'' a buszt'' "I am waiting for the bus", várok'''' "I am waiting". Látok'' (valamit)'' "I can see (something)", but látom'' a könyvet'' "I can see the book". Forms are presented in this order:
Singular Plural
I you ''(sg)'' he/she/it we you ''(pl)'' they
én te ő mi ti ők
These pronouns don't usually appear (since the suffix is enough in itself to mark the person), unless they are contrasted or emphasized. Beside te and ti, which are used informally, there are polite forms for the second person pronouns: ön or maga. Ön is official and distancing, maga is personal and even intimate. (There are some older forms for you, like kend, which is still used in rural areas.) See also: T-V distinction. Verbs with the polite 2nd person forms ön and maga take the suffixes of the 3rd person verb forms. For example te kérsz (second person, informal), but ön kér or maga kér (second person, formal), just like ő kér (third person). As you can notice, Hungarian does not have gender-specific pronouns. The basic verb form for derivation is always the third person singular. The infinitive of verbs is the radical suffixed by -ni.

A regular sample verb

Here is a regular verb, kér ("ask for something"). — The personal suffixes are marked in bold.
kér (ask for)
Indefinite Definite
INDICATIVE MOOD
Present kér'''ek''' kér'''sz''' kér kér'''ünk''' kér'''tek''' kér'''nek''' kér'''em''' kér'''ed''' kér'''i''' kér'''jük''' kér'''itek''' kér'''ik'''
Past kért'''em''' kért'''él''' kért kért'''ünk''' kért'''etek''' kért'''ek''' kért'''em''' kért'''ed''' kért'''e''' kért'''ük''' kért'''étek''' kért'''ék'''
Future kérni
fog'''ok''' 		kérni
fog'''sz''' 		kérni
fog 		kérni
fog'''unk''' 		kérni
fog'''tok''' 		kérni
fog'''nak''' 		kérni
fog'''om''' 		kérni
fog'''od''' 		kérni
fog'''ja''' 		kérni
fog'''juk''' 		kérni
fog'''játok''' 		kérni
fog'''ják'''
CONDITIONAL MOOD
Present kérné'''k''' kérné'''l''' kérne kérné'''nk''' kérné'''tek''' kérné'''nek''' kérné'''m''' kérné'''d''' kérné kérné'''nk''' kérné'''tek''' kérné'''k'''
Past kért'''em'''
volna 		kért'''él'''
volna 		kért
volna 		kért'''ünk'''
volna 		kért'''etek'''
volna 		kért'''ek'''
volna 		kért'''em'''
volna 		kért'''ed'''
volna 		kért'''e'''
volna 		kért'''ük'''
volna 		kért'''étek'''
volna 		kért'''ék'''
volna
IMPERATIVE / SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD
Present kérj'''ek''' kérj'''él'''
or kérj 		kérj'''en''' kérj'''ünk''' kérj'''etek''' kérj'''enek''' kérj'''em''' kérj'''ed'''
or kér'''d''' 		kérj'''e''' kérj'''ük''' kérj'''étek''' kérj'''ék'''

The substantive verb (to be)

The substantive verb "to be" in Hungarian is lenni. Like in most other languages of the world, this verb is irregular. In Hungarian it comes from three (or four) bases: vagy- (or van-), vol-, and len-. — As it cannot have an object, it doesn't have definite forms.
INDICATIVE MOOD
vagy'''ok''' || vagy || van || vagy'''unk''' || vagy'''tok''' || van'''nak'''
volt'''am''' || volt'''ál''' || volt || volt'''unk''' || volt'''atok''' || volt'''ak'''
lesz'''ek''' || lesz'''el''' || lesz || lesz'''ünk''' || lesz'''tek''' || lesz'''nek'''
CONDITIONAL MOOD
lenné'''k''' || lenné'''l''' || lenne || lenné'''nk''' || lenné'''tek''' || lenné'''nek'''
lett'''em'''
volna ||lett'''él'''
volna || lett
volna ||lett'''ünk'''
volna || lett'''etek'''
volna || lett'''ek'''
volna
IMPERATIVE / SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD
legy'''ek''' || legy'''él'''
or légy || legyen || legy'''ünk''' || legy'''etek''' || legy'''enek'''
Hungarian uses the verb "to be" much less frequently than English, because it is omitted in the present tense in the third person (singular/plural), if one speaks about what someone or something is (''see'' copula). On the other hand, the substantive verb must be used in other tenses and other persons, and every time one speaks about where or how something is, or if one emphasizes the existence or availability of something. Examples:

Further information on verbs

Hungarian uses verbal prefixes which modify the meaning of the verbs and form separate verbs out of them. These prefixed verbs usually have meanings which are consistently build up from the basic meaning of the elements, and many of them have figurative, idiomatic meanings as well. For example: ír he writes, leír he writes down, kiír he writes out, beír he writes into etc. (basic meanings). On the other hand, leír may also mean "declare as useless" (cf. "write off"), and beír "give a written warning" (to a schoolchild). There are also compund words using verbs which have their individual meanings, for example egyedülálló single (eg. person), whereas egyedül álló means something which stands alone.

Lexicon

Due to the existence of compound words, the lexicon of Hungarian could be considered to contain a virtually unlimited number of words. Giving an exact estimate for the total word count is difficult, since it is hard to define what to call "a word" in agglutinating languages . Hungarian words are built around so called word bushes, for example kör-köröz-körös-kering-kerge-kurta etc. Due to this feature words with similar meaning often arise from the same root. Compound words ("''mesterségesintelligencia-kutatás''" for "''research on artificial intelligence''"), which are quite unusual in Indo-European languages (except, for example, in German) make the situation even more complex and the definition of "word" even more difficult. The lexicon of Hungarian contains words borrowed from various Turkic languages, including Turkish, as well as several loan words from German and Slavic. The basic vocabulary shares about 1000 words from Uralic languages like Finnish and Estonian (e.g., the numbers egy ~ yksi ~ üks (1), kettő ~ kaksi ~ kaks (2), három ~ kolme ~ kolm (3), négy ~ neljä ~ neli (4); víz ~ vesi ~ vesi (water); kéz ~ käsi ~ käsi (hand); vér ~ veri ~ veri (blood); fej ~ pää ~ pea (head) which have systematic sound correspondences, so most linguists classify them as Finno-Ugric languages, a subgroup of the Uralic language family.

Writing system

Hungarian is written using a variant of the Latin alphabet, and has a phonemic orthography, i.e. pronunciation can generally be predicted from the written language. In addition to the standard letters of the Latin alphabet, Hungarian uses several additional letters. These include letters with acute accents (á,é,í,ó,ú) which represent long vowels, the diaereses ö and ü and their long counterparts ő (unicode Ő and ő) and ű (unicode Ű and ű). Sometimes ô or ő is used for ő and ű for ű, due to the limitations of the Latin-1 / ISO-8859-1 codepage. Hungarian can be properly represented with the Latin-2 / ISO-8859-2 codepage, but this codepage is not always available. (Hungarian is the only language using ő and ű.) Of course, Unicode includes them, and they therefore can be used on the Internet. For a complete table of the pronunciation of the Hungarian alphabet, see the X-SAMPA description in the Hungarian Wikipedia (in Hungarian, but the table is obvious), which transliterates Hungarian letters into IPA and X-SAMPA characters. Additionally, the letter pairs <ny>, <ty>, and <gy> represent the palatal consonants /ń/, /tj/, and /dj/ (like the "dy" sound in British "duke" or American "would you"). Hungarian uses <s> for /S/ and <sz> for /s/, which is the reverse of Polish. is /Z/ and <cs> is /tS/. All these digraphs are considered single letters. is also a "single letter digraph", but is pronounced like <j> (English <y>), and mostly appears in old words. More exotic letters are <dz> and <dzs> /dZ/. They are hard to find even in a longer text. Two examples are madzag; edzeni (''rope; to train'') and dzsungel (''jungle''). Single R's are tapped, like the Spanish "pero"; Double R's and initial R's are trilled, like the Spanish "perro" or "romper". Hungarian distinguishes between long and short vowels, where the long vowels are written with acutes, and between long consonants and short consonants, where the long consonants are written double. The digraphs, when doubled, become trigraphs: +=, but changing line: :... busz- :''szal''... Usually a trigraph is a double digraph, but there are a few exceptions: tizennyolc "eighteen" is tizen + nyolc. There are doubling minimal pairs: tizenegyedik (''eleventh'') vs. tizennegyedik (''fourteenth''). Primary stress is always on the first syllable of a word. There is sometimes secondary stress on other syllables, especially when two words have been combined (like "viszontlátásra" (see you later) pronounced "'''VEES'''-ohnt-LAH-tahsh-raw"). While it seems unusual to English speakers at first, once one learns the new orthography and pronunciations, written Hungarian is nearly totally phonemic.

Examples

  • Hungarian (person, language): magyar ['mAdyAr]
  • hello: szia ['sia] (informal) (sounds almost exactly like American "see ya") But you only say this to people that you know well. When you address a stranger you use the more formal "good day": jó napot (kívánok) (YOnahpot)
  • good-bye: viszontlátásra (formal) (see above), viszlát [vislAt] (semi informal)
  • please: kérem (szépen) [kayrrem saypen] (This literally means "I ask (it) well". See next for a more common form of the polite request)
  • I would like , please: Szeretnék [seh-reht-neyk] (This example illustrates the use of the conditional tense, as a common form of a polite request)
  • sorry: bocsánat [BOchAnAt]
  • thank you: köszönöm [kYs-Yn-Ym] (pout your lips for a kiss and say "uh")
  • that/this: az [Az] ez [ez]
  • how much?: mennyi? ['mennyee]
  • how much does it cost?: mennyibe kerül? ['mennyee-be keh-rool]
  • yes: igen ['igen]
  • no: nem [nem]
  • I don't understand: nem értem ['nEm 'ayrtem]
  • I don't know: nem tudom [nem 'too-dohm]
  • where's the bathroom?: Hol van a vécé? ['hole vAn A vay-tsay], more polite (and word-to-word) version Hol van a mosdó? [hole vAn A 'mosh-daw];
  • generic toast: egészségedre! [this is tough. Say it like this: EGG-ayss-shay-ged-rreh]
  • juice: gyümölcslé [dyu-mulch-lay]
  • water: víz [veez]
  • wine: bor [bohr]
  • beer: sör [shuhr]
  • tea: tea [teh-ah]
  • milk: tej [tay]
  • Do you speak English?: Beszél angolul? ['bes-ayl 'Ahn-go-lool?]
  • I love you: szeretlek ['seretlek]
  • Help!: Segítség! [sheg-eet-shayg]

Quotes

Sir John Bowring, English linguist, political economist, and writer, was the author of the first Hungarian anthology in English. In the preface of Poetry of the Magyars (1830) he writes: :"The Magyar language stands afar off and alone. The study of other tongues will be found of exceedingly little use towards its right understanding. It is moulded in a form essentially its own, and its construction and composition may be safely referred to an epoch when most of the living tongues of Europe either had no existence, or no influence on the Hungarian region."

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Category:Finno-Ugric languages Category:Languages of Austria Category:Languages of Hungary Category:Languages of Romania Category:Languages of Slovakia Category:Languages of Vojvodina ast:Húngaru bs:Mađarski jezik ca:Hongarčs de:Ungarische Sprache et:Ungari keel es:Idioma húngaro eo:Hungara lingvo fr:Langue hongroise it:Lingua ungherese hu:Magyar nyelv nl:Hongaars ja:ハンガリー語 no:Ungarsk sprĺk pl:Język węgierski pt:Língua húngara ro:Limba maghiară sr:Мађарски језик sl:Madžarščina fi:Unkarin kieli sv:Ungerska
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