The Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language related to not more than two European languages: Finnish and Estonian, but only the grammatical structure and some basic vocabulary look similar to these languages.
Hungarian | Estonian and Finnish | English |
ti | te | you (plural) |
vér | veri | blood |
víz | vesi | water |
Hungarian is spoken as a first language by approximately 14.5 million people, not only in Hungary, but also in several neighbouring countries: in Romania, is Slovakia, in Serbia, in Ukraine, in Croatia, in Austria and in Slovenia.
n Romania approximately one and a half million people consider themselves Hungarian, thus they form the largest ethnic minority groups in Romania, making up 6.6% of the total population. For historic reasons, most ethnic Hungarians of Romania live in the region of Transylvania, where they share a common history with Romanians, Germans and Rromas.
Hungarians call themselves and their language "magyar". Romanians also call Hungarians by this name "maghiari".
When traveling across Transylvania, keep in mind that cultures and languages have no boarders like countries have! So don’t get confused if you here phrases like:
"romániai magyar" (HU) | maghiar din România (RO) | Hungarian (ethnic) Romanian (EN)
If you endeavor to learn some basic Hungarian, besides the "international words" ("iskola" – school, "posta" – post office, "december" – december, "busz" – bus, "rózsa" – rose, "telefon" - telephone) the following hints might help you:
1. Always stress the first syllable of each word!
A MAgyar LÁnyok SZÉpek. (Hungarian girls are beautiful).
The remaining syllables all receive an equal, lesser stress, but all syllables are pronounced clearly and evenly, even at the end of a sentence, unlike in English.
2. Accents on Hungarian vowels do not mark the stress, but the length of the vowel.
autó (car) – "A" is tressed, but "O" is pronounced long.
levél (letter) – "LE" is stressed, but "É" is pronounced long
The 44 letters of the greater Hungarian alphabet are:
A, a | autó | a sound between ‘a' and ‘o', like the English ‘a' in what, hot | car |
Á, á | barát | like the English ‘a' in, car | friend/monk |
B, b | domb | like the English ‘b' in baby | hill |
C, c | táncos | like the English ‘ts' in its, tsunami | dancer |
Cs, cs | Csíkszereda | like the English ‘ch' in church |
|
D, d | diák | like the English ‘d' in dance | student |
Dz, dz | bodza | like the English ‘ds' in Hudson, feeds | elder-berry |
Dzs, dzs | dzsem | like the English ‘j' in jeans, jungle | jam |
E, e | testvér | like the English ‘e' in set, bed | brother/sster |
É, é | édes | like the English café, fail | sweet |
F, f | fa | like the English ‘f' in fish | wood/tree |
G, g | sógor | like the English ‘g' in go | sister-in-law |
Gy, gy | nagytata | similar to the English ‘d' in duke, during | grandfather |
H, h | hegy | like the English ‘h' in hi, human | mountain |
I, i | igen | like the English ‘i' in thick, thin | yes |
Í, í | borvíz | like the English ‘ea' in easy, sea | Mineral water |
J, j | bejárat | like the English ‘y' in you, yes | entrance |
K, k | kávé | like the English ‘k' in kiss | Coffe |
L, l | dél | like the English ‘l' in love | noon |
Ly, ly | jégpálya | like the English ‘y' in you, yes | ice rink |
M, m | lakodalom | like the English ‘m' in mother | wedding feast |
N, n | nem | like the English ‘n' in no | no |
Ny, ny | lány | like the English ‘n' in new | girl/daughter |
O, o | holnap | like the English ‘o' in force | tomorrow |
Ó, ó | óra | similar to the English ‘ow' in snow, blow | watch |
Ö, ö | mögött | similar to the English ‘u' in burn, curly | behind |
Å, Å‘ | idÅ‘ | not used in English, a longer variant of ö | time |
P, p | péntek | like the English ‘p' in peace | priest |
R, r | reggel | like the English ‘r' in red, but slightly rolled | morning |
S, s | este | like the English ‘sh' in shop, shave | evening |
Sz, sz | szombat | like the English ‘s' in sound, skip | Saturday |
T, t | tegnap | like the English ‘t' in tell | yesterday |
Ty, ty | tyúk | similar to the ‘tue' in Tuesday | hen |
U, u | anyu | like the English ‘u' in bull | mami |
Ú, ú | fiú | like the English ‘oo' in cool, fool | boy/son |
Ü, ücs | csütörtök | not used in English, like Hungarian ‘i' with lips protruded as if to whistle | Thursday |
Å°, ű | hegedű | not used in English, a longer variant of ‘ü' | violin |
V, v | vonat | like the English ‘v' in very | train |
Z, z | zárva | like the English ‘s' in rose | close |
Zs, zs | rózsa | like the English ‘su' in leisure, pleasure | rose |
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:
- Letters with accents (á,é,í,ó,ú) to represent long vowels;
- Umlauts ("ö" and "ü") and their long counterparts "Å‘" and "ű" to represent front vowels (Hungarian is the only language using both "Å‘" and "ű");
- Letter pairs "ny", "ty", and "gy" represent the palatal consonant pairs on "n", "t" and "g"
- Letter "zs" is pronounced /ʒ/ and "cs" is /t͡ʃ/
- Letter "s" is propunced /ʃ/ and "sz" is pronounced /s/