Portál maďarštiny:
[edit]
External links






Hungarian - A Strange Cake on the Menu - article by Nádasdy
Ádám (http://www.filolog.com/languageStrangeCake.html)
Ethnologue report for
Hungarian (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=HNG)
Numerals of some Uralic languages (http://www.ut.ee/Ural/num.html)
Uralic page (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3093/finnugor.html)
Introduction to Hungarian (http://impulzus.sch.bme.hu/info/magyar.shtml)
Hungarian Profile (http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/profiles/profh02.htm)
[edit]
Dictionaries




Hungarian-English-Hungarian (http://dict.sztaki.hu/english-hungarian)
Hungarian-English False
cognates (http://www.btk.elte.hu/delg/people/core/lazar/falsefriends.html) (False
Cognates)
Hungarian slang (http://www.notam02.no/~hcholm/altlang/ht/Hungarian.html)
Hungarian-Japanese-Hungarian online dictionary (http://www.japanmagyarszotar.hu/)
[edit]
Online Language Courses





Online course hungarotips.com (http://www.hungarotips.com/hungarian/b/)
Study Hungarian! (AFS.com) (http://www.afs.hu/hungary/study.html)
Hungarian Phrase Guides (http://www.single-serving.com/Hungarian/)
Magyaróra: New paths to the Hungarian language (http://www.magyarora.com/)
Hungarian Language Lessons - Puzzles, Quizzes, Sound
Files (http://www.hungarotips.com/hungarian/)
[edit]
More links for learners

Course, Vocabularies, Phrases,
Literature... (http://www.sprachprofi.de.vu/english/h.htm)
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.
Hungarian (Magyar)
Spoken in:
Hungary and 10 other
countries
Region:
Total speakers:
14.5 million
Ranking:
66
Genetic
classification:
Ural-Altaic (disputed)
Uralic
Finno-Ugric
Ugric
Hungarian
Official status
Official language of:
Hungary, Slovenia,
Vojvodina
Regulated by:
-Language codes
ISO 639-1
hu
ISO 639-2
hun
SIL
HNG
See also: Language - List of languages
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:



Hungarian has often been claimed to be closely related to Hunnish, since Hungarian
legends and histories show close ties between the two peoples. Some people believe
that the Székely, a part of the Hungarians living in Romania, are descended from the
Huns. However, the link with Hunnish is uncertain, as are other theories (such as
Hungarian being derived from the Sumerian language, which is also agglutining).
For many years (from 1869), it was matter of dispute whether Hungarian was a FinnoUgric language, or was more closely related to some Turkic languages, a controversy
known as the "Ugric-Turkish war". It is only in the discipline of linguistics that the
"victory" of the Finno-Ugrists can be described as more or less complete, due to a lot
of evidence from the languages themselves. However, significant evidence in some
other sciences, including genetics and mainly archeology, still clashes with this theory.
Finno-Ugrist scientists explain this phenomenon by stating that the origin of the
language is not necessarily equal with the origin of the people, genetically. Thus the
language is Finno-Ugric, some scientists say, but according to genetics and
anthropology, the Hungarian people show more similarity to others than to the Finns
(who are like the Swedes on these criteria): to Germans and Slavs (as some FinnoUgrists, e.g. I. M. Szabó, say), or to the Turks or other peoples (as other scientists, e.g.
I. Kiszely, say). The lack of serious direct (e.g. archeological) evidence also leads to
the questioning of Finno-Ugric theory time and time again.
However, the regular sound changes that can be shown in Hungarian and other Uralic
languages provide enough evidence for the languages to be related. For this purpose
no extra-linguistic evidence is needed. The Finno-Ugrian theory is supported by what
linguistics knows about related languages in general and could only be refuted if all
other established language relationships were refuted at the same time.
[edit]
Geographic distribution
Hungarian is spoken in the following countries:
Country
Speakers
Hungary
10,298,820
Romania
1,700,000 - 3,000,000 (*)
(mainly Transylvania)
Slovakia
597,400
Serbia and Montenegro
293,000
Ukraine
187,000
Israel
70,000
Austria
Croatia
Slovenia
22,000
16,500
9,240
(*) of whom, according to the 2002 census, 1,450,000 speak it as mother tongue.
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.
[edit]
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.
[edit]
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.
[edit]
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 /ˈmɒɟɒrorsaːg/, with the stress on the
first syllable.
[edit]
Hungarian phonology
Phonology is the classification of the abstract elements (or precisely phonemes,
whereas sounds are acoustic realisations of phonemes) in a particular language.
Hungarian phonology has much in common with the English if you compare them
with African or Asian languages, but you can still encounter problems with some
phonological phenomena or just with pronouncing some "strange" vowels or
consonants.
[edit]
Vowels
Here follows the table of Hungarian vowels, with the distinctive features of the
Hungarian vowel system:
Most common
Most common
Phoneme phonetic value
[back] [round] [high] [low] [long]
grapheme
in IPA
/a/
[ɒ]
a
+
+
-
+
-
/a:/
[aː]
á
+
-
-
+
+
/o/
[o]
o
+
+
-
-
-
/o:/
[oː]
ó
+
+
-
-
+
/u/
[u]
u
+
+
+
-
-
/u:/
[uː], [u]
ú
+
+
+
-
+
/e/
[ɛ]
e
-
-
-
+
-
/e:/
[eː]
é
-
-
-
-
+
/i/
[i]
i
-
-
+
-
-
/i:/
[iː], [i]
í
-
-
+
-
+
/ø/
[ø]
ö
-
+
-
-
-
/ø:/
[øː]
ő
-
+
-
-
+
/y/
[y]
ü
-
+
+
-
-
/y:/
[yː], [y]
ű
-
+
+
-
+
As can be seen from the table, Hungarian has seven pairs of corresponding short
and long vowels. But their phonetic value does not match in each case, for instance
the /e/–/e:/ and /a/–/a:/ pairs. However, short-long distinction in high vowels is not
consistent, many dialects lack the phonemes /i:/, /u:/ and /y:/ and colloquial use is
also very different than the orthography (eg. unió is pronounced [uːnioː], but szomorú
is pronounced [somoru]).
[edit]
Vowel harmony
There is a very important distinction about Hungarian vowels: just like in Finnish and
Turkish, it has vowel harmony: usually a word is made up either by front vowels, or
back vowels. Mixtures occur mostly in exceptions (eg. derekas), loanwords (eg.
telefon) or in compound words (eg. pénz|tárca "purse"). The latter words have the
harmony of the last member of the compound, loanwords usually have the harmony
of the last vowel, except that /i/, /e:/ and sometimes /e/ are transparent, so if there is
a back vowel before them, the word remains back. Exceptional words have /i/, /i:/ or
sometimes /e:/, but are regarded as back words because in Old Hungarian, there
was a * /ɯ/ phoneme, that is the sound found in Russian (yery), but this became /i/.
Beside this, there is also an other type of harmony: mid-high front vowels harmonize
in the aspect of rounding.
Thus most suffixes (and Hungarian has a lot of them!) have several forms, and the
harmony of the stem "spreads" to the suffix. Most types are:
alternating
vowels
example
back stems
front nonfront rounded stems
rounded stems
/a/, /e/
-ban, -ben "in ..."
házban "in a
house"
kézben "in
hand"
/a:/, /e:/
-ság, -ség "-ity, a
collection of ..."
okosság "the
quality of being vétség "fault"
clever"
ökörség "being like a
bull = stupidity"
/o/, /e/, /ø/
-on, -en, -ön "on ..."
házon "on (the kézen "on
top of) a house" hand"
könyvön "on a book"
/o:/, /ø:/
-ó, -ő "-ing"
váró "(sy)
waiting"
néző "(sy)
looking"
lövő "(sy) shooting"
/u/, /y/
-unk, -ünk "plural
1st person present
suffix"
várunk "we're
waiting"
nézünk "we're
looking"
lövünk "we're
shooting"
könyvben "in a book"
-ú, -ű "something
having ..."
/u:/, /y:/
ötágú "fivepointed (star)"
szép szemű
"one having
nice eyes"
gyönyörű "sg having
beauty=beautiful"
As can be seen, the phoneme /e/ is found both in the low vowel series (/a/-/e/), and in
the mid vowel series (/o/-/e/-/ö/). This odd feature is solved in the old language and in
dialects: there was/is an eighth short phoneme /ë/, which is just like the /e/ but it is
mid, and its pronunciation is [e]. In dialects, you can find this phoneme in the mid
series, and the low /e/ in the low series.
However, many suffixes have only one form: these are usually new-born suffixes (-
kor "at the time of ...": hatkor "at 6 o'clock", hétkor "at 7 o'clock", ötkor "at 5 o'clock"),
or they contain /i/ or /e:/ (-i "universal noun -> adjective suffix": budai "somebody from
Buda", pesti "somebody from Pest"; -ért "for ...": aranyért "for gold", ezüstért "for
silver").
[edit]
Consonants
Hungarian has the following consonant system (not using standard SPE-like
features), with unusual graphemes marked bold:
Most
common
Phoneme
phonetic
value
in IPA
/p/
[p]
p
-
bilabial
stop
/b/
[b]
b
+
bilabial
stop
/t/
[ t̪ ]
t
-
dental
stop
/d/
[ d̪]
d
+
dental
stop
/c/
[c]
ty
-
palatal
stop
/ ɟ/
[ ɟ]
+
palatal
stop
/k/
[k]
gy
k
-
velar
stop
/g/
[g]
g
+
velar
stop
/f/
[f]
f
-
labiodental
fricative
/v/
[v]
v
+
labiodental
fricative
/s/
[ s̪ ]
sz
-
dental*
fricative
/z/
[ z̪]
z
+
dental*
fricative
/ ʃ/
[ ɕ]
s
-
postalveolar
fricative
Most
common
grapheme
[voice]
place of
articulation
type of articulation
/ ʒ/
[ ʑ]
zs
+
postalveolar
fricative
/j/
[j] or [ ʝ]
j, ly
+
palatal
fricative or
approximant
/h/
[h]
h, ch
-
glottal
fricative
/ts/
[ ts̪ ]
c
-
dental
affricate
/dz/
[ dz̪]
dz
+
dental
affricate
/ ʧ/
[ tɕ]
cs
-
postalveolar
affricate
/ ʤ/
[ dʑ]
+
postalveolar
affricate
/l/
[ l̪ ]
dzs
l
+
dental
lateral
/r/
[ r̪]
r
+
dental
trill
/m/
[m]
m
+
bilabial
nasal
/n/
[ n̪]
n
+
dental
nasal
/ ɲ/
[ ɲ]
ny
+
palatal
nasal
* /s/ and /z/ are really dental although the IPA chart puts them in the alveolar slot.
Almost every consonant has a geminate counterpair, written by doubling: bb, pp, ss
etc., or by doubling the first element of the grapheme cluster: ssz, nny, ddzs, etc. The
phoneme /dz/ and /dʑ/usually appear on surface as geminates: bridzs [bridʥ]
"bridge (the card game)".
Most important allophones are:






/n/ becomes [ŋ] if followed by a velar consonant (eg. hang "voice" [hɒŋg])
/j/ becomes [ç] if preceded by a /p/, /t/, /k/ in an imperative at the end of the word (eg.
kapj [kɒpç] "get (imp.)")
/h/ may become [ɦ] between two vowels (eg. tehát [tɛɦaːt] "so")
/h/ disappears at the end of the word in some cases: méh [meː] "bee", cseh [ʧɛ]
"Czech"
/h/ becomes otherwise [x] at the end of a syllable, even possible pronounciation for the
words mentioned(méh [meː], but colloquially can be [meːx]), otherwise compulsory:
doh [dox], ihlet [ixlɛt], or [içlɛt].
/h/ becomes [xː] when geminate: méhhel [meːxːɛl] "with a bee" (in literary Hungarian
the form is méhvel [meːvɛl]), peches [pɛxːɛʃ] "unlucky"
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.
[edit]
Vowel Harmony
see Hungarian phonology or vowel harmony for a more detailed explanation
Vowel harmony is typical for agglutinating languages like Sumerian, Hungarian and
Turkish. Vowels can be high/front (eéiíöőüű) or deep/back (aáoóuú). Hungarian
words can be classified from the point of view of vowel harmony into three groups:
1. Words of deep sound order (Mély hangrendű szavak): These words contain only deep
vowels - ablak, ajtó, hordár, búsul.
2. Words of high sound order (Magas hangrendű szavak): These words contain only high
vowels - kefél, zizzen, kézfej;
3. Words of composite sound order (Vegyes hangrendű szavak): These words contain
also deep and high vowels - ásít, papír, birtok, kazetta.
4. 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 - szekrények), and a
word of deep order gets deep suffixes (ház - házak, ablak - ablakok ), but a word of
composite order generally gets deep-ordered suffixes, except some unused
archaisms and some loanwords from foreign languages (béká-val, farmer-ben =
farmer-ban), or old but frequently used words containing neutral vowels (e,í) (híd-on,
híd-ra; derék-ba).
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 (kartonpapírral,
kartonpapírhoz, etc.), even though its last vowel is high.
[edit]
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, instrumentalcomitative case, translative case, causal-final case). There are further cases of
restricted use (locative case, essive-modal case, distributive case, distributivetemporal 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
házon
háznál
(Inessive case) (Superessive case) (Adessive case)
to
házba
(Illative case)
házra
(Sublative case)
házhoz
(Allative case)
Hungarian uses the plural sparsely, i.e. only if quantity is not marked otherwise.
Therefore the plural is not used with numerals or indefinite adjectives showing
quantity. Examples: öt fiú five boys; sok fiú many boys; fiúk boys.
Main Hungarian cases (example : ház - house ): ház - nominative , házat - accusative
, háznak - dative / genitive , házba - illative , házban - inessive , házból - elative ,
házért - causalis / finalis , házhoz - allative , házig - terminative , háznál - adessive ,
házra - sublative , házról - delative , háztól - ablative.
Another very characteristic feature of Hungarian is possessive endings. In English we
say : my house, your house etc., indicating possession with special words. In
Hungarian possession is expressed by suffixes : házam - my house, házad - your
house, háza - his house , házunk - our house etc.
[edit]
Verbs
[edit]
General information
Hungarian verbs have two conjugations: definite and indefinite. The definite
conjugation is used when there is a definite direct object, present or implied. For
example: várom a buszt "I am waiting for the bus", várom "I am waiting (for him/her)",
várok "I am waiting". Látok (valamit) "I can see (something)", but látom a könyvet "I
can see the book" and látom "I can see him/her/it" . The first person singular
possesses an additional ending to indicate a second person object. For example:
látlak "I see you", várlak "I am waiting for you".
Forms are presented in this order:
I
én
Singular
you (sg) he/she/it
te
ő
Plural
we you (pl) they
mi
ti
ők
These pronouns do not usually appear (since the suffix is enough by 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 see, 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.
[edit]
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 kérek
kérsz
kér
kérünk
kértek
kérnek
kérem
kéred
kéri
kérjük
kéritek
Past
kértem kértél kért
kértünk kértetek kértek
kértem kérted kérte kértük
kértétek
Future
kérni
fogok
kérni
kérni
fogunk fogtok
kérni
fogom
kérni
fogjátok
kérni kérni
fogsz fog
kérni
fognak
kérni
fogod
kérni kérni
fogja fogjuk
CONDITIONAL MOOD
Present kérnék kérnél kérne kérnénk kérnétek kérnének kérném kérnéd kérné kérnénk kérnétek
kértem kérted kérte kértük
volna volna volna volna
kértétek
volna
kérjél
kérjed
kérjen kérjünk kérjetek kérjenek kérjem or
kérje kérjük
Present kérjek or
kérj
kérd
kérjétek
Past
kértem kértél kért
kértünk kértetek kértek
volna volna volna volna
volna
volna
IMPERATIVE / SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD
[edit]
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
Present Tense vagyok vagy
Past Tense
voltam voltál
Future Tense leszek
leszel
van
vagyunk vagytok vannak
volt
voltunk
voltatok voltak
lesz
leszünk
lesztek
lesznek
CONDITIONAL MOOD
Present Tense lennék lennél
Past Tense
lettem
volna
lettél
volna
lenne
lennénk lennétek lennének
lett
volna
lettünk
volna
lettetek
volna
lettek
volna
IMPERATIVE / SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD
Present Tense legyek
legyél
legyen legyünk legyetek legyenek
or légy
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:






Péter orvos Ø - Peter is a doctor. (present tense, third person, speaking about what
someone is: no linking verb in Hungarian)
Péter jól van - Peter is well.
Péter itt van - Peter is here.
Péter orvos volt - Peter was a doctor.
Orvos vagyok - I am a doctor.
Van orvos a szobában - There is a doctor in the room.
[edit]
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.
[edit]
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.
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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 õ is used for ő and û 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 XSAMPA 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
/ñ/, /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. <zs> is /Z/
and <cs> is /tS/. All these digraphs are considered single letters. <ly> 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:
<sz>+<sz>=<ssz>, but changing line:
... buszszal...
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.
[edit]
Examples
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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]
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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."
© 1996 Lexiteria LLC
Použitý zdroj: Encyklopedie Wikipedia