Hungarian Language Guide

Official language in
Hungary, Slovenia
Script
Latin

Where it's spoken

The Fundamental Law of Hungary states that in Hungary the official language is Hungarian.

The constitution of Slovenia states that the official language in Slovenia is Slovene, and that in those municipalities where Italian or Hungarian national communities reside, Italian or Hungarian are also official languages.

Sources

Script & pronunciation

Hungarian is written in the Latin alphabet. The official spelling rules list the Hungarian alphabet as 40 letters in a fixed order: a, á, b, c, cs, d, dz, dzs, e, é, f, g, gy, h, i, í, j, k, l, ly, m, n, ny, o, ó, ö, ő, p, r, s, sz, t, ty, u, ú, ü, ű, v, z, zs. Eight of the consonant letters are written with two characters (cs, dz, gy, ly, ny, sz, ty, zs) and one with three (dzs).

When a letter of several characters is capitalised, only its first character becomes a capital, as in Csoma, Szolnok and Zsolt; in acronyms and in text written entirely in capitals, every character is a capital, as in ENSZ and CSOMAGMEGŐRZŐ. This app's card "Gyönyörű a mosolyod." (Your smile is beautiful.) starts with the capital form Gy.

Vowel length is written: the short vowels are a, e, i, o, ö, u, ü and the long vowels are á, é, í, ó, ő, ú, ű. The rules say that vowel length plays an important linguistic role, because one word can have a short vowel and another a long one, and they give pairs such as akar and akár, kemény and kémény, and öt and őt. Consonant length is written by doubling the letter, as in megy and meggy or hal and hall. For a letter of several characters, only the first character is doubled, as in the ssz of asszonnyal, except that where the parts of a compound word meet, the whole letter is written twice, as in jegygyűrű. This app's card "Kérem, beszéljen lassabban" (Please speak slowly) contains the doubled letters ss and bb.

The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) records the fixed stress location of Hungarian as initial, that is, on the first syllable of the word. The spelling rules also give examples of how foreign words appear in Hungarian letters, shown in square brackets: German Schäfer as [séfer], Romanian Sighişoara as [szigisoára], Italian quattrocento as [kvatrocsentó] and French Eugène as [özsen].

This app's Hungarian cards show only the Hungarian text; they have no romanization line.

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Grammar essentials

Hungarian marks the role of a noun with case suffixes. The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) counts Hungarian among the languages with ten or more case categories, and its entry lists the forms of one noun, hajó, with case endings such as hajót, hajóban, hajóból, hajóra, hajóhoz, hajónak and hajóval. In this app, the card "Japánból jövök" (I come from Japan) has the ending -ból/-ből, which its note calls the elative suffix meaning "out of/from", and the card "Van üzleti központ a szállodában?" (Is there a business center in the hotel?) has -ban, which its note calls the inessive case suffix.

Many Hungarian suffixes have more than one form, and because of vowel harmony most of the variants differ in the quality of a vowel, for example -ban/-ben, -tól/-től, -hoz/-hez/-höz, -nak/-nek and -ra/-re. An article on the spelling portal of a Hungarian Academy of Sciences linguistics institute explains that the vowels of a word can be back (autó, csónak, Anna), front (teniszütő, beszéd, Enikő) or mixed (liba, templom, létra). A back-vowel word takes the back-vowel variant of a suffix (autóba, csónaknak, Kovácsnak) and a front-vowel word takes the front-vowel variant (teniszütőre, beszédbe, Fehérnek); a simple Hungarian word with mixed vowels takes the back-vowel variant (libának, templomban, létrára). This app's card "Van minimum összeg a kártyás fizetéshez?" (Is there a minimum amount for paying by card?) notes that "-hez / -hoz / -höz" changes shape by vowel harmony and that "fizetés" has front vowels, so it takes "-hez". Its card "A visszaváltási nyugtát a kasszánál tudja beváltani." (You can cash the deposit slip in at the till.) notes that "kassza" has back vowels and selects "-nál".

WALS records that Hungarian has possessive suffixes. This app's card "A nevem [név]" (My name is [name]) notes that "Nevem" is "név" (name) plus a first person possessive.

WALS classifies Hungarian as a language in which pronominal subjects are expressed by affixes on the verb. This app's card "Én" (I / Me) says that Hungarian verb endings already mark the subject, so this pronoun is normally dropped.

A paper on Hungarian verb agreement explains that Hungarian verbs have two sets of subject endings, called subjective (alanyi) and objective (tárgyas) in the Hungarian grammatical tradition. The objective conjugation is generally used when the verb has a definite object, as in Látom a madarat ("I see the bird"), while the subjective conjugation is used with an indefinite object, as in Látok egy madarat ("I see a bird"), and when there is no object, as in Várok ("I'm waiting"). The paper's list of forms that trigger the objective conjugation includes proper names, nouns with the definite article a/az, third person pronouns and nouns with a possessive suffix. With first and second person objects the subjective conjugation is used, as in Látnak engem/téged/minket ("They see me/you/us"), except that when the subject is first person singular and the object is second person, a special ending -lak/-lek is used, as in Szeretlek ("I love you"). This app's card "Kedvelsz engem?" (Do you like me?) notes that first and second person objects ("engem", "téged") always take the indefinite conjugation, hence "kedvelsz". Its card "Szeretlek." (I love you.) notes that it combines a first person subject and a second person object in a single word, and its card "Kérem" (Please / You're welcome / Here you are) notes that it is the first person singular definite form of "kér".

The same paper notes that the definite article is a before a consonant and az before a vowel, and its examples show egy as the word for "a". This app's card "Ki a művész?" (Who is the artist?) notes that "a" is used before consonants and "az" before vowels, and its card "Meddig tart nyitva az ABC?" (How late is the shop open?) notes that "ABC" is read out as its letter names, "á-bé-cé", so the article becomes "az".

WALS records that Hungarian has no grammatical gender.

WALS records that Hungarian negates a clause with a negative particle that comes before the verb. This app's card "Nem értem" (I don't understand) notes that "nem" before a verb negates it, and its card "Van törzsvásárlói kártyája?" (Do you have a loyalty card?) notes that the negative answer is not "nem" but "nincs" (there isn't). WALS also records that Hungarian can express situational possibility with affixes on verbs; this app's card "Megnézhetem a frizurakatalógust?" (Can I look at a hairstyle book?) notes that the "-hat/-het" suffix means "can I".

WALS lists Hungarian among the languages that lack a dominant order of subject, object and verb.

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Politeness & etiquette

Hungarian has an informal "you", te, and polite forms, maga and ön. In a paper on forms of address, the author says that in Hungarian the role of the non-informal second person was taken over by the third person singular verb form, and that one can address people politely in the singular as well as in the plural. Its examples set the informal Te is itt vagy? beside the polite Maga is itt van? and Ön is itt van. for one person, and Ti is itt vagytok? beside Maguk is itt vannak? and Önök is itt vannak? for several people.

This app's card "Honnan jön ön?" (Where are you from? (formal)) uses the verb jön with ön, and its note gives the casual version "Honnan jössz?". The card "Kér zacskót?" (Would you like a bag?) notes that Hungarian politeness ("magázás") uses third-person singular verb forms rather than second person, so "Kér...?" with the pronoun "Ön" dropped is already formal. The card "Kérem, várjon" (Please wait) notes that "várjon" is used as the polite request form and "várj" is informal. The card "Ön" (You (formal)) describes it as the polite "you" for strangers, staff and officials, and says that close acquaintances get "te".

The same paper says that today maga is acceptable towards equals and towards people below the speaker, while ön is used towards equals and towards people above, and that a somewhat uneducated, coarse undertone attached to maga soon after it appeared. It also describes a further polite manner, called tetszikelés, with forms such as Le tetszik-e szállni? and Hogy tetszik lenni?, which it calls rather the habitual form of politeness of the educated in Hungary and which many people regard as the most polite kind of magázás. It adds that instead of maga or ön the person addressed can be named with a noun and a third-person verb, as in Kérem az igazgató urat.

The paper says that neither Hungarian nor Serbian has rules for whom to address with te and whom with maga, only experience and habits of usage, and it lists factors such as the age difference of the speakers, how well they know each other, the kind of relationship and the roles between them, and whether the setting is a village or a town. A linguist writing on the same spelling portal reports that te has been spreading: within families, mutual te has become general when the speakers are a generation apart, and in the group aged 18 to 40 the choice of te shows a very high proportion in the street, when asking for information, and when addressing shop assistants and waiters.

The spelling rules say that in official documents and letters the common nouns in an address are usually capitalised, as in Tisztelt Nagy Úr!, and that in running text nouns, pronouns and pronoun-like adverbs referring to the person addressed are usually written with a small letter, as in önöket, but that a capital letter may be used to express increased respect, as in A legfőbb érdem az Önöké. This app writes "önt" with a small letter in the card "Hogy hívják önt?" (What is your name? (formal)) and "Ön" with a capital in the card "Megkaphatom az Ön névjegykártyáját?" (Can I have your business card?).

An analysis of emails sent to the advisory service of a Hungarian Academy of Sciences linguistics institute found that greetings often appear as the opening formula of an email in place of an address, the most frequent being Jó napot kívánok! This app's card "Jó napot kívánok" (Hello / Good day) is described as a formal daytime greeting for strangers or elders. Its card "Szeretnék pénzt felvenni." (I'd like to withdraw money.) notes that "Szeretnék ~" is a polite expression meaning "I would like to ~".

A Hungarian personal name is written with the family name first and the given name after it: a cataloguing manual gives the structure of a Hungarian personal name as the surname followed by the given name or names. The spelling rules show the same order when they say that for some foreign names the order and the given name are Hungarian, giving Luther Márton and Marx Károly for Martin Luther and Karl Marx.

Sources

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