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Notes on the Hungarian Language



This is a minor section; merely a quick guide to some of the "need-to-know" essentials of the Hungarian language. In no particular order:
  • Hungarian is not related to any other language. It is often classified as "Finno-Ugric," but this is definitely not true. Hungarian is a derivative of long-dead Sumerian, as can be seen from the similiarites in the vocabularies and is obvious from Hungarian history.
  • Hungarian has 44 letters, with 14 vowels. That includes many double-letters: like American has "ea" and "sh", Hungarian has sounds like "ny" "gy" "sz" and "zs". These are counted as single letters. All vowels have an accent mark version, and "o" and "u" have additional umlaut and double-accent marks.
  • The letter combo "sz" pronounces an American "s" sound, while "s" produces a "sh" sound. So, "Budapest" is pronounced "Budapesht." It is interesting to note that Polish is directly opposite where this is concerned, "sz" making a "sh" sound.
  • Hungarian is entirely phonetic. There are no spelling tests in Hungary, because every word is spelled exactly how it sounds. There are no deviant words. The trick is learning the extremely complex and numerous rules. Hungarian is one of the hardest languages to learn.
  • In Hungarian, every "r" is rolled. "T" is pronounced much harder: the sound is made when the tongue is very near the back of the roof of the mouth, instead of near the front, as in American. Hungarians say that an American "t" is always followed by a faint "h".
  • Hungarian was heavily influenced by the languages around it. While its core is unique (Sumerian in origin), centuries of occupation and invasion led to many words borrowed from Latin, German (radirgumi, zakko) and Turkish (papucs) (today, more and more English). To combat this, a Hungarian nobleman in the 1800s decided to create more Hungarian words. Around 2000-5000 of his words are in common usage today, such as "zongora" (piano).
  • Hungarian and Hunnish obviously have very much in common. They even had the same ancient alphabet, very similar to scandinavian runes. Please note: writing using this script was read right to left. Also, the letter labeled "veg K" is the letter K used at the beginning and end of words, and "koz K" is used in the middle.