Origin of the language

Historians have traced the origin of the Hungarian language to the Uralic group in Asia in the 1^st millennium BCE. The language separated from the ancient Ob-Ugric languages spoken then in modern-day western Siberia. During migration, Hungarian absorbed words from Turkic, Iranian, Slavic, Latin, and German languages.

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History of the language

Hungarian tribes settled in the Carpathian Basin in the 9^th century and still live in modern-day Hungary. They came from west of the Ural mountain. In the 6^th century, they used the Old Hungarian script. Old Hungarian and the first Christian kingdom developed in the Middle Ages. The oldest surviving text in Old Hungarian is the “Funeral Sermon and Prayer” from the late 12^th century.

The Middle Hungarian language emerged after the Ottoman invasions, and the first printed book, The letters of Saint Paul in the Hungarian language, was published in Krakow in 1533. If you said “Merry Christmas” in the Hungarian language in 1690, you might have been understood. By the 17^th century, the language was developing into modern-day Hungarian, which was refined by language reform and movements in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

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Learning the language

It takes 600 hours to learn Hungarian as an English speaker.

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Two words for red

There are two words for the color red: “piros” and “vörös.” One denotes the color while the other denotes intensity.

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Presence of vowels

Compared to many other languages, Hungarian has a high number of vowels: It has 14 vowels.

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A strong connection to its roots

Hungarian has stayed true to its roots and has retained 68% of its original vocabulary.

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