Contents
Hungarian language
Alphabet, including ő ű and
cs dz dzs gy ly ny sz ty zs
Phonetics and phonology
Vowel harmony
Grammar
(Noun phrases · Verbs)
T-V distinction
Regulatory body
Hungarian names
Language history
(Sound correspondences)
Tongue-twisters
Hungarian pronunciation of English
Old Hungarian script
English words from Hungarian
For assistance in making IPA transcriptions of Hungarian for Wikipedia articles, see WP:IPA for Hungarian.
This article is about the phonology of the Hungarian language. It deals with current phonology and phonetics. Hungarian is notable for its process of vowel harmony.
Consonants
This is the Hungarian consonantal system using symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
Consonant phonemes of Hungarian[1] Bilabial Labio-dental Alveolar Post-
alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ɲ
Plosive p b t d k ɡ
Affricate t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ c͡ç ɟ͡ʝ
Fricative f v s z ʃ ʒ h
Trill r
Approximant l j
Almost every consonant may be geminated, written by doubling a single letter grapheme: bb, pp, ss etc., or by doubling the first letter of a grapheme cluster: ssz, nny, etc.
The phonemes /dz/ and /dʒ/ can appear on the surface as geminates: bridzs [briddʒ] ('bridge (the card game)'). (For the list of examples and exceptions, see Hungarian dz and dzs.)
The most important allophones are:
- /n/ becomes [ŋ] if followed by a velar consonant (e.g. hang [hɒŋg] 'voice').[citation needed]
- /j/ becomes [ç] if preceded by one of /p t k/ in the imperative conjugation at the end of a word (e.g. kapj [kɒpç] 'get (imp.)').[citation needed]
- /h/ may become [ɦ] between two vowels (e.g. tehát [tɛɦaːt] 'so'), [ç] after front vowels , and [x] word-finally after back vowels (e.g. doh [dox] ) if it isn't deleted (which it often is; e.g. méh [meː] 'bee').[2]
- /h/ becomes [xː] when geminated, in certain words: méhhel [meːxːɛl] ('with a bee'), peches [pɛxːɛʃ] ('unlucky')
/p/ pipa [pipɒ] 'pipe'
/b/ bot [bot] 'stock'
/t/ toll [toll] 'feather'
/d/ dob [dob] 'throw', 'drum'
/k/ kép [keːp] 'picture'
/g/ gép [geːp] 'machine'
/f/ fa [fɒ] 'tree'
/v/ vág [vaːg] 'cut'
/s/ szó [soː] 'word'
/z/ zöld [zøld] 'green'
/ʃ/ só [ʃoː] 'salt'
/ʒ/ zseb [ʒɛb] 'pocket'
/j/ jó [joː] 'good'
/h/ hó [hoː] 'snow', 'month'
/t͡s/ cél [t͡seːl] 'goal', 'target'
/d͡z/ dzéta [d͡zeːtɒ] 'zeta'
/t͡ʃ/ csak [t͡ʃɒk] 'only'
/d͡ʒ/ dzsessz [d͡ʒɛss] 'jazz'
/l/ ló [loː] 'horse'
/c͡ç/ tyúk [c͡çuːk] 'hen'
/ɟ͡ʝ/ gyár [ɟ͡ʝaːr] 'factory'
/r/ ró [roː] 'carve'
/m/ ma [mɒ] 'today'
/n/ nem [nɛm] 'no', 'gender'
/ɲ/ nyár [ɲaːr] 'summer'
Vowels
Hungarian has seven pairs of corresponding short and long vowels. Their phonetic value does not match exactly, especially in the /ɛ/ – /eː/ and /ɒ/ – /aː/ pairs. For the other pairs, the short vowels are slightly lower and more central, and the long vowels more peripheral.
The length distinction in high vowels is not consistent. Many dialects lack the phonemes /iː/, /uː/ and /yː/, and colloquial use is also very different from the orthography (e.g. unió is pronounced [uːnioː], but kórház is pronounced [korhaːz]).[citation needed]
Although not found in Budapest, about half of all Hungarian speakers distinguish phonemic "ë" /e/ from /ɛ/ and /eː/.[citation needed] An example is orthographic mentek, which in 'Regional Standard' represents four contrasting words: mëntëk [mentek] ('you all go'), mëntek [mentɛk] ('they went'), mentëk [mɛntek] ('I save'), and mentek [mɛntɛk] ('they are exempt'). In Budapest, the first three collapse to [mɛntɛk], while the latter one is unknown, having a different form in the literary language (mentesek).
Examples[4] Phoneme Example/ɒ/ hat [hɒt] 'six'
/aː/ vár [vaːr] 'castle'
/o/ ok [ok] 'cause'
/oː/ tó [toː] 'lake'
/u/ ujj [u] 'finger'
/uː/ út [uːt] 'road'
/ɛ/ ez [ɛz] 'this'
/eː/ él [eːl] 'live'
/i/ visz [vis] 'carry'
/iː/ víz [viːz] 'water'
/ø/ öl [øl] 'kill'
/øː/ lő [løː] 'shoot'
/y/ üt [yt] 'hit'
/yː/ tűz [tyːz] 'fire'
Phonological processes
Vowel harmony
As in Finnish and Turkish, vowel harmony plays an important part in determining the distribution of vowels in a word. The primary division is between front and back vowels.
The following vowels are considered front vowels:
e [ɛ] é [eː] i [i] í [iː] ö [ø] ő [øː] ü [y] ű [yː]The following vowels are considered back vowels:
a [ɒ] á [aː] o [o] ó [oː] u [u] ú [uː]For the most part, words contain vowels primarily of one of the two types. Mixed category words are uncommon, but do exist, even in native words (e.g. "derekas"). Most mixed words are of foreign origin (e.g. "telefon") or consist of compound words (e.g. "pénz|tárca" [purse]). For purposes of determining the class of suffix to use (suffixes usually have two forms, one for each of the classes of vowels) compound words take the suffix corresponding to the vowel-class of the last unit of the compound, and loanwords use the vowel-class of the last vowel.
/i/, /e:/ and sometimes /e/, while being nominally "front" vowels, are "transparent"; i.e. if they are preceded by back vowels, the word is considered a back-vowel word.
A few words which contain /i/, /i:/ and, rarely, /eː/ are counted as back-vowel words because in Old Hungarian, the words contained the /ɨ/ phoneme in their place. This sound is the same as Polish y, Russian yery, Romanian â and î, and bears some resemblance to the sound of the "e" in "roses" in some dialects of English (in those dialects where "Rosa's" and "roses" don't sound alike). In today spoken Hungarian dialects, this vowel has merged with /i/, /iː/, and, rarely, /eː/ or even /u/.
Additionally, there is another set of criteria based on vowel roundedness for mid-high front vowels.
Most of Hungarian's multitude of suffixes have multiple forms for use depending on the vowel class predominating in the stem.
Most types are:
alternating vowels example back stems front non-rounded stems front rounded stems/a/, /e/ -ban, -ben "in ..." házban "in a house" kézben "in hand" könyvben "in a book"
/a:/, /e:/ -ság, -ség "-ity, -ness, a collection of ..." okosság "cleverness" vétség "fault" ökörség "ox-like-ness = stupidity"
/o/, /e/, /ø/ -on, -en, -ön "on ..." házon "on (the top of) a house" kézen "on 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"
/u:/, /y:/ -ú, -ű "something having ..." ötágú "five-pointed (star)" szépszemű "having nice eyes" gyönyörű "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 contrast with /e/ being [ɛ]. In dialects, this phoneme is found in the mid series, and the low /e/ in the low series.
The requirement of vowel harmony means that suffixes must always be of the same sound order as the word it is attached to, so a word of high order gets high suffixes (szekrénybe), and a word of deep order gets deep suffixes (házba). Therefore, suffixes containing vowels have two or three variants, one or two with a high vowel and one with a deep vowel (in: -ban, or -ben; on: -en, -ön, or -on).