Wikijunior:Languages/Hungarian

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What writing system(s) does this language use?

Hungarian uses the Latin alphabet, just like English. However, the alphabet is slightly different. Hungarian uses two kinds of diacritics: the Acute accent (´) indicates long vowels, the umlaut (¨) modifies the pronunciation of sounds O and U, like in German and the double acute accent (˝) is used for long vowels with umlaut (Ő is pronounced as a long Ö).

Upper case	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	Q	R	S	Sz	T	Ty	U	Ú	Ü	Ű	V	W	X	Y	Z	Zs
Lower case	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	q	r	s	sz	t	ty	u	ú	ü	ű	v	w	x	y	z	zs

The digraphs and trigraphs Cs, Dz, Dzs, Gy, Ly, Ny, Sz, Ty and Zs count as one letter. The letters Q, W, X and Y are mostly used in borrowed words, only W is common in older family names.

Diacritic — a mark added to a letter to change the way it is pronounced.

Digraph — two letters written together that are pronounced as one sound.

Trigraph — two or three letters written after each other that are pronounced as one sound.

How many people speak this language?

There are about 15 million people speaking Hungarian but only about 9.5-10 million of these live in Hungary (click here to learn about Hungary). The others in the surrounding countries and all around the world, most of them in Romania and Slovakia.

What is the history of this language?

Hungarian is a Uralic language like Finnish and Estonian.

Before 1000 AD Hungarian had a different writing system called Old Hungarian script. It looks like this: . This reads rovásírás.

One of the first text written in Hungarian is the founding declaration of the Benedictine Abbey of Tihany from 1055.

Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Imre Kertész, who won a Nobel Prize in literature, Sándor Petőfi, Géza Gárdonyi, Ferenc Molnár, click here to see more...

Important: Hungarians use the Eastern order which means that natively the family name goes first and the given name is last. This way Sándor Petőfi is said as Petőfi Sándor in Hungary.

What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Hungarian	English
igen	yes
nem	no
bocsánat	sorry
köszönöm	thank you
én	I
te	you
ő	he/she
Jó reggelt!	Good morning
Jó napot!	Good day
Jó estét!	Good evening
Jó éjszakát!	Good night
Hogy vagy?	How are you?
A nevem ...	My name is ...
Magyarország	Hungary
magyar	Hungarian