April 30, 2018

Hungarian, the language of Hungary, is unlike most other languages of Europe. English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, for example, all belong to the Indo-European language family. Hungarian, however, is a member of the Finno-Ugric group of languages, which is part of the Uralic language family. Hungarian is related to Estonian and Finnish.

The Hungarian flag flies over millions of Hungarian speakers in Hungary. Credit: © Maximumvector/Shutterstock

An estimated 13 million people speak Hungarian, most of them in Hungary, where it is the official language. Ethnic Hungarians also make up substantial parts of the populations of such countries as Romania and Slovakia, where they tend to speak Hungarian among themselves. The Hungarian language, also known as Magyar, traces its roots back to the Magyar people, who originally lived between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains in what is now Russia. The Magyars started pushing west in the A.D. 500’s, and they eventually settled in the area that makes up modern Hungary. During the their westward migration, the Magyars came into contact with a number of other peoples whose languages influenced their own.

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Hungary. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

Through the years, Hungarian has adopted and adapted words from a number of other languages. Some scholars have suggested that the history of Hungary and the Magyars can be traced, in part, by the words it has borrowed from other languages. During the early migration of the Magyars to what is now Hungary, for example, they came into contact with groups of people who spoke Turkic and Iranian languages. Among the loan words from the Turkic languages are the words for apple (alma), wine (bor), and ankle (boka). Iranian borrowings include the words for bazaar or fair (vásár), cow (tehén), and milk (tej). The Hungarian words for cross (kërëszt) and cat (macska) were taken from the languages of neighboring Slavic peoples.

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Hungarian belongs to the Uralic language family of far northern Europe and Asia. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

Stephen I, Hungary’s first king, ruled from about 1000 until 1038. As a result of Stephen’s rule, Hungary became closely identified with the culture and politics of western Europe. Stephen established the Roman Catholic Church as Hungary’s official religion. The language of the church was Latin, and numerous loan words from Latin made their way into the Hungarian language. Among them were the words for angel (angyal), ink (tinta), and school (iskola). The Hungarian language also uses the Roman (Latin) alphabet.

Over time, Hungarian picked up words from a number of other languages. From trading with Venice and other Italian cities from the 1200’s to the 1400’s, for example, Hungary borrowed and adapted many Italian words. For centuries, while Hungary was part of the Austrian Empire and the country of Austria-Hungary, many German words made their way into the Hungarian language.

Today, Hungarian continues to be a living, growing language. Among the relatively recent additions to the language, for example, are words related to technology, such as internet, cell phone (mobiltelefon), and computer (számítógép); terms from popular culture, such as superstar (szupersztár), action movie (akciófilm), and blockbuster (kasszasiker); and terms relating to medicine and the human body, such as medical genetics (orvosi genetika), gene therapy (génterápia), and arthroscopic surgery (artroszkópos sebészet).

By the way, in case you are wondering, the Hungarian word for Monday is hétfő.

September 3, 2015

Over the past several years, the European Union (EU) has been faced with a growing problem—a trickle of migrants and refugees has become a flood of people trying to gain entry to EU nations. This week, the problem became acute in Budapest, Hungary.

Refugees storm a train at the Keleti train station in Budapest, Hungary, on September 3. After two days of blocking entrance to the station, Hungarian police began allowing refugees in again. (Credit: © Laszlo Balogh, Reuters/Landov)

According to the United Nations (UN), migrants are people seeking to live in a new country for economic reasons. They are from poor nations and believe they will have a better standard of living in a wealthier nation. Refugees are people fleeing to a new country because of dangerous conditions in their own nation. Such conditions may include war; famine; or persecution based on religion, nationality, or political or other beliefs.

Many migrants, often from African nations, arrive by sea in dangerous ships not fit to use as transportation. Greece and Italy have been frequent destinations for migrants, and both southern coastal nations have been hard-pressed to mount rescues for those who encounter difficulties on their journey. In 2015 alone, more than 2,000 migrants have died crossing the Mediterranean Sea in an attempt to reach Europe.

Refugees from Syria and other war-torn regions of the Middle East also take a dangerous sea journey. After their arrival in Greece, they tend to travel overland to Macedonia, through Serbia and Hungary, hoping to arrive in Germany. Thus far in 2015, nearly 500,000 people have entered Europe hoping to find a new home. It is the greatest movement of refugees in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).

On Tuesday, September 1, the lives of many mostly Syrian refugees became even harder when the nation of Hungary closed its train station in Budapest and refused to allow refugees to board trains for their final destination countries of Austria and Germany. The government of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban cited EU rules that state that refugees must be issued documents upon their arrival in Europe by the nation in which they landed. Orban claimed all refugees must be documented by Hungary before traveling on to Germany.

The scene in and outside the Keleti train station in Budapest was one of chaos. For the first two days, the train station was closed to refugees. Some 2,000 refugees slept outside the train station with no shelter or toilets. As of this morning, the station was reopened to the Syrians, although they are still not allowed to travel on trains out of Budapest. Even with the station as a shelter, services for many people are not available from the Hungarian government.