Chapter III: Language

The Magyar or Hungarian language belongs to the northern or Finno-Ugric (q.v.) division of the Ural-Altaic family, and forms, along with Ostiak and Vogul, the Ugric branch of that division. The affinity existing between the Magyar and the Finnic languages, first noticed by John Amos Comenius (Komensky) in the middle of the 17th century,[58] and later by Olav Rudbeck,[59] Leibnitz,[60] Strahlenberg,[61] Eccard, Sajnovics,[62] and others, was proved "grammatically" by Samuel Gyarmathi in his work entitled _Affinitas linguae Hungaricae cum linguis Finnicae originis grammatice demonstrata_ (Gottingen, 1799). The Uralian travels of Anthony Reguly (1843-1845), and the philological labours of Paul Hunfalvy and Joseph Budenz, may be said to have established it, and no doubt has been thrown on it by recent research, though most authorities regard the Magyars as of mixed origin physically and combining Turkish with Finno-Ugric elements.

Although for nearly a thousand years established in Europe and
subjected to Aryan influences, the Magyar has yet retained its
essential Ural-Altaic or Turanian features. The grammatical forms are
expressed, as in Turkish, by means of affixes modulated according to
the high or low vowel power of the root or chief syllables of the word
to which they are appended--the former being represented by _e_, _o_,
_o_, _u_, _u_, the latter by _a_, _a_, _o_, _o_, _u_, _u_; the sounds
_e_, _i_, _i_ are regarded as neutral. In some respects the value of
the consonants varies from that usual in the Latin alphabet. _S_ is
pronounced as _sh_ in English, the sound of simple _s_ being
represented by _sz_. _C_ or _cz_ is pronounced as English _ts_; _cs_
as English _ch_; _ds_ as English _j_; _zs_ as French _j_; _gy_ as
_dy_. Among the striking peculiarities of the language are the
definite and indefinite forms of the active verb, e.g. _latom_, "I
see" (definite, viz. "him," "her," "the man," &c.), _latok_, "I see"
(indefinite); the insertion of the causative, frequentative,
diminutive and potential syllables after the root of the verb, e.g.
_ver_, "he beats"; _veret_, "he causes to beat"; _vereget_, "he beats
repeatedly"; _verint_, "he beats a little"; _verhet_, "he can beat";
the mode of expressing possession by the tenses of the irregular verb
_lenni_, "to be" (viz. _van_, "is"; _vannak_, "are"; _volt_, "was";
_lesz_, "will be," &c.), with the object and its possessive affixes,
e.g. _nekem vannak konyveim_, literally, "to me are books--my" = "I
have books"; _neki volt konyve_, "to him was book--his" = "he had a
book." Other characteristic features are the use of the singular
substantive after numerals, and adjectives of quantity, e.g. _ket
ember_, literally, "two man"; _sok szo_, "many word," &c.; the
position of the Christian name and title after the family name, e.g.
_Olmosy Karoly tanar ur_, "Mr Professor Charles Olmosy"; and the
possessive forms of the nouns, which are varied according to the
number and person of the possessor and the number of the object in the
following way: _tollam_, "my pen"; _tollaim_, "my pens"; _tollad_,
"thy pen"; _tollaid_, "thy pens"; _tollunk_, "our pen"; _tollaink_,
"our pens," &c. There is no gender, not even a distinction between
"he," "she," and "it," in the personal pronouns, and the declension is
less developed than in Finnish. But there is a wealth of verbal
derivatives, the vocabulary is copious, and the intonation harmonious.
Logical in its derivatives and in its grammatical structure, the
Magyar language is, moreover, copious in idiomatic expressions, rich
in its store of words, and almost musical in its harmonious
intonation. It is, therefore, admirably adapted for both literary and
rhetorical purposes.

The first Hungarian grammar known is the _Grammatica Hungaro-Latina_
of John Erdosi _alias_ Sylvester Pannonius, printed at Sarvar-Ujsziget
in 1539. Others are the posthumous treatises of Nicholas Revai (Pest,
1809); the _Magyar nyelvmester_ of Samuel Gyarmathi, published at
Klausenburg in 1794; and grammars by J. Farkas (9th ed., Vienna,
1816), Mailath (2nd ed., Pest, 1832), Kis (Vienna, 1834), Marton (8th
ed., Vienna, 1836), Maurice Ballagi or (in German) Bloch (5th ed.,
Pest, 1869), Topler (Pest, 1854), Riedl (Vienna, 1858), Schuster
(Pest, 1866), Charles Ballagi (Pest, 1868), Remele (Pest and Vienna,
1869), Roder (Budapest, 1875), Fuhrer (Budapest, 1878), Ney (20th ed.,
Budapest, 1879), C. E. de Ujfalvy (Paris, 1876), S. Wekey (London,
1852), J. Csink (London, 1853), Ballantik (Budapest, 1881); Singer
(London, 1882).

The earliest lexicon is that of Gabriel (Mizser) Pesti _alias_
Pestinus Pannonius, _Nomenclatura sex linguarum, Latinae, Italicae,
Gallicae, Bohemicae, Ungaricae et Germanicae_ (Vienna, 1538), which
was several times reprinted. The _Vocabula Hungarica_ of Bernardino
Baldi (1583), the original MS. of which is in the Biblioteca Nazionale
at Naples, contains 2899 Hungarian words with renderings in Latin or
Italian.[63] In the _Dictionarium undecim linguarum_ of Calepinus
(Basel, 1590) are found also Polish, Hungarian and English words and
phrases. This work continued to be reissued until 1682. The _Lexicon
Latina-Hungaricum_ of Albert Molnar first appeared at Nuremberg in
1604, and with the addition of Greek was reprinted till 1708. Of
modern Hungarian dictionaries the best is that of the Academy of
Sciences, containing 110,784 articles in 6 vols., by Czuczor and
Fogarasi (Pest, 1862-1874). The next best native dictionary is that of
Maurice Ballagi, _A Magyar nyelv teljes szotara_, (Pest, 1868-1873).
In addition to the above may be mentioned the work of Kresznerics,
where the words are arranged according to the roots (Buda, 1831-1832);
the _Etymologisches Worterbuch ... aus chinesischen Wurzeln_, of
Podhorszky (Paris, 1877); _Lexicon linguae Hungaricae aevi
antiquioris_, by Szarvas Gabor and Simonyi Zsigmond (1889); and
"Magyar-Ugor osszehasonlito szotar" _Hungarian Ugrian Comparative
Dictionary_, by Bydenz (Budapest, 1872-1879). Other and more general
dictionaries for German scholars are those of Marton, _Lexicon
trilingue Latino-Hungarico-Germanicum_ (Vienna, 1818-1823), A. F.
Richter (Vienna, 1836), E. Farkas (Pest, 1848-1851), Fogarasi (4th
ed., Pest, 1860), Loos (Pest, 1869) and M. Ballagi (Budapest, 3rd ed.,
1872-1874). There are, moreover, Hungarian-French dictionaries by Kiss
and Karady (Pest and Leipzig, 1844-1848) and Babos and Mole (Pest,
1865), and English-Hungarian dictionaries by Dallos (Pest, 1860) and
Bizonfy (Budapest, 1886). (C. El.)