Hungarian alphabet
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The Hungarian alphabet is an extension of the Latin alphabet.
One sometimes speaks of the smaller and greater Hungarian alphabet, depending on whether the letters Q, W, X, Y which can only be found in foreign words and traditional orthography of names are listed, or not.
The 44 letters of the (greater) Hungarian alphabet are:
| 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 |
Each sign shown above counts as a letter of its own right in Hungarian. (That is, they are not diacritical marks in the stricter sense of the word.) Thus, the letter ó is not an O with acute accent, but a long ó, and the letter ny is not an N and a Y, but rather the single letter NY.
While long vowels count as different letters, long (or geminate) consonants don't. Long consonants are marked by duplication: e.g. <tt>, <gg>, <zz> (ette 'he ate (det.obj.)', függ 'it hangs', azzal 'with that'). For the di- and tri-graphs a simplification rule applies: only the first letter is duplicated: e.g. <sz>+<sz>→<ssz> (asszony 'woman'), <ty>+<ty>→<tty> (hattyú 'swan'), <dzs>+<dzs>→<ddzs> (briddzsel 'with bridge (card game)').
Except at the joining points of composite words, for example: jegygyűrű 'engagement ring' (jegy + gyűrű) not *jeggyűrű.
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[edit] Capitalisation
The di- and the trigraphs are capitalised in names and at the beginning of sentences by capitalising the first glyph of them only.
- Csak jót mondhatunk Székely Csabáról.
In abbreviations and when writing with all capital letters, however, one capitalises the second (and third) character as well.
Thus ("The Rules of Hungarian Orthography", a book edited by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences):
- A magyar helyesírás szabályai
- MHSZ (not *MHSz)
- A MAGYAR HELYESÍRÁS SZABÁLYAI (not *SzABÁLyAI)
[edit] Pronunciation
Hungarian orthography's principles include being phonetic along with being traditional, etymological and simplifying. Therefore most words can be read out correctly, if one knows the pronunciation of the letters.
The pronunciation of Hungarian letters is in standard Hungarian.
(You might want to increase your browser's display font size to see the IPA symbols more correctly).
| Letter | Phoneme (IPA) | Complementary allophones (IPA)[1] | English pronunciation | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | /ɑ/ | bod | [ɑ̝̹] might describe it better (raised, more rounded; sign rendered probably incorrectly, containing two diacritical marks below). Still definitely not [ɔ]! | |
| Á | /aː/ | as 'i' in fire, like, or y in my, bra | ||
| B | /b/ | as by, absence etc. | ||
| C | /ts/ | like tsunami | ||
| Cs | /tʃ/ | as check,cheek, etching etc. | ||
| D | /d/ | deck, wide etc. | ||
| Dz | /dz/ | like in Hudson | does not occur at the beginning of words. When neither post- nor preconsonantic, always realised as a geminate. | |
| Dzs | /dʒ/ | bridge, edge, fridge | when final or intervocalic, usually realised as a geminate: maharadzsa /mɑhɑrɑdʒɑ/ [mɑhɑrɑd͡ʒːɑ] 'maharajah', bridzs /bridʒ/ [brid͡ʒː] 'bridge (card game)', but dzsungel /dʒuŋgɛl/ [d͡ʒuŋgɛl] 'jungle', fridzsider /fridʒidɛr/ [frid͡ʒidɛr]] coll. 'refrigerator' | |
| E | /ɛ/ | like less, cheque, edge, bed | about 40-50% of speakers also have a phoneme /e/ (see below at Ë). /e/ is not considered part of standard Hungarian, wherein /ɛ/ or /æ/ takes the place of /e/. | |
| (Ë) | /e/ | like in "same", without the /ɪ/ part of the diphthong /eɪ/ | Although not part of the alphabet, this symbol is sometimes used to denote the phoneme /e/, e.g. when noting down texts spoken or sung in a dialect where this sound is present. | |
| É | /eː/ | café, hey | ||
| F | /f/ | find, euphoria | ||
| G | /g/ | get, leg, go etc. | ||
| Gy | /ɟ/ | duke, dew, due (English, not American, pronunciantion) | denoting /ɟ/ by <gy> is a remnant of (probably) Italian scribes who tried to render the Hungarian sound. <dy> would be a more consistent notation in scope of <ty>, <ny>, <ly> (see there), as the <y> part of digraphs show palatalisation in the Hungarian writing system. | |
| H | /h/ | 1. [ɦ] | Basic: hi 1. behind 2. <mute> 3. loch, Chanukah 4. human |
1. when in intervocal position. 2. not rendered usually when in final position méh /meː/ 'bee', cseh /tʃɛ/ 'Czech (noun/adj.)' 3. seldom in final position, such as in doh 'dampness', méh 'uterus' 4. seldom, such as in ihlet 'inspiration' |
| I | /i/ | thick, thin | Pronounced the same as Í, only shorter | |
| Í | /iː/ | lead, leave, seed, sea | Vowel length is phonemically distinctive in Hungarian: irt 'he eradicates' ∼ írt 'he wrote' | |
| J | /j/ | [ç], [ʝ] | you, yes, faith | allophones occur when /j/ occurs after a consonant; (voiceless after voiceless, voiced after voiced consonants). e.g. férj 'husband', kapj 'get! (imperative)' |
| K | /k/ | key, kiss, weak | ||
| L | /l/ | leave, list, whole | ||
| Ly | /j/ | hey, ray | Orthographic tradition. Once /ʎ/, now /j/ in standard Hungarian. | |
| M | /m/ | mind, assume, might, | ||
| N | /n/ | [ŋ] |
thing, lying (before k,g), need, bone (anywhere else) |
allophone before /k/, /g/ |
| Ny | /ɲ/ | new | ||
| O | /o/ | force, sorcerer | Like O, just shorter | |
| Ó | /oː/ | falling, Paul | minimal pair to /o/: kor 'age' ∼ kór 'disease' | |
| Ö | /ø/ | Not used in English; very similar to the sound in the words early, burn, curly | The same as Ő, only shorter | |
| Ő | /øː/ | Not used in English; the same as Ö, only held longer | Minimal pair to /ø/: tör 'he breaks' ∼ tőr 'dagger' | |
| P | /p/ | peas, apricot, hope | ||
| (Q) | Q occurs only as part of the digraph qu in foreign words, realised as /kv/: Aquincum [ɑkviŋkum] (name of an old Roman settlement on the area of present-day Óbuda). Words originally spelled with qu are today usually spelled with kv, as in akvarell 'watercolor painting'. | |||
| R | /r/ | (not used in English, pronounced like Spanish R) | also called apical trill as pronounced by trilling the tip of your tongue (the apex) and not the uvula. | |
| S | /ʃ/ | share, wish, shout | This notation is unusual for European writing systems where <s> stands for /s/ virtually everywhere. In Hungarian, /s/ is represented by <sz>. | |
| Sz | /s/ | say, estimate | ||
| T | /t/ | tell, least, feast | ||
| Ty | /c/ | stew, stuart | ||
| U | /u/ | nuke, duke | ||
| Ú | /uː/ | look, do, fool | minimal pair to /u/: hurok 'loop' ∼ húrok 'cords' | |
| Ü | /y/ | (not used English, corresponds to German Ü) | Pronounced just as Ű, only short | |
| Ű | /yː/ | (not used in English) | ||
| V | /v/ | very, every | ||
| (W) | view, evolve, vacuum | occurs only in foreign words and in Hungarian aristocratic surnames; rendered usually as /v/ | ||
| (X) | occurs only in loanwords, and there only when denoting /ks/; [gz] is transcribed: extra, Alexandra, but egzakt 'exact'. | |||
| (Y) | in loanwords, usually rendered as /i/ or /j/. Occurs very often in old Hungarian aristocratic surnames where it stands for /i/ or /ʲi/: 'Báthory' [baːtori], 'Batthyány' [bɑcːaːɲi] (<n>+<y> ∼ /n/+/ʲi/ ∼ /nʲi/ ∼ /ɲi/) | |||
| Z | /z/ | desert, posess | ||
| Zs | /ʒ/ | pleasure, leisure, genre |
- ^ List of complementary allophone variants possibly not complete.
[edit] Alphabetical ordering (collation)
While the characters with diacritical marks are considered separate letters, vowels that differ only in length are treated the same when ordering words. Therefore, for example, O and Ó are not distinguished in ordering, neither are Ö and Ő, but the latter two follow the O's.
The polygraphic consonant signs are treated as single letters.
| comb | |
| cukor | |
| csak | <cs> comes after <c> |
| ... | |
| folyik | |
| folyó | <ó> is sorted as <o> |
| folyosó | |
| ... | |
| fő | and <ő> is sorted as <ö>, |
| födém | but <ö> comes after <o> |
| ... |
The simplified geminates of multigraphs (see above) such as <nny>, <ssz> are collated as <ny>+<ny>, <sz>+<sz> etc., if they are double geminates, rather than co-occurrences of a single letter and a geminate.
- könnyű is collated as <k><ö><ny><ny><ű>. tizennyolc of course as <t><i><z><e><n><ny><o><l><c>, as this is a compound: tizen+nyolc ('above ten' + 'eight' = 'eighteen').
Similar 'ambiguities', which can occur with compounds (which are highly common in Hungarian) are dissolved and collated by sense.
- e.g. házszám 'house number (address)' = ház + szám and of course not *házs + *zám.
[edit] Keyboard layout
The Hungarian keyboard layout is German-based (QWERTZ). This layout allows direct access to every character in the Hungarian alphabet.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Typo.cz Information on Central European typography and typesetting (Some sloppy/incorrect information about the history alphabets)
- X-SAMPA for Hungarian
