History[edit]

Classification[edit]

Hungarian is a Uralic language, more specifically an Ugric language. Connections between the Ugric and Finnic languages were noticed in the 1670s and established, along with the entire Uralic family, in 1717, although the classification of Hungarian continued to be a matter of political controversy into the 18th and even 19th centuries. Today the Uralic family is considered one of the best demonstrated large language families, along with Indo-European and Austronesian.

There are numerous regular sound correspondences between Hungarian and the other Ugric languages. For example, Hungarian /a:/ corresponds to Khanty /o/ in certain positions, and Hungarian /h/ corresponds to Khanty /x/, while Hungarian final /z/ corresponds to Khanty final /t/. For example, Hungarian ház (IPA: [ha:z]) "house" vs. Khanty xot (IPA: [xot]) "house", and Hungarian száz (IPA: [sa:z]) "hundred" vs. Khanty sot (IPA: [sot]) "hundred".

The distance between the Ugric and Finnic languages is greater, but the correspondences are also regular.

The Antiquity and the early Middle Ages[edit]

As Uralic linguists claim, Hungarian separeted from its closest relatives approximately 3000 years ago, so the history of the language begins around 1000 BC. The Hungarians gradually changed their way of living from settled hunters to nomadic cattle-raising. Their most important animals included sheep and cattle. There are no written resources on the era, thus only a little is known about it. However, research has revealed some really early loandwords, such as szó ('word'; from the Turkic languages) and daru ('crane', from the related Permic languages.)

The Turkic languages later, especially between the 5th and the 9th centuries had a great influence on the language. Several words related to agriculture, to state administration or even to family relations have such backgrounds. Interestingly, Hungarian syntax and grammar was not influenced in a similarly dramatic way.

The Hungarian migrated to the Carpathian Basin around 896. Thus, they also got in contact with Slavic peoples, and loaned several words from them, for example tégla, mák, or karácsony. In exchange, the neighbouring Slavic languages also contain some words of Hungarian origin (such as Croatian čizma, or Serbian ašov).

The first written accounts of Hungarian, mostly personal and place names, are dated back to the 10th century. Hungarians also had their own writing system, the Old Hungarian script, but no significant texts remained from the time.

Since the foundation of the Kingdom of Hungary[edit]

The Kingdom of Hungary was founded in 1000, by Stephen I of Hungary. The country was a western-styled feudal state, and Latin held an important position, as it was usual in the Middle Ages.

Therefore, Hungarian was also heavily influenced by Latin. The first extant text of the language is the Funeral Sermon and Prayer, denoted once in the 1190s. The earliest example of Hungarian religious poetry is the Old Hungarian 'Lamentations of Mary', a poem about the afflictions of Mary when she saw the death of his son. More extensive literature in the Hungarian language arose after 1300. The first Bible translation is the Hussite Bible from the 1430s.

The language lost its dipthongs, and several postpositions transformed into suffixes, such as reá 'onto' – 1055: utu rea 'onto the way'; later: útra). Vowel harmony was also developed. By the time, Hungarian used six verb tenses; today, only two.

The first printed Hungarian book was published in Cracow in 1533, by Benedek Komjáti. The work's title is Az zenth Paal leueley magyar nyeluen, i.e. The letters of Saint Paul in the Hungarian language. In the 17th century, tje language was already very similar to its present-day form, although two of the past tenses were still used. German, Italian and French loans also appeared in the language by these years.

In the 18th century, the language was not capable for scientific explanation, and several writers found the vocabulary a bit scant for literary purposes. Thus, a group of writers, most notably Ferenc Kazinczy, began to compensate these imperfections. Some words wre shortened (győzedelem > győzelem 'triumph'), a number of dialectical words were spread nationally (e. g. cselleng 'dawdle'), extinct words were reintroduced (dísz 'décor'), and a wide range of expressions were coined using the various derivative suffixes; some other, less frequently used methods are also known. This movement was called the 'language reform' (Hungarian: nyelvújítás), and produced more than ten thousands words, many of them used actively till today. The reforms lead to that Hungarian was made official in the multiethnic country in 1844 instead of Latin.

The 19th and 20th centuries saw further standardization of the language, and the even originally inconsiderable differences between dialects gradually became less. In 1920, by signing the Treaty of Trianon, Hungary lost several territories, most of them inhabited by non-Hungarian peoples. Today, the language is official in Hungary, and regionally also in Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia.

Az zenth Paal leueley magyar nyeluen[edit]

Az zenth Paal leueley magyar nyeluen (latin subheading: EPISTOLAE Pavli lingva Hvngarica donatae; IPA: [ɒz sent pa:l levelei mɒɟɒr ɲelven]; English: The epistles of Saint Paul in the Hungarian language) is the first known printed book in the Hungarian language. It was published in 1633, in the Polish city of Crackow, by the order of Benedek Komjáti, the translator.

az első magyar nyelvű nyomtatott könyv volt, melyet 1533-ban jelentetett meg Krakkóban a szerzője, Komjáti Benedek. A Biblia egy részét, mégpedig Pál apostol leveleit tartalmazza.

Komjáti már 1532-ben befejezte a munkát, de a részleges fordítást csak egy esztendővel később nyomtattatta ki a krakkói Vietor-nyomdában. A részleges bibliafordításból mára csupán két teljes, valamint néhány töredezett példány maradt fenn. Az egyik teljes példány Magyarországon található.

A fordításról az irodalomtörténészek feltételezik, hogy nem teljes egészében Komjáti műve: egyes vélemények szerint plágium, mások szerint kompiláció. Tény, hogy szerző saját bevallása alapján már korábban olvasta magyarul a leveleket, de azokat nem tartotta megfelelőnek. Ez a korábbi fordítás valószínűleg a Huszita Biblia.

A könyvek mérete nyolcadrét, a teljes példányok 236 levélből állnak.

Forrásművek[edit]

{{forrásnyelv|magyarul}} Molnár-Simon: Magyar nyelvemlékek. Tankönyvkiadó, Budapest, 1980. ISBN 963 17 4738 7