Hungarian Learning Community and Resources

Fun Facts You Didn’t Know About Hungarian Language – 1.

It is true that the Hungarian language occupies a special place in the heart of Europe. Neither the language nor the people who speak it are related to any of the neighbouring countries. Moreover, even if we were to search for our distant relatives, we wouldn't be able to understand ourselves with them either, because languages keep evolving .

Here are some interesting facts about the Hungarian language! 

A language of Asian origin 

According to scientific studies, Hungarian is a language of Asian origin, which explains why it does not resemble the language of any nearby nation (with the exception, of course, of the words and expressions adopted over a thousand years). Hungarian comes from the region of the Ural Mountains and is a member of the Finno-Ugric language family. It is particularly interesting that, thanks to this, Finnish and Estonian are the two closest language relatives, despite the fact that we are separated by many borders from these two countries. 

A flexible word order 

One of the most characteristic features of the Hungarian language is that the words of a sentence can be arranged in several ways. This in itself is a tough nut to crack for those learning Hungarian, and many are blown away when they find out that even this is bound by rules. 

Ancient traces could be found in America 

Within the walls of the Yarmouth County Museum, a piece of stone with a mysterious origin is kept, which experts have been working on deciphering for centuries. The Yarmouth Runic Stone is a large piece of quartzite decorated with ancient runes, but no one knows what language they were written in. Ancient Hungarian is among the many assumed languages. 

The Hungarian language takes care of itself 

Compared to many other languages, Hungarian has changed a lot since its inception (which, of course, cannot be linked to a single specific date), but despite all this, it is still very faithful to its ancient roots. Today, the Hungarian language preserves and uses 68% of its original words, while only 4% of the words of the English language have survived. 

From some people’s point of view, Hungarian names are reversed 

Foreigners arriving in Hungary are often surprised to find that everyone introduces themselves to them in the opposite way. Of course, this is also true in the opposite case: a Hungarian learning English, for example, must get used to the fact that in English the first name comes first, and the last name follows.