9 amazing facts about the Hungarian language that most people don’t know
The szabadonebredok.com is collected 9 interesting things about the Hungarian language:
1. Did you know that one of the earliest remaining fragments of the Hungarian language was found in Nova Scotia, Canada?
Yarmouth County Museum in Nova Scotia keeps a unique artifact – Runic Stone, which proves that at least one Hungarian was in America before Columbus. Tyrkir, who accompanied Vikings on the voyage of the great discoveries around the year 1000, was Hungarian. Samuel Laing has first disclosed this information about Tyrkir back in 1844, in London. Tyrkir carved in stone a 13-character inscription. Many theories and centuries later linguists denied the Norse Rune theory. The text on the stone was not written with a Runic alphabet, but in the Old Hungarian. In 1984 Szilva Lajosné has translated the infamous inscription – Ericson járt e helyen is sok társával.
2. Did you know that one of the most valuable incunabulum in the Library of the British Museum in London has a following opening sentence –“Az Ephesom helyeknek yrth Zent Pál levelének elsew capitoliuma”. The text, which is written in Hungarian, is a part of the book that was published in 1533.
3. Did you know that a group of linguists from the Department of Linguistics and Phonetics of Sorbonne University decided to conduct an antiquity exam of the several languages?
With a help of modern technologies and necessary tools scientists decided to establish which languages has preserved the most ancient elements of literacy and has the most etymons (the linguistic form from which another form is historically derived). According to the results: modern English contains 4% of etymons, Latin 5%, Hebrew 5%, the Pacific languages 7%, Indian languages 9%, Tibetan Sanskrit 12%, ancient Turkish and Turkmen 26%; however the language that contains the most of etymons is modern Hungarian – 68%!
4. Did you know that linguists put a huge emphasis on the question of antiquity of modern languages?
They conduct scientific research analyzing ancient ancestors and range of evidences from the tests. The Hungarian linguists, historians, professors have been working on that matter for over than 200 years. Everyone from Kerestesi József, Horváth István, Kőrösi Csoma Sándor, Táncsis Mihály, Varga Zsigmond, Pass László and many other inspiring Hungarian professionals have shown impressive dedication in conducting the antiquity examinations of the Euroasiatic languages. KeményFerenc is a linguist (he understands 40 languages and speaks 15) claims that the oldest of the Euroasiatic languages is the Hungarian language.
5. Did you know that Hungarian family names have been used as the geographical names in many places all over the world?
Dr. Vámos-Tóth Bátor, who lives on Hawaii Islands, and his colleagues have done a great job collecting examples of the Hungarian names and words used in the countries on all across the globe. They have established that over 6000 locations have Hungarian names. There are many examples of the Hungarian names given to geographic locations, cities, smaller towns, rivers, and hills in India, Iraq, Malta, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Philippines, and Caucasus region, alongside Udmurtia. The most common names are: Almás, Káldi, Kocsis, and Vajas.
6. Did you know that Sir John Bowring, who was an English political economist, traveller, polyglot and a 4th Governor of Hong Kong, spoke fluent Hungarian?
He translated many Hungarian poems into English ‑the book title was “Poetry of Magyars”. As a foreword of the book he wrote the following :” The Magyar language stands afar off and alone. The study of other tongues will be found of exceedingly little use towards its right understanding. It is molded in a form essentially its own, and its construction and composition may be safely referred to an epoch when most of the living tongues of Europe either had no existence, or no influence on the Hungarian region.”
7. Did you know that the Hungarian language is one of a kind in term of Effects of Compression on language?
There is no denial about this language being a truly unique linguistic phenomenon. The Hungarian language is very rich, and has absolutely unique phonetics of the consonants. Alongside 19 noun cases, numerous suffixes, prefixes, and verb conjugation.
8. Did you know that in the Western countries alphabet usually contains around 7 vowels?
For example, in Italy there are only 5. Whereas the Hungarian language recognizes and uses 14 vowels: a‑á, e‑é, i‑I, o‑ó, ö‑ő, u‑ú, ü‑ű.
9. Did you know that in the list of the most melodic languages first comes the Italian language, followed by the Greek and the third most melodic language is the Hungarian?
Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who was an Italian cardinal and famous linguist and hyper polyglot (he could write in 58 languages and could speak 103 languages), once said to the Czech linguist, Ludwig August Frankl: “Do you know which language is equal to Latin and Greek in its structure and rhythmic harmony? It is the Hungarian language. I am familiar with the new Hungarian poets, whose verses are completely mesmerizing. Let us watch the future, for the poetic genius will have a sudden upswing, which will prove my statement to be true. It seem as if the Hungarians themselves do not realize what a treasure is hidden in their language.” translated by Ekaterina Egorova
Source: szabadonebredok.hu / dailyhungary.com