Hungarian phonology
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| Hungarian language |
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| Alphabet, including ő ű and cs dz dzs gy ly ny sz ty zs |
| Phonetics and phonology |
| Vowel harmony |
| Grammar (Noun phrases · Verbs) |
| T-V distinction |
| Regulatory body |
| Hungarian names |
| Language history (Sound correspondences) |
| Tongue-twisters |
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Hungarian pronunciation of English Old Hungarian script English words from Hungarian |
| This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. |
- For assistance in making IPA transcriptions of Hungarian for Wikipedia articles, see WP:IPA for Hungarian.
This article is about the phonology of the Hungarian language. It deals with current phonology and phonetics. Hungarian is notable for its process of vowel harmony.
Contents |
[edit] Consonants
This is the Hungarian consonantal system using symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ||||
| Plosive | p b | t d | k ɡ | ||||
| Affricate | t͡s d͡z | t͡ʃ d͡ʒ | c͡ç ɟ͡ʝ | ||||
| Fricative | f v | s z | ʃ ʒ | h | |||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Approximant | l | j |
Almost every consonant may be geminated, written by doubling a single letter grapheme: bb, pp, ss etc., or by doubling the first letter of a grapheme cluster: ssz, nny, etc.
The phonemes /dz/ and /dʒ/ can appear on the surface as geminates: bridzs [briddʒ] ('bridge (the card game)'). (For the list of examples and exceptions, see Hungarian dz and dzs.)
The most important allophones are:
- /n/ becomes [ŋ] if followed by a velar consonant (e.g. hang [hɒŋɡ] 'voice').[citation needed]
- /j/ becomes [ç] if preceded by one of /p t k/ in the imperative conjugation at the end of a word (e.g. kapj [kɒpç] 'get (imp.)').[citation needed]
- /h/ may become [ɦ] between two vowels (e.g. tehát [tɛɦaːt] 'so'), [ç] after front vowels , and [x] word-finally after back vowels (e.g. doh [dox] ) if it isn't deleted (which it often is; e.g. méh [meː] 'bee').[2]
- /h/ becomes [xː] when geminated, in certain words: méhhel [meːxːɛl] ('with a bee'), peches [pɛxːɛʃ] ('unlucky')
| Phoneme | Example | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| /p/ | pipa | [pipɒ] | 'pipe' |
| /b/ | bot | [bot] | 'stick' |
| /t/ | toll | [toll] | 'feather' |
| /d/ | dob | [dob] | 'throw', 'drum' |
| /k/ | kép | [keːp] | 'picture' |
| /ɡ/ | gép | [ɡeːp] | 'machine' |
| /f/ | fa | [fɒ] | 'tree' |
| /v/ | vág | [vaːɡ] | 'cut' |
| /s/ | szó | [soː] | 'word' |
| /z/ | zöld | [zøld] | 'green' |
| /ʃ/ | só | [ʃoː] | 'salt' |
| /ʒ/ | zseb | [ʒɛb] | 'pocket' |
| /j/ | jó | [joː] | 'good' |
| /h/ | hó | [hoː] | 'snow', 'month' |
| /t͡s/ | cél | [t͡seːl] | 'goal', 'target' |
| /d͡z/ | edző | [ɛd͡zːøː] | 'zeta' |
| /t͡ʃ/ | csak | [t͡ʃɒk] | 'only' |
| /d͡ʒ/ | dzsessz | [d͡ʒɛss] | 'jazz' |
| /l/ | ló | [loː] | 'horse' |
| /c͡ç/ | tyúk | [c͡çuːk] | 'hen' |
| /ɟ͡ʝ/ | gyár | [ɟ͡ʝaːr] | 'factory' |
| /r/ | ró | [roː] | 'carve' |
| /m/ | ma | [mɒ] | 'today' |
| /n/ | nem | [nɛm] | 'no', 'gender' |
| /ɲ/ | nyár | [ɲaːr] | 'summer' |
Although not part of standard pronunciation, older speakers from certain rural (Palóc) communities in Hungary, including those of Alföld, Northeast Hungarian (especially from Nógrád megye), Székely, and Jászberény tend to speak with slight to heavy retroflexion of /t/ and /d/.[citation needed] Because this feature is stigmatized, younger people in these areas tend to have more alveolar articulations.
[edit] Vowels
Hungarian has seven pairs of corresponding short and long vowels. Their phonetic value does not match exactly, especially in the /ɛ/ – /eː/ and /ɒ/ – /aː/ pairs. For the other pairs, the short vowels are slightly lower and more central, and the long vowels more peripheral.
Although not found in Budapest, about half of all Hungarian speakers distinguish phonemic "ë" /e/ from /ɛ/ and /eː/.[citation needed] An example is orthographic mentek, which in 'Regional Standard' represents four contrasting words: mëntëk [mentek] ('you all go'), mëntek [mentɛk] ('they went'), mentëk [mɛntek] ('I save'), and mentek [mɛntɛk] ('they are exempt'). In Budapest, the first three collapse to [mɛntɛk], while the latter one is unknown, having a different form in the literary language (mentesek).
| Phoneme | Example | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| /ɒ/ | hat | [hɒt] | 'six' |
| /aː/ | vár | [vaːr] | 'castle' |
| /o/ | ok | [ok] | 'cause' |
| /oː/ | tó | [toː] | 'lake' |
| /u/ | ujj | [u] | 'finger' |
| /uː/ | út | [uːt] | 'road' |
| /ɛ/ | ez | [ɛz] | 'this' |
| /eː/ | él | [eːl] | 'live' |
| /i/ | visz | [vis] | 'carry' |
| /iː/ | víz | [viːz] | 'water' |
| /ø/ | öl | [øl] | 'kill' |
| /øː/ | lő | [løː] | 'shoot' |
| /y/ | üt | [yt] | 'hit' |
| /yː/ | tűz | [tyːz] | 'fire' |
[edit] Phonological processes
[edit] Vowel harmony
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As in Finnish and Turkish, vowel harmony plays an important part in determining the distribution of vowels in a word. The primary division is between front and back vowels.
The following vowels are considered front vowels:
- e [ɛ]
- é [eː]
- i [i]
- í [iː]
- ö [ø]
- ő [øː]
- ü [y]
- ű [yː]
The following vowels are considered back vowels:
- a [ɒ]
- á [aː]
- o [o]
- ó [oː]
- u [u]
- ú [uː]
For the most part, words contain vowels primarily of one of the two types. Mixed category words are uncommon, but do exist, even in native words (e.g. "derekas"). Most mixed words are of foreign origin (e.g. "telefon") or consist of compound words (e.g. "pénz|tárca" [purse]). For purposes of determining the class of suffix to use (suffixes usually have two forms, one for each of the classes of vowels) compound words take the suffix corresponding to the vowel-class of the last unit of the compound, and loanwords use the vowel-class of the last vowel.
/i/, /e:/ and sometimes /e/, while being nominally "front" vowels, are "transparent"; i.e. if they are preceded by back vowels, the word is considered a back-vowel word.
A few words which contain /i/, /i:/ and, rarely, /eː/ are counted as back-vowel words because in Old Hungarian, the words contained the /ɨ/ phoneme in their place. This sound is the same as Polish y, Russian yery, Romanian â and î, and bears some resemblance to the sound of the "e" in "roses" in some dialects of English (in those dialects where "Rosa's" and "roses" don't sound alike). In today spoken Hungarian dialects, this vowel has merged with /i/, /iː/, and, rarely, /eː/ or even /u/.
Additionally, there is another set of criteria based on vowel roundedness for mid-high front vowels.
Most of Hungarian's multitude of suffixes have multiple forms for use depending on the vowel class predominating in the stem.
Most types are:
| alternating vowels | example | back stems | front non-rounded stems | front rounded stems |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| /a/, /e/ | -ban, -ben "in ..." | házban "in a house" | kézben "in hand" | könyvben "in a book" |
| /a:/, /e:/ | -ság, -ség "-ity, -ness, a collection of ..." | okosság "cleverness" | vétség "fault" | ökörség "ox-like-ness = stupidity" |
| /o/, /e/, /ø/ | -on, -en, -ön "on ..." | házon "on (the top of) a house" | kézen "on hand" | könyvön "on a book" |
| /o:/, /ø:/ | -ó, -ő "-ing" | váró "(sy) waiting" | néző "(sy) looking" | lövő "(sy) shooting" |
| /u/, /y/ | -unk, -ünk "plural 1st person present suffix" | várunk "we're waiting" | nézünk "we're looking" | lövünk "we're shooting" |
| /u:/, /y:/ | -ú, -ű "something having ..." | ötágú "five-pointed (star)" | szépszemű "having nice eyes" | gyönyörű "beautiful" |
As can be seen, the phoneme /e/ is found both in the low vowel series (/a/ - /e/), and in the mid vowel series (/o/ - /e/ - /ö/). This odd feature is solved in the old language and in dialects: there was/is an eighth short phoneme /ë/, which is just like the /e/ but it is mid, and its pronunciation is [e], in contrast with /e/ being [ɛ]. In dialects, this phoneme is found in the mid series, and the low /e/ in the low series.
The requirement of vowel harmony means that suffixes must always be of the same sound order as the word it is attached to, so a word of high order gets high suffixes (szekrénybe), and a word of deep order gets deep suffixes (házba). Therefore, suffixes containing vowels have two or three variants, one or two with a high vowel and one with a deep vowel (in: -ban, or -ben; on: -en, -ön, or -on).
Words of composite order generally get deep-ordered suffixes (békával), except some unused archaisms and some loanwords from foreign languages (farmerben = farmerban), or old but frequently used words containing neutral vowels (i,í and sometimes é) (hídon, hídra; derék ~ derekam). So for example the word kartonpapír, a compound word (karton|papír) with a composite-ordered last component (papír), gets deep suffixes (kartonpapírral, kartonpapírhoz, etc.), even though its last vowel is high.
Many suffixes have only one form. These are usually new-born suffixes (-kor "at the time of ...": hatkor "at 6 o'clock", hétkor "at 7 o'clock", ötkor "at 5 o'clock"), or they contain /i/ or /e:/ (-i "universal noun → adjective suffix": budai "somebody from Buda", pesti "somebody from Pest"; -ért "for ...": aranyért "for gold", ezüstért "for silver").
[edit] Assimilation
Stops, fricatives, and affricates have anticipatory assimilation of voicing, for example biztos "certain" is realised as [bistoʃ].
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Szende (1994:91)
- ^ Szende (1994:93)
- ^ Szende (1994:91)
- ^ Szende (1994:92)
[edit] External links
[edit] Bibliography
- Szende, Tamás (1994), "Illustrations of the IPA:Hungarian", Journal of the International Phonetic Alphabet 24 (2): 91–94, doi:
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