Sunday, September 4, 2022

Phonology of Finnish and Hungarian

Finnish and Hungarian are both members of the Finno-Ugric language family, a subdivision of the Uralic languages. Though they are not so similar to one another, they share a number of phonological similarities. One phonological rule which they share is vowel harmony.

The vowels of Finnish and Hungarian are similar. The two languages contrast short and long vowels. In Finnish the contrast is quantitative, but in Hungarian it is qualitative. Both languages have high front and mid front rounded vowels.

The consonants of the two languages are not as similar as the vowels. Both languages contrast short and long consonants. In Hungarian the contrast also occurs in the syllable coda.

Finnish lacks the affricates and alveopalatal fricatives of Hungarian. Consonants such as /b/ and /f/ are rare in Finnish and only occur in loanwords. The consonant /d/ usually only occurs intervocalically.

The Finnish and Hungarian languages demonstrate many phonological similarities. They include short and long vowels, short and long consonants and vowel harmony. Finnish vowel length is quantitative, but in Hungarian it is qualitative. Hungarian has more consonants than Finnish does.


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