Differences in Finnish and Hungarian Word Order

Finnish and Hungarian are both part of the Uralic language family. However, the similarity between the two languages is relatively small. Much of the vocabulary is different, and though they are both SVO languages, the word order is often different.

The sentence I am a teacher is Olen opettaja in Finnish and Tanár vagyok in Hungarian. In both languages, the subject pronoun I can be dropped. However, the word order is different in the two languages. Finnish places the complement after the verb, the same as in English. In Hungarian, the complement comes before the verb.

The question Where is the park? is Missä puisto on? in Finnish. The word puisto (park) precedes the verb. The question has no definite article because it does not exist in Finnish.

In Hungarian the question Where is the park? is Hol van a park? The word order is the same as in English. The verb comes before the complement.

The sentence I am in the library is Olen kirjastossa in Finnish. The English preposition in is the postposition -ssa in Finnish. In Hungarian the sentence is A könyvtárban vagyok. The preposition in is the postposition -ban in Hungarian, but in the Hungarian sentence, the verb follows the noun phrase and there is a definite article.

The question Is it near? is Onko se lähellä? in Finnish. The order is the same as in English, but the verb includes the question particle -ko. In Hungarian, however, the question is Közel van? The subject position is empty, and the verb follows the complement. The Hungarian question uses rising intonation because falling intonation is used for the sentence Közel van (It is near). In Finnish the intonation in Se on lähellä (It is near) is the same as in the question Onko se lähellä?.

Though Finnish and Hungarian both belong to the Uralic language family and to the Finno-Ugric subfamily, they are not so closely related. Similarities include the use of postpositions and the option to drop subject pronouns. However, in vocabulary, grammar, phonology and also word order they exhibit many differences.