Turkish Loanwords in Hungarian

Hungarian has borrowed words from Turkish. This is because Hungary was part of the Ottoman Empire for 145 years. Here is a list of 10 words with the Turkish word on the left and the Hungarian one on the right:

arpa árpa (barley)
cep zseb (pocket)
çizme csizma (boot)
deniz tenger (sea)
deve teve (camel)
elma alma (apple)
ikiz iker (twin)
kapı kapu (gate)
pamuk pamut (cotton)
sakal szakáll (beard)

In the word pairs deniz/tenger and ikiz/iker we see the change of /z/ to /r/. The change of a consonant to the sound /r/ is rhotacism. The word pairs deniz/tenger and deve/teve illustrate the change from /d/ to /t/. Here the sound change is devoicing. With the words pamuk/pamut we see that the /k/ of Turkish becomes /t/ in Hungarian.

Hungarian has borrowed a number of words from Turkish. In the list the similarity of the words is evident. Hungary was part of the Ottoman Empire for over 100 years. As a result, it is not surprising that it has borrowed words from Turkish.

Syllabic Liquids in Croatian

Many languages have syllabic liquids. In Croatian, however, the lateral is only syllabic in loanwords such as spektakl (spectacle) and bicikl (bicycle). The trill, however, is often syllabic. Here are Croatian words in which the alveolar trill is syllabic:

brdo (hill)

brz (fast)

crn (black)

grm (brush)

krv (blood)

mrkva (carrot)

prst (finger)

srce (heart)

vrhnje (cream)

vrt (garden)

In Croatian the alveolar trill is often syllabic but the lateral is usually not. In Czech and Slovak, however, both are often syllabic. Polish is a related language but has no syllabic consonants. As the examples illustrate, Croatian has many words with the syllabic trill.

Tone Languages

Tone languages are languages with words which differ in their tones. Words with identical consonant and vowel sequences can be distinguished on the basis of tone alone. Many Asian languages are tone languages.

Burmese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Lao, Punjabi, Thai and Vietnamese are tone languages. Of these languages, Punjabi is the only one that belongs to the Indo-European language family. Most tone languages are found in Asia and Africa. African languages which are tone languages include Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.

The tones used in tone languages can be classified as contour and register. A contour tone is a tone which shifts from one pitch to another over a syllable or word. When the tone descends, it is called falling, and when it ascends, it is called rising. Other common contour tones are falling-rising and rising-falling. Many contour tone languages also have a tone spoken at a relatively even pitch which is called a level tone.

A register tone is a tone which is level. The pitch is relatively even. The distinction is in the level of pitch relative to other tones. Many languages of West Africa use register tones. For example, Yoruba has three level tones: high, mid and low.

Many languages use tone to distinguish words. Tone languages are especially common in East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. In the tone languages of East Asia, contour tones are common, but in Sub-Saharan Africa, register tones are common. Languages with contour tones usually have more tones than languages with register tones.

Nahuatl Numbers

Nahuatl is an Uto-Aztecan language. It is the most widely-spoken indigenous language in North America and is primarily spoken in central Mexico. Here are the numbers from one to ten in Nahuatl:

ce 
ome 
yei
nahui
macuilli
chicuace
chicome
chicuei
chiconahui
mahtlactli

Only the word for one, ce, is monosyllabic. The others are polysyllabic. The numbers for six, seven, eight and nine begin with the same syllable. From the list of numbers, it is clear that the vocabulary of Nahuatl is very different from that of Indo-European languages.

Sound Correspondences Between Finnish and Hungarian

Though Finnish and Hungarian are related languages, they are not as closely related as Finnish and Estonian. Nevertheless, they do not belong to the Indo-European language family. In fact, they are part of the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic language family. Let us illustrate three sound correspondences between Finnish and Hungarian.

Words with an initial p in Finnish sometimes correspond to an initial f in Hungarian:

pesä fészek (nest)
pilvi felhő (cloud)
puoli fél (half)
puu fa (tree)
pää fej (head)

Words with an initial k in Finnish sometimes correspond to an initial h in Hungarian:

kainalo hónalj (armpit)
kala hal (fish)
kolme három (three)
kuusi hat (six)
kuulo hallás (hearing)

Words with a word-final i in Finnish sometimes lack the vowel in Hungarian:

käsi kéz (hand)
mesi méz (honey)
sarvi szarv (horn)
talvi tél (winter)
vesi víz (water)

Sound correspondences between Finnish and Hungarian can be identified. The sound changes from /p/ to /f/ and /k/ to /h/ are examples of spirantization and the loss of word-final /i/ is an example of apocope. The examples illustrate that Finnish is more conservative than Hungarian. Viewed from another perspective, Hungarian is more innovative than Finnish.

Word-Final Consonants in Estonian and Finnish

Finnish words can only end in five consonants. They are /l/, /n/, /r/, /s/ and /t/. Loanwords are an exception to this rule. The following Finnish words end with consonants: avain (key), olut (beer), sammal (moss), taivas (sky) and tytär (daughter).

Estonian, a related language, not only allows more word-final consonants but also allows word-final long consonants such as in the word kell (clock), which is kello in Finnish.  Here are ten words to illustrate:

jalg jalka (leg)
järv järvi (lake)
kakskümmend kaksikymmentä (twenty)
kirik kirkko (church)
leib leipä (bread)
lehm lehmä (cow)
lind lintu (bird)
päev päiva (day)
silm silmä (eye)
võid voi (butter)

The examples illustrate that Estonian allows more word-final consonants than Finnish. In the pairs järv/järvi and silm/silmä the Estonian words are the result of apocope. Finnish retains the word-final consonant in these words and is thus more conservative.

Sandor Petofi

Sandor Petofi is considered Hungary's national poet. He wrote many beautiful poems. Although short, the poem Liberty and Love is well-known to all Hungarians. Here is the poem translated into English:

Liberty and Love

Liberty and love!
Liberty and love
These two I must have.
For my love I'll sacrifice
My life.
For liberty I'll sacrifice
My love.