Hungarian explained - such long words, such an isolated language
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Published 2016-12-16
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~ Spoiler Alert! ~
I couldn't ignore the many commenters who've pleaded with me to give Hungarian a shot. After gathering up some grammars and purchasing Lendvai's history, The Hungarians, I see why! I just had to share this linguistic tale.
This video tells two stories that intertwine. First, how Hungarian got to be such a lonely language island among Indo-European languages. Second, how Hungarian uses a long-word-building strategy that's "foreign" in a European context: agglutination with vowel harmony. At the end, the two come together as linguists trace its words back to a common ancestor called Uralic. The Uralic family explains Hungarian's uniqueness, but also its distant relations to Finnish and Estonian within Europe and its closer shared prehistory with Uralic languages in Russia that suggest a long, long, LONG migration from Siberia!
I cut an observation from the video that I wish to add here. "Agglutination" is abnormal in Europe, but that could have more to do with a quirk of Indo-European than Uralic. "Agglutinative" languages aren't rare around the world, and even other families like Turkic have vowel harmony. Compare that European-style "fusional" types.
I am not Hungarian - check and correct. That said, I poured into this every last ounce of the time I spent practicing the language.
~ CREDITS ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang.
Some of the music, too.
Sources for my claims and credits for imgs, sfx, music:
docs.google.com/document/d/1aLQ2sY4KTj8Ya3ymhvsBUL…
All Comments (21)
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Holy. how can one learn this language, does it take 15 years to be fluent, wow. Also to any Hungarians who read this, Aloha from Hawaii.
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English: police Deutsch: Polizei Hrvatski: policija Polish: policja Hungarian: rendőrség
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people think Hungarian is like rap music. because all our phone conversation ends with: Jo, jo, puszi puszi
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English: police German: polizei Spanish: polícia French: police Hungarian: R E N D Ő R S É G
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A grammatically correct sentence in hungarian: A követ követ követ It means: The representative follows a stone
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English: Hungary German: Ungarn French: Hongrie Romanian: Ungaria Japanese: Hangari Hungarian: Magyarország
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I'm a Pole and I find hungarian so incredible because of it's uniqueness amongst languages in Europe. Love to Hungary from Poland! :)
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Btw, in Hungary, we don'tsay "the job is done", we say "ott bassza meg, ahol van" and it is beautiful. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
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English: piano Spanish: piano Turkish: piyano Japanese: piano Korean: piano Arabic: bianu Greek: piáno Dutch: piano Russian: pianino Hungarian: ZONGORA
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hát nem lennék azok helyében akiknek magyarul kell megtanulniuk :D
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And he didn't even talk about how creatively and fluently can we curse someone/something
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I'm already learning Polish but this video made me want to learn Hungarian too 😭 Polak, Węgier, dwa bratanki i do szabli, i do szklanki
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Just add the word "bazdmeg" to any sentence and all Hungarian will understand it.
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Others: What is your superpower? Me: I speak Hungarian :D
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Oh man you said 'magyar' so perfectly Most English people bad at pronunciation
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It gets stranger once you venture into the tiny grey territory in Romania. You write "Gara" and pronounce it "Vonatállomás"
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Im a simple Pole.. i see Hungarian i press like
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I think Hungarian is really cool. Greetings from Croatia 😊🇭🇺🇭🇷
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Pont ezért szeretek magyarnak lenni. Imádom a történelmünket és a nyelvünket. És nagyon tetszik ha más országokból emberek ilyen jó dolgokat mondanak rólunk
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Suomi on jonkin verran samankuuloinen- ja näköinen. Suomesta löytyy vahva taipuminen, vokaalisointu ja suffiksit. Olen kiinnostunut unkarin kielestä ja harkitsen sen opiskelemisen aloittamista. I was just speaking Finnish, I don't know if anyone understood it :D. Lots of love from Finland ♥️🇭🇺
