# Hungária



## cisarro

Hi!

I don't know why I didn't notice this before (maybe I did it but this didn't catch my attention)... the former Hungarian footballer, Gyula Grosics, weared a jersey with the word "Hungária" when he played for the National Team. What does this word mean? Is it another Hungarian word for "Hungary"?

Thanks!


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## farscape

According to Wikipedia it could be the Latin name for Hungary and also the name of a Hungarian football club.


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## franknagy

The internal Hungarian word for Hungarian is magyar.
Land in Hungarian is ország.
Hungary is commonly caled as Magyarország.
Hungary is influenced by the language used by the Catholic Church that is (Medieval Clerical) Latin.  The word Hungária (accent as required by the Hungarian pronunciation) comes from this spelling.
This word was used as protecting spirit, symbolic female figure of historical sculptures since the 19th century.
There existed not only soccer teams but beat bands having the name "Hungária".  The road network of Budapest consist of radial avenues and concentric circular boulevards. The third arc of boulevard is named "Hungária körút" = "Hungary-circle-road".


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## Zsanna

cisarro said:


> ... What does this word mean? Is it another Hungarian word for "Hungary"?


Yes, it is. The form _Hungária_ is adopted from the Latin. (It is usual in Hungarian that a word of foreign origin slightly changes its form once it is totally adopted, following our pronunciaton rules.) Latin was our "official language" (used by the church, the nobility and in official places) until Hungarian was established as such in the mid 19th century. This is why we have a lot of words of Latin origin.
Hungária is a form that appears in some names (not only just denoting the country but also as an adjective, like in franknagy's examples above) but sounds a bit old and maybe a bit elegant, too. It is not a form we use a lot today (to denote the country or create new expressions with) and specially not for indicating our "grandeur". (This idea is dropped, forgotten a bit maybe...)

Just a little extra about its origins: our language belongs to the Ugrian branch of the Finno-Ugrian language family and apparently all the "western" forms of our name (Hungarian, Hongrois, ungherese, etc.) come from Onogur (= ten arrows/tribes) a name the Turks called us.
It is strange that we call ourselves "magyar" in spite of it all - that comes from a different root and meaning. (_"Man"_.)
But there are some people who also took this name, like Arabs. (In Egypt, they call us "magari" - N.B. I don't know how it is spelled and it is according to Hungarian spelling.)


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## franknagy

Zsanna said:


> Just a little extra about its origins: our language belongs to the Ugrian branch of the Finno-Ugrian language family and apparently all the "western" forms of our name (Hungarian, Hongrois, ungherese, etc.) come from Onogur (= ten arrows/tribes) a name the Turks called us.
> It is strange that we call ourselves "magyar" in spite of it all - that comes from a different root and meaning. (_"Man"_.)
> But there are some people who also took this name, like Arabs. (In Egypt, they call us "magari" - N.B. I don't know how it is spelled and it is according to Hungarian spelling.)



Zsanna, I think many other people name themselves with a word meaning "man". It is natural in case of isolated tribes.
It would be interesting to draw a map, how are Hungarians called all over the world.


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## franknagy

As a rule, people living within the border of historical Hungary (inside the Carpathian basin) call us by names derived from Magyar. 
The languages of other neighbors, like Polish, German use words derived from "Ugor".
This word is listed in Russian an English dictionaries, too. 
Turkish people use this word, too. That might be tracked back before the conquest of Hungary (by Hungarians, 896 and by the Turkish Empire 1526) to the time when Hungarian tribes were wandering on the coast of the Black Sea. The Egyptian "Magari" is taken from the Turkish "macar".

The Slovak usage is interesting 
1) "Uhorsko" = The Hungarian state until 1919.
2) "Mad'arsko" = present-day Hungary.


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## Zsanna

franknagy said:


> Zsanna, I think many other people name themselves with a word meaning "man". It is natural in case of isolated tribes.
> It would be interesting to draw a map, how are Hungarians called all over the world.


It is possible but I am not sure (because there isn't any trace of it as far as I know) who gave that name to us. 
It could be interesting but it might really go far from Cisarro's original question.


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## francisgranada

cisarro said:


> Is it another Hungarian word for "Hungary"?


No, it is _not _another Hungarian word.  Inspite of the accent on _á, _this word comes from _hungarus_, the medieval Latin exonym of the _Hungarians_.  The origin of _hungarus _is not totally clear, however the commonly  accepted version is the Turkic _onogur _(as it has been written before by Zsanna).  There are other theories as well, e.g. the connection of this word with the ethnonym _ugor_. 





franknagy said:


> .... The languages of other neighbors, like Polisch, German use words derived from "Ugor"...


No. The Polish _Węgier_, Russian _Venger_, other Slavic _Ugor/Uhor/Uher, _German _Ungar/Unger, _etc. all come from the same root as the Latin _hungarus_, Spanish _húngaro_, Italian  _ungherese (_arch_. ungaro)_, etc ... (The relation of this word with _ugor _is disputed, though not impossible.)  





Zsanna said:


> ... It is strange that we call ourselves "magyar" in spite  it all ...


 I have to desagree, it is absolutely not strange. The word _magyar _comes from _mogy + eri_ (both components of Finno-Ugric origin) which can be interpreted roughly as "man/human belonging to the same people". This is a perfectly usual kind of endonym (self-denomination), see for example _Deutsch _< *_deutisc _which is practically an adjective from *_deuta _< _teuto _meaning "people". It's also usual that nations/tribes/peoples have different endonyms (self-denominations) and exonyms (external names); see for example_ Lengyel ~ Polak, Olasz ~ Italiano, German ~ Deutsch, Alemán ~ Deutsch, Nemec/Német ~ Deutsch, etc _... 





franknagy said:


> .
> The Slovak usage is interesting
> 1) "Uhorsko" = The Hungarian state until 1919.
> 2) "Mad'arsko" = present-day Hungary.


Not only Slovak, also Czech. This is evidently an artificial and politically motivated differentiation, as historically and linguistically both _Uhorsko _and _Maďarsko _refers to the same nation.


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## Zsanna

francisgranada said:


> No, it is _not _another Hungarian word.  Inspite of the accent on _á, _this word comes from _hungarus_, the medieval Latin exonym of the _Hungarians_.


I am afraid I have to contradict you, francis. Hungária_ is _a Hungarian word admittedly of Latin origin and it is _another_ Hungarian word meaning Hungary.



francisgranada said:


> I have to desagree, it is absolutely not strange.


 I think it is just the question of the angle you look at it. When I wrote it, I tried to have a look at it from the point of view of the reader who can see that the Ugrian or Onogur form gave the source for our denomination in a lot of languages and - _comparingly_ - it is strange that we use another root. (Don't tell me you weren't surprised just a little bit when you first heard about this, or e.g. when you first heard the Finnish word for Finnish is Suomi... It may be stupid to expect it otherwise but most people feel like that nevertheless - and not stupid ones, either!)


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## francisgranada

Szia Zsanna. Now I understand better what you meant with your answers. As to Hungária, stating that it is _another Hungarian word meaning Hungary_ can be misleading.  Nobody says "Hungáriábol származom", "Szent István Hungária királya volt", etc ... Instead of saying "another Hungarian word" I'd prefer to say "latinism". Similarly, Bohemia is (was)  a latinism for the Czech Republic, or Anglia for England etc. (This is my personal opinion).


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## AndrasBP

I totaly agree with Francis. The use of "Hungária" is extremely limited, while "Magyarország" is used all the time.


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## Zsanna

Yes, I also agree that its use is limited but that is a new aspect in our reasoning.  (While it doesn't change the answer to the original question).


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## francisgranada

"Hungária egy másik _magyar _szó Magyarország megnevezésére". Would you say it this way in Hungarian? ...
A much better definition is here,  i.e. "Magyarország idegen nyelvű elnevezése".

(Zsanna, én pontosan értem az érvelésedet, de az "another Hungarian word" valahogy "sántít". A magyarban a Hungária szót Magyarország megnevezésére nem használjuk szinte soha, még történelmi vonatkozásban sem. A Hungária szó hallatán, magyar beszédben, egy magyar anyanyelvűnek  inkább az együttes, bpesti körúr, esetleg valamilyen klub vagy szálloda, stb... jut eszébe).


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## Zsanna

Could we agree in saying that it is a word meaning Hungary but without meaning/using it geographically?


francisgranada said:


> A much better definition is here,  i.e. "Magyarország idegen nyelvű elnevezése".


 I don't agree with that definition a) because it is *not* Hungary's name _in a foreign language_ (= it is in Hungarian) b) because we *almost never* use that word for referring to our country geographically - as you also pointed it out yourself.

In other words, we agree about the major thing: it is used rarely, in special contexts and it has a special (oldish) "flavour".
I would say it is much more a word that express_es_ the "essence" of Hungary as an abstract term, almost like a poetical name (like Albion for Great Britain) or if not, still there is something about our "Hungarianness" (the old _grandeur? our H O M E_land?) expressed in it.
Any better ideas?


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## cisarro

Thank you very much for those interesting and complete answers


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