# History of the Hungarian language



## francisgranada

Hi!

I have started this thread inspired by the following question in the thread about the "Language stability":




olaszinho said:


> Hi Francis.
> 
> Could you please tell me the main differences in morphology and syntax between contemporary and ancient Hungarian. Did old Hungarian have more or fewer verb tenses, for instance? What about the "cases"? As for vocabulary, did Hungarian use so many Slavonic loans in the 11th century?



Szia, Olaszinho!

1. Some phonetical shifts and the loss of final vowels in some cases took place (circa 9th-13th centuries), e.g. hodu (1055) > had (today), útu > út ... 

2. Some prefixes still maintained their adverbial character (written separately), e.g. migé szokosztja (12th century) > megszakasztja (today)

3. Some "cases" were rather postpositions (not yet attached to the noun): e.g. útu reá (1055) > útra (today). Otherwise the case/postposition system was the same as today.

4. More grammatical tenses were used: 
mundá (12th century) > mondá (today, but circa from the 19th century practically not used) - simple past tense
szokosztja vola (12th century) > szakasztja vala (today, but no more used) - continuous past tense
mondottam volt - a kind of plusquamperfectum (trapassato), sometimes (rarely) used also today
mondandok - future (today only the future participle [mondandó] survives)
mondatik - present passive (similar to Lat. "dicitur", in some phrases still used, but "normally" no more) 
mondattam - past passive (as the present passive, survives in some set phrases etc.)
mondottam - perfectum (used today as the "general" past tense)                                   

5. As to the Slavonic loanwords, as far as I know, they entered in the Hungarian language mostly during the first centuries after the arrival of the Magyars to the Carpathian Basin, prevailingly from the Southern Slavic languages.


----------



## 123xyz

> ...some prefixes still maintained their adverbial character (written separately), e.g. migé szokosztja (12th century) > megszakasztja (today)...



What was the meaning of the predecessor of "meg-" when it had an adverbial nature?


----------



## francisgranada

123xyz said:


> What was the meaning of the predecessor of "meg-" when it had an adverbial nature?


 The etymology is *_mig _(behind) plus _-é_ (ending of _lativus_). So the original meaning of _migé _could be something like _back, backwards, re-_ ... This meaning partially survives in verbs like _megadni _(to give back, to return), _megfordulni _(to turn back) etc ...

But, as far as I have noticed, in the medieval documents the usage of _migé_ already corresponded to the today's usage of_ meg_ (i.e. it expressed the "finiteness" or the perfective aspect of verbs in general).


----------



## ancalimon

Check out Etymological Dictionary Of Hungarian by Prof. Dr. Alfred Toth if you are interested.
http://www.federatio.org/mi_bibl/AlfredToth_Hun_Avar.pdf


----------



## fdb

ancalimon said:


> Check out Etymological Dictionary Of Hungarian by Prof. Dr. Alfred Toth if you are interested.
> http://www.federatio.org/mi_bibl/AlfredToth_Hun_Avar.pdf



This is the sort of rubbish that gets published on line because no reputable publishing house will touch it. If Mr Toth really thinks everything is Sumerian why does he not posit at least a few regular sound correspondences rather than just listing vaguely similar sounding words?


----------



## ancalimon

fdb said:


> This is the sort of rubbish that gets published on line because no reputable publishing house will touch it. If Mr Toth really thinks everything is Sumerian why does he not posit at least a few regular sound correspondences rather than just listing vaguely similar sounding words?



I don't think it would matter much because when Sumerians are the case, people tend to not accept even regular sound correspondences (as in the example of Osman Nedim Tuna's work).
http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/45TurkicAndHungarian/TothA_EDHTurkic-Hung2007En.htm
http://www.scribd.com/doc/64297815/Osman-Nedim-Tuna-Sumer-ve-Turk-Dillerinin-Tarihi-İlgisi

 I think his etymological dictionary is not really related with his Sumerian research anyway and Sumerian language is not the case in this topic.

I think the Hungarian language changed as a result of some kind of religious-political interfering like some nations from Balkans or Russia after the Romanovs came to power.


----------



## francisgranada

ancalimon said:


> ... I think the Hungarian language changed as a result of some kind of religious-political interfering like some nations from Balkans or Russia after the Romanovs came to power.


I don't understand ... Changed from what to what and when?


----------



## dihydrogen monoxide

Are there any cases in Hungarian where PFU *p didn't change to f? And when did that change occur and is there any explanation why it only happened in Hungarian?


----------



## francisgranada

The PFU *_p_  regurarly changes to _f_ at the beginng of the word, in other positions the _p_ remains unchanged (e.g. lép, lep ...). 
I don't know why only in Hungarian an when exactly. Surely after the separation of the Magyars from the Ugric branch and before the appearance of the first Hungarian written testimonies, i.e. approximately between 10th-5th century BC and the 10th century CE (after Christ).                                         

P.S. The _p>f_ is not a rare phenomenon in non FU languages, as well.


----------



## olaszinho

francisgranada said:


> Hi!
> 
> I have started this thread inspired by the following question in the thread about the "Language stability":
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Szia, Olaszinho!
> 
> 1. Some phonetical shifts and the loss of final vowels in some cases took place (circa 9th-13th centuries), e.g. hodu (1055) > had (today), útu > út ...
> 
> 2. Some prefixes still maintained their adverbial character (written separately), e.g. migé szokosztja (12th century) > megszakasztja (today)
> 
> 3. Some "cases" were rather postpositions (not yet attached to the noun): e.g. útu reá (1055) > útra (today). Otherwise the case/postposition system was the same as today.
> 
> 4. More grammatical tenses were used:
> mundá (12th century) > mondá (today, but circa from the 19th century practically not used) - simple past tense
> szokosztja vola (12th century) > szakasztja vala (today, but no more used) - continuous past tense
> mondottam volt - a kind of plusquamperfectum (trapassato), sometimes (rarely) used also today
> mondandok - future (today only the future participle [mondandó] survives)
> mondatik - present passive (similar to Lat. "dicitur", in some phrases still used, but "normally" no more)
> mondattam - past passive (as the present passive, survives in some set phrases etc.)
> mondottam - perfectum (used today as the "general" past tense)




Thank you for opening this thread.

Apparently the Hungarian language has not changed so much since the first Magyar tribes decided to settle in the Carpathian Basin. Having studied a little bit of Hungarian I have always been struck by the fact that there is only one past tense in Hungarian, unlike most Indo-European languages, which can  boast a lot of tenses, particularly English, the Romance languages, Bulgarian and literary Serbo-Croatian. However, Hungarian verbs can convey the perfective and imperfective aspect by using prefixes, such as m_eg _and_ el. _As far as I know, other finno-ugric languages, like Finnish and Estonian, should have more past tenses: imperfect, perfect and pluperfect, if I am not mistaken. Thanks to Francisgranada's post I have discovered that even Hungarian has  (had) one pluperfect tense,  but its use is extremely rare nowadays, I am wondering whether the pluperfect is literary and poetic or it can be also used in current spoken language.
The evolution of some postpositions into "cases" is also very interesting to me. Were all Hungarian "cases" originally postpositions?


----------



## francisgranada

olaszinho said:


> ... Thanks to Francisgranada's post I have discovered that even Hungarian has  (had) one plusperfect tense,  but its use is extremely rare nowadays, I am wondering whether the plusperfect is literary and poetic or it can be also used in current spoken language.


I don't find it partcularly literary or poetic, it can be used in the spoken language as well. But I'd say that the pluferfect in Hungarian is typically not really necessary. Instead of giving long explanations, I show it on an example:

Azt mondta (past), hogy otthon van (present) - He said (past), that he was (past) at home. 
Azt mondta (past), hogy otthon volt (past) - He said (past), that he had been (pluperfect) at home. 

In the above example the present tense expresses the "contemporaneity" and the past tense (perfect) the "anteriority" (according to the tense of the main clause).


> The evolution of some postpositions into "cases" is also very interesting to me. Were all Hungarian "cases" originally postpositions?


 Mostly yes, and they can be used separately even today and they often maintain their abverbial character. E.g. -*be*: kertbe (illative -into the garden), bemenni (prefix - to go inside/into), be (adverb - inside, as direction)                           

But the accusative _-t, _superessive _-on/en/ön, _translative _-vá/vé, _ locative (no more productive) _-t/tt_ , terminative _-ig_ and some so called "improper cases" were evidently not adverbs.


----------



## olaszinho

francisgranada said:


> But I'd say that the pluferfect in Hungarian is typically not really necessary. Instead of giving long explanations, I show it on an example:
> 
> Azt mondta (past), hogy otthon van (present) - He said (past), that he was (past) at home.
> Azt mondta (past), hogy otthon volt (past) - He said (past), that he had been (pluperfect) at home.
> 
> In the above example the present tense expresses the "contemporaneity" and the past tense (perfect) the "anteriority" (according to the tense of the main clause)



Szia Francis
Your examples are quite clear. You probably don't need the pluperfect because Hungarians are not accustomed to using it. For instance, how would you translate into Hungarian the following sentence:
When I met him I realised I had already seen him. 
A_mikor találkoztam vele rájöttem, hogy már láttam (őt) ?? _Perhaps my translation is not correct, but are you sure the pluperfect is not necessary in this kind of sentence? Of course, I am saying this from an Italian/English perpective. A Russian would agree with you.


----------



## bibax

Czech is similar to Hungarian in this respect. The plusquamperfect is bookish. In the last clause (_"... that I had already seen him"_) it is commonly replaced by the past tense supplemented by a temporal adverb (_"... that I saw him already *before/previously/...*"_).


----------



## francisgranada

olaszinho said:


> ... When I met him I realised I had already seen him.
> A_mikor találkoztam vele rájöttem, hogy már láttam (őt) ?? _Perhaps my translation is not correct, but are you sure the pluperfect is not necessary in this kind of sentence? ....


Your translation is (plu)perfect . Yes, I am sure because "_hogy már láttam_" is subordinated to "..._rájöttem". _So "_láttam" _expresses the "past" or anteririority with regard to "_rájöttem_". 

I don't say that we couldn't find examples when the pluperfect would make the sense clearer ... But see another "curiosity": 

A_mikor (majd) találkozom vele rájövök, hogy már láttam (őt). When I shall meet him I'll realise I have already seen him. 
Majd ha már megjöttél, adok neked pénzt. When you will have already arrived, I'll give you money _(maybe this is not best sentence in English ...)                         

This "past tense" (or better "perfect") can be used also in future contexts. The explanation is perhaps the following: unlike the "old" simple past (no more used today), it originally expressed rather the _copmletedness _(perfective aspect) than the tense itself. It is marked with the morpheme *–t* which etymologically corresponds to the past passive participle. E.g. men*t* (gone), men*t*em, men*t*él, men*t* ... (I have/had ... gone, you have/had ... gone, he has/had ... gone …)


----------



## franknagy

olaszinho said:


> Szia Francis
> Your examples are quite clear. You probably don't need the pluperfect  because Hungarians are not accustomed to using it. For instance, how  would you translate into Hungarian the following sentence:
> When I met him I realised I had already seen him.
> A_mikor találkoztam vele rájöttem, hogy már láttam (őt) ?? _Perhaps  my translation is not correct, but are you sure the pluperfect is not  necessary in this kind of sentence? Of course, I am saying this from an  Italian/English perpective. A Russian would agree with you.




Hi Olaszinho,


The exampes in your quote and your post are very good.
The Hungarian does not use - now - past perfect tenses to express that an action happened earlier that an other.
It uses adverbs "miután=after" ,"már=already".

I have to explain my interposition - now.

There used to be as much past tenses as in the Spanish languages.
Yo can find them in the tales of Benedek Elek "mondotta volt";
in the poem of Petőfi: "egész úton hazafelé azon gondolkodám".

I use extict past "lőn" instead of "lett" when I want to say that somebody at long last understood something:
"És lőn világosság" <-  Moses I. 1. http://www.biblia.hu/biblia_k/k_1_1.htm 

There is another living short speach containing the "mondta vala" form widely used in the 16th-17th century:
_"Bölcs Salamon *mondta vala*:
Hangos fingnak nincsen szaga,
De amelyik sunyi-lapos,
Annak szaga irtózatos."_

There was a future similar to Spanish, too:
Megoldandod = meg fogod oldani = Yo'll solve it.
The future participle for almost all verbs is still used:
Megold*andó *feladat, elintéz*endő* ügy.

The evolution of some postpositions into "cases" is also very   interesting to me. Were all Hungarian "cases" originally postpositions?
1. "Cases" are bad denominations of  "határozóragok" created by Induoeuropean linguists transporting idea  alien to the structure of the Hungarian Language because *they do not change according to genders and declination groups, and they are not different in singular and plural *as in e.g. the Russian.
In Russian -ban may be  в ...е, в ...у, в ...и , в ...ах.
2. Yes, with two exceptions:
   -t
   -on,-en,ön.
   You can see it from their forms with personal pronouns:
    -ban, ben -> bennem, benned, .... = in me, in you;
    -val, vel  -> velem, veled,       .... = with me, with you.

    On me, on you = rajtam, rajtad.

Topic 2: The influence of Russian.
More loan word came from the Stalinism(2) than from the Tzarism(1) but no grammatical changes.
1. kancsuka, ukáz, kozák ...
2. traktor, kombájn, partizán, gulág ...

I beg the other contributors' pardon whom I have not quoted by name.

Topic 3: Finnugor or Török?

It  is a hot political question since the poor Hungarian astronom went to  Lapponia to observe the passing the Venus in front of the Sun.
The "kuruc" party says that *the  Finno-Ugrian relationship is a wickid German attempt to line up the  warrior Hungarians in the group of fish-lard Finn and alike peoples who  have been surrendered *to the Swedish and Russian great powers.
The Turkish peopela are on the contrary warriors and powerful.

Let me to publish my own theory.
*The saga of the Miraculous Deer is absolutely true.
*Some  Finno-Ugrian women were searching for other men than the boring  Finno-Ugrian men with the same color of skin and other genes. 
1.  Their instict to search for different sexual partners in order to  improve the inherited DNA lead them to an nudist bathing excursion from  the Northern jungle to the shore of the Black or Azovian sea where the  appearence of Turkish lads was predictable.
2. One of them painted the horn of a deer with golden dye and used it as a lure.  

On  the other hand the soldiers of Hunors and Magor wanted women having  blonde hair and pale skin instead of ones having black hair and yellow  skin.

It was a good choice for women and man and the Hungarian Nation was born.

Best wishes
   Frank


----------



## francisgranada

I think it's worth to notice that the Hungarian compound past tenses do not correspond exactly to the Indo-European “logic”, as not the auxiliary verb (“to be”), but the main verb is conjugated. The aux. verb is always in the 3rd pers. singular, for example: “írtam volt, írtad volt, írta volt …“.


----------



## franknagy

francisgranada said:


> I think it's worth to notice that the Hungarian compound past tenses do not correspond exactly to the Indo-European “logic”, as not the auxiliary verb (“to be”), but the main verb is conjugated. The aux. verb is always in the 3rd pers. singular, for example: “írtam volt, írtad volt, írta volt …“.



Dear Francis,
It is an interesting observation, and it is true for the presently used Past Conditional, too:
"Írtam volna, írtál volna, írt volna" = "I should have written, you would have written, he/she would have written."

It is very interesting that it corresponds to the Russian conditional where the бы word is fixed.
[The Hungarian and Russian omission of copula "is" means a strange common feature of very different languages. It is explained with the fact that Slavic tribes penetrating from Poland to the the Volga found there Finnougrian tribes.] 

May I ask you why are you interested in _obsolete_ Hungarian grammar?
Regards
   Frank


----------



## francisgranada

franknagy said:


> ...  It  is a hot political question since the poor Hungarian astronom went to  Lapponia to observe the passing the Venus in front of the Sun...


For those who do not know, the "poor Hungarian astronom" was János Sajnovics, who publised his work about the relationship between the Hungarian and Lapponic in 1770 in Coppehagen. This is considered the first work on Finno-Ugristic using already comparive linguistics  (precedeing thus Franz Bopp's and Rasmus Kristian Rask's works on the Indoeuropean language family).



> Some  Finno-Ugrian women were searching for other men than the boring  Finno-Ugrian men with the same color of skin and other genes .... and the Hungarian Nation was born





franknagy said:


> ...   It is very interesting that it corresponds to the Russian conditional where the бы word is fixed.


Yes, but it is not the same construction. The Russian бы is "remnant" of a Slavonic aorist and it was once conjugated (see the Czech forms bych, bychom ...). 


> May I ask you why are you interested in _obsolete_ Hungarian grammar?


Because it is interesting . I am interested in other languages, too.                                       

Regards
Francis

P.S. Please, let us not be OT ... The Russian language and theories about the Hungarian ethnogenesis should be discussed in different threads.


----------



## 123xyz

I think that we should mention some of the key phonological developments that affected Hungarian:

- 'p' changed to 'f' in the syllable onset
- 'k' changed to 'h' in the syllable onset in front of back vowels
- 't' changed intervocalically to sz/z
- 's' in the syllable onset disappeared in many cases
- the sequences of a nasal and a voiceless stop produced voiced stops, e.g. 'mp'>'b' and 'nt'>'d'
- the sequences of a vowel and 'v' produced long vowels (initially, diphthongs)

I hope someone expands and completes this list (and corrects anything that's wrong with it).

As for the disappeared tenses, I think we should explain the full conjugation:

Elbeszélő múlt: root + the same suffixes as in the conditional, but without the "-n-"
Folyamatos/félrégmúlt: present/past* conjugated form + vala
Régmúlt: past conjugated form + volt
Jövő: root + "-and-" + present personal suffixes

*What is the difference between the usage of the present and the past with the verb "vala"? Are these two different tenses? I have read about "várok vala", but now I have seen "mondta vala" in the quoted speech above.


----------



## franknagy

Hi,

The thread is so long that I cannot collect alll quotes.

Let me reflect in random order to some statements.

I) The auxiliary verb is in fixed form unlike in Indoeuropean languages.

I think it comes from the Hungarian stress rules and the usage of suffixes.
1. The stress is always on the first syllable.
2. The unstressed vowels must be pronounced clearly. "Schwa" is prohibited.
3. The odd syllables get secondary stress.
4. The suffixes must be pronounced without reduction.

The languages reducing ending syllable must repeat some way the tools expressing person, case, gender and plural.
The Hungarian speakers are asking modes of quicker speach, too.
They invented that the tools expressing person, case and plural must be present once or at most twice in a sentence.
The grammatical gender is completely missing.

Piros almákat vettem.        
Három piros almát vettem.
Az almák pirosak.

II) Obsolete past tenses

I do not know whether they were used in the Pest common language when Petőfi was living.
I think he used th "elbeszélő múlt" in order to achieve anapestus  [*u u -*] :
"Már hó |*takará*| *el a bér*|*ci tetőt*".

Too many past tenses -> to many rules of usage -> Let us throw them out.

III) History and evolution of the languages

The political and economical surrender causes more words to infiltrate to a language than loaning grammatical structures.
New tools and forced political institutions are accepted easily than absolutely foreign grammatical stuctures. 
See: Fr "gendarmérie"-> Ger-> Hu "zsandár".

When the Turks occupied a town their first duty was to climb up to the tower of the church and replace the cross with the moon. So the word "hód|olt"="surrendered" comes from the "hold"="moon" not from the animal beaver.

Regards
   Frank


----------



## olaszinho

francisgranada said:


> This "past tense" (or better "perfect") can be used also in future contexts. The explanation is perhaps the following: unlike the "old" simple past (no more used today), it originally expressed rather the _copmletedness _(perfective aspect) than the tense itself. It is marked with the morpheme *–t* which etymologically corresponds to the past passive participle. E.g. men*t* (gone), men*t*em, men*t*él, men*t* ... (I have/had ... gone, you have/had ... gone, he has/had ... gone …)




Is this old past a sort of Aorist? Is it still used in the Bible? If so, It should not be archaic but only literary....


*Piros almákat vettem.             *This is quite typical of agglutivative languages, they attach different suffixes to the same word to express different meanings, unlike flexive languages, for instance Russian: Я Купил яблоки, actually this is not  a good example because there is no difference between accusative and nominative. 
A tanár*okat* láttam yвидел учител*ей *(Russian only uses one ending indicating both the plural and the accusative).


*Három piros almát vettem. *This is also quite peculiar: plural suffixes are not used if plurality is explicity expressed by other means: numbers or words like: sok, kevés, néhàny and so on.
*Az almák pirosak. *This is not unique to Hungarian, you can say:_ las manzanas rojas_, but it is true that in Hungarian when the adjectives precede the nouns, they are unchangeable.


----------



## franknagy

When the adjectives is for some poetic reason is after the noun, they are indeed fitted to the nouns.
Szép piros, de sajnos kukacos almákat vettem. <---> Almákat vettem, szépeket, pirosakat, de sajnos kukacosakat, hogy a fene egye meg!

Cases 
Try to say in Russian: 
with a cat, with a tomcat, with a monster [чудовище], with my litte daugher, with my aunt, with my adult daugther, on the way [1. путь 2. дорога], with love, with Puskin. Then put all this in Plural.

How many different endings mean the same case expressed with the same -val, -vel in Hungarian?

-IG, -VÁ/VÉ
This suffixes cannot used with personal pronouns: *igem, *iged, *ige, *vám, *vád, *vája do not exist. 
Only "azzá, ezzé" can be said. Strange azzal, avval and ezzel, evvel are equally correct but *avvá, *evvé hurt my ears. 

Illativus, Ablativus, Hablatyivus
The fantasy of linguists and their will to force Hungarian suffixes into Procrust's bed of Indoeuropean cases are inexhaustible. They mean an absoultely unnecessary category for the pupils because the suffixes are fixed, carved in stone, unlike in the above series of Russian words.
If the old professor kicks the bucket then the young one can freely find out new arbitrary, gibberish terminology.

Regards
   Frank


----------



## francisgranada

olaszinho said:


> ...  *Az almák pirosak. ... *


Az _almák pirosak _means _las manzanas son rojas. _This is another case (the lack of the copula).  The adjective always precedes the noun (if not separated as in Franknagy's example "Almákat vettem, szépeket, ..."), this is a typical  feature of the Uralic languages.


> Is this old past a sort of Aorist? Is it still used in the Bible? If so, It should not be archaic but only literary....


Nowadays only the "perfect" ("-t past") is used, inclusive the modern translation of the Bible (I prefer the the old translation from the 16th century ...).


----------



## olaszinho

francisgranada said:


> Az _almák pirosak _means _las manzana son rojas. _This is another case (the lack of the copula).  The adjective always precedes the noun (if not separated as in Franknagy's example "Almákat vettem, szépeket, ..."), this is a typical  feature of the Uralic languages.



Yes, of course. One can learn the omission of the copula in the first Hungarian lesson. Probably I was a bit dizzy. I should have used Russian as an example and I was actually thinking about it.
Two more questions:
Was the old past a sort of Aorist?
Has Hungarian ever had a real imperfect tense?


----------



## francisgranada

olaszinho said:


> ... Was the old past a sort of Aorist?


I don't know if the term "aorist" fits the Hungarian "old past" (maybe yes, however in Hungarian it is grammatically marked, unlike e.g. in Greek, as far as I know). However, the original function of this_ old past tense _was to express actions/events that happened in the past, typically without any reference to the present and the perfective/imperfective aspect was not an implicit criterion. 

In the last centuries, when the _perfectum (_or “-t past tense") considerably prevailed, it was used mainly as some kind of "narrative past tense" (hence it's Hungarian name "elbeszélő múlt").   


> Has Hungarian ever had a real imperfect tense?


I think not, at least not in the Romance or Latin sense of the term.  


123xyz said:


> ... What is the difference between the usage of the present and the past with the verb "vala"? Are these two different tenses? I have read about "várok vala" …


Good question. Examples from the 12th century (modern spelling):

 “terümtevé ... miü isemüküt Ádámut“ (he created … our ancestor Adam)
„odutta vola neki paradicsomut házoá“ (he gave him the paradise as home)
„turkukat migé szokosztja vola“  (it was ‘breaking‘ their throats)
(I don't know a good English equivalent for "szakasztani/szakítani")

_t__erümtev__é_ – created („old past tense“)
_vola_ –  he was („old past tense“)
_odutta_  - ‚given-he‘, ‚he has/had/will have given‘ (perfectum, today’s past tense)  
_szokosztja_ – it breaks (present tense)                                                            

My interpretation of the compound tenses:
_odutta vola_: the action was completed in the past 
_szokosztja vola: _the action was happening in the past
_*odutta volt_: the action was completed in the past before an other action

P.S. Does anybody know the English terminology for the Hungarian historical tenses? 
(to avoid _ad hoc _terms like „old past“, „perfectum“)


----------



## franknagy

Gentle List Members,
I have found a good summary: *
Past Tenses in the Old Hungarian Language*
http://murcielago.blog.hu/2011/09/10/mult_idok_a_regi_magyar_nyelvben


> egyszerű múlt: iránk
> elbeszélő múlt: ira (csak egyes szám 3. személy), másik formula irék (vsz nem élő, de Kazinczy pld. szerette használni)
> befejezetlen jelen: írunk
> befejezetlen múlt: írunk vala
> befejezett jelen: irtunk
> befejezett múlt: írtunk vala
> régmúlt: írtunk volt


I have quoted only the terminology.
*Here is another 2-page summary:*
http://www.dercsilla.hu/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/handout_9_igeidok_m.pdf

---------
You have mentioned many time thes *Aoristos*.
Is it an extraordinary mode of forming the past tense or juslt do you like the Greek terms?
What is it in the Spanish or English terminology of tenses.
Regards
    Frank


----------



## olaszinho

I have also found a discussion about Hungarian tenses on this forum. If you like you can have a look at this:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2316350

In my opinion, this article/essay is very interesting and it might also answer some of the previously asked questions.

http://www.google.it/url?sa=t&rct=j...02L521_OoTt-NG7zQJwWlCw&bvm=bv.53217764,d.bGE


----------



## francisgranada

Thanks, Franknagy and Olaiszinho, for the links. So the English terminology could be as follows:

_mond –_ (egyszerű) jelen – (simple) present 
_mondott – _befejezett jelen - present perfect
_monda – _egyszerű/elbeszélő múlt  - simple past 
_mond vala – _folyamatos múlt - past imperfective 
_mondott vala – _befejezett múlt - past perfect   
_mondott volt – _régmúlt - pluperfect


----------



## franknagy

olaszinho said:


> I have also found a discussion about Hungarian tenses on this forum. If you like you can have a look at this:
> 
> http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2316350


I have added to this thread my opinion. See there.



francisgranada said:


> So the English terminology could be as follows:
> 
> _mondott volt – _régmúlt - pluperfect



What is _*pluperfect*_ in English? I can imagine it in Spanish: _*"Ella hubo dicho".*_
Thank you for for the added links.
...
One more form of the perfect tense or the passive voice
Is the <flexed "to be">+<participle> construction a new Germanism in the Hungarian?
I think "a kérdés meg van válaszolva" is not really equivalent with "a kérdést megválaszoltuk" because of the omitted person. 
The phrase _"a macska fel van mászva a fára"_ is a caricature.
But the _"le vagy szarva"_, _"le vagy érdelve"_, _"ki vagy rúgva"_ expressions are widely used. Read
http://nyelvesztelen.blog.hu/2008/10/13/szenvedunk.

Regards
Frank


----------



## francisgranada

franknagy said:


> ...  One more form of the perfect tense or the passive voice
> Is the <flexed "to be">+<participle> construction a new Germanism in the Hungarian?
> I think "a kérdés meg van válaszolva" is not really equivalent with "a kérdést megválaszoltuk" because of the omitted person.


 This is not a tense, rather a kind of a "quasi-passive" voice. I don't think it is a germanism, however it's inappropriate usage (as in your example "...fel van mászva") may be a German (Latin?) influence.

See also the here


----------



## francisgranada

franknagy said:


> ...  When the Turks occupied a town their first duty was to climb up to the tower of the church and replace the cross with the moon. So the word "hód|olt"="surrendered" comes from the "hold"="moon" not from the animal beaver.


No. The verb _hódolni_ comes from the Middle High German "holden" (toady Germ. _huldigen_). There are equivalents in some Slavic languages, too (e.g. Slovak_ hold, holdovať_, Polish _hołd_).


----------



## olaszinho

franknagy said:


> I have added to this thread my opinion. See there.
> 
> 
> 
> What is _*pluperfect*_ in English? I can imagine it in Spanish: _*"Ella hubo dicho".*_
> Thank you for for the added links.
> ...
> One more form of the perfect tense or the passive voice
> Is the <flexed "to be">+<participle> construction a new Germanism in the Hungarian?
> I think "a kérdés meg van válaszolva" is not really equivalent with "a kérdést megválaszoltuk" because of the omitted person.
> The phrase _"a macska fel van mászva a fára"_ is a caricature.
> But the _"le vagy szarva"_, _"le vagy érdelve"_, _"ki vagy rúgva"_ expressions are widely used. Read
> http://nyelvesztelen.blog.hu/2008/10/13/szenvedunk.
> 
> Regards
> Frank




_"Ella hubo dicho"_ is  not a form of pluperfect in Spanish, it is called p_retérito anterior _and it is rarely used  in contemporary Spanish_. Habìa dicho/ he/she had said _is pluperfect


----------



## francisgranada

123xyz said:


> I think that we should mention some of the key phonological developments that affected Hungarian …


Of course. The common Uralic language is supposed to split in the 3rd century BC, the Finno-Ugric around 2000 BC and the Proto-Hungarian is dated between 1000 and 500 BC, so during these practically thousands of years many phonological changes took place subsequently in different periods etc …. So the reconstruction of a complete and “sure” list is impossible.  Plus, we lack older testimonies of different Uralic languages, as the oldest known written documents are in Hungarian (10th century) and in  Komi (14th century).  

p>f,  mp>b, nt>d, t > sz/z … 
Hungarian innovations (absent in Ugric, though some of them present in other Uralic languages independently)                       

k>h 
Common for the Ugric languages:
Mansi *h*_úrum_, Khanty _*h*utəm_, Hungarian *h*_árom _(but  Komi *k*_uim_,Finnish *k*_olme_)  - „_three_“
Mansi *h*_usz_, Khanty _*h*usz_, Hungarian *h*_úsz_ – (but Udmurt *k*_ü__z_)_ - _„_twenty_“

s (syllable onset)  >  …
Common for the Ugric languages (though with different phonetical solutions): 
Mansi *t*_al_, Khanty *l*_öl_, Hungarian _öl_ (but Komi *s*_ül_, Finnish *s*_yli__)_ - „_fathom_“                                        

_vowel_ + 'v' > _diphtong_ > _long vowel_
Hungarian innovation (attested in written documents):
_l*ov* > l*ou* > l_*ó*_  - „horse“_   ('v' conserved in accusative and plural _lo*v*at_, _lo*v*ak; _the diphtong _ou_ still present in some dialects)                                                    

_vowel_ + _'guttural'_ > _diphtong_ > _long vowel_
Hungarian innovation (attested in written documents):                                                  
_men*eh*_ (1055) _> *men*eü *> men*ő* - literally "going, Lat. iens/Sp. yente“                                                                      
_
NOTE: Khanty, Mansi (Ugric) and Komi, Udmurt, Mari (Finnic) use today the cyrillic alphabet, so my transcriptions are very approximative (rather informative).


----------



## olaszinho

francisgranada said:


> Thanks, Franknagy and Olaiszinho, for the links. So the English terminology could be as follows:
> 
> _mond –_ (egyszerű) jelen – (simple) present
> _mondott – _befejezett jelen - present perfect
> _monda – _egyszerű/elbeszélő múlt  - simple past
> _mond vala – _folyamatos múlt - past imperfective
> _mondott vala – _befejezett múlt - past perfect
> _mondott volt – _régmúlt - pluperfect



Hello.

 I'm interested in having more information about the use of tenses in old Hungarian. The verb forms_ Mondott _or _ettem _were used like today's English present perfect "he has said/I have eaten", while for completed actions in the past only _elbeszélő múlt (monda) _was used. Am I wrong?


----------



## francisgranada

olaszinho said:


> I'm interested in having more information about the use of tenses in old Hungarian. The verb forms_ Mondott _or _ettem _were used like today's English present perfect "he has said/I have eaten", while for completed actions in the past only _elbeszélő múlt (monda) _was used. Am I wrong?


Szia!

The problem is that what we call _present perfect_ has gradually replaced the_ simple past_ during the last centuries, i.e. a "universal" answer that covers, let's say the last 10 centuries, is not possible. Another “problem” is that the oldest written documents contain mostly religious texts and not examples from the contemporaneous colloquial language. As consequence, we encounter rather examples for "mondotta vala" than "mondotta". However, I try to give you my personal opinion/explanation:

The _perfect _(let's ommit the word "present") originally was not a real tense but it expressed the perfective aspect. When used with the verb ‘”to be”, this _perfect_ was “collocated” in a temporal context. In the present 3rd person the copula is ommitted, so without the verb “to be” implicitely the present tense is intended. Thus we have “mondottam/mondottad/mondotta ... (*van)/vala”  (as if we said something like “dicho-mío/dicho-tuyo/dicho-suyo ... es/ fue" in Spanish).                                        

So I think that the forms like_ mondott__/__ettem _might often, but not necessarily, coincide with the English _"he has said/I have eaten”,_ as they expressed the completedness of the actions viewed from the present ("passato prossimo").                                    

For illustration (using the examples I have given before, from the 12th century):
_“… terümtevé ... miü isemüküt Ádámut, és odutta vola neki paradicsomut házoá.”  _
(literal translation to "modern" Hungarian: _"... teremté ... [a] mi ősünket Ádámot, és adta vala neki [a] paradicsomot házává"_)

From the “English point of view” we might think that the Paradise was given to Adam _before_ he (our ancestor Adam) was/had been created. Instead, in Hungarian terümtevé expresses the past (regardless of the perfective/imperfective aspect) and odutta vola expresses the perfective aspect in the past, regardless of the “consecutio temporum”.


----------



## olaszinho

Thank you for your detailed response. I had asked my question because of the name given to the Hungarian tenses. However, I can easily realise that the evolution of Hungarian pass tenses must have been gradual and not always clearly documented.


----------



## AidenGrayson

These are really informatic discussion.The description are really interesting.Hungarian stress rules and the usage of suffixes more.


----------



## francisgranada

olaszinho said:


> Thank you for your detailed response ....


De nada, figurati .

I have looked up the usage of the Hungarian tenses in a book printed in 1688. An example, for illustration:

_És végre meg-igéré és meg-is küldé a' könyveket deák nyelven, amelyeket én még Rómában lévén, meg is vettem volt magamnak olasz nyelven, és ottan által olvastam.  _

My very bad English and Italian "literal" translations, for illustration purposes: 

_And finally he promised and he (also) sent the books in Latin language that I had __bought for me in Italian language, when I was __still in Rome,  and there I read _(??) _them (__trough/over/across < __által__). _

_E finalmente promise e (anche) mandò i libri in latino, i quali, quando ero ancora a Roma, io li avevo comprato __per me__ in lingua italiana, e lì (=a Roma) li avevo (ri)letto_/_(ri)lessi _(??). 

igéré, küldé - simple past (~ _he promised, he sent_)
vettem volt - pluperfect (~ _I had_ _bougth_)
olvastam – perfect & past (~ _I have/had read _??)

Interpretation:
"I had bought the Italian translation of the books _before he __(XY)_ promised and sent (to me) the Latin version (of the books)" 
“I read/had read/have been reading …(??)  the books while I was still in Rome” (not explicitely stated if before or after having received the Latin books)                                      

Conclusion:
While  _igéré, küldé_ are _a priori_ past tenses and _vettem volt_  is a “clear” pluperfect, the verb form _olvastam_, though maintaining it’s perfective aspect, here has already the fuction of a _past (perfect) tense_. Otherwise *_olvastam vala_ should have been used (according e.g. to _odutta vola_ in my previous example from the 12th century).

In general, the historical “_present perfect_” (today’s practically the unique _past tense_) was already used in the 17th century _very_ frequently (often instead of  other historical tenses), eventhough the _simple past_ was still commonly used.


----------



## irinet

Hi olaszhino,
I have just one (say, maybe two) historical curiousity: which part of the Carpathian Basin the first Magyar tribes settled? The major part of it is in Romania and you sounded like you are living in it?
Similarly, important towns in this area are from Serbia, Poland, Slovacia, Ukraine, while the majority of the towns are in Romania.
What towns do you have in these mountains?
Firstly, I am asking this in order to clarify myself about the migration of the Magyar (huni) tribes. And secondly, where do they put an end to their migration?


----------



## franknagy

Hi Irinet,
The Hungarian tribes settled in the Great Hungarian Plain and in the hilly countries because they could continue their traditional ecomomy there. They avoided the hight mountains. They tribes have summer accomodations and winter accomodations. This can be followed by similar village names.

If you look at the relief map of the Carpathian Basin then you see plains around the rives Danube from Vienna (now Austria) down to Beograd (now Serbia) and Tisza (from the current Zakarkatskaya Oblast' of The Ucraine down to Serbia. There are basins in Transylvania (now Romania) which are separated by the high mountains of Bihar. The Bihar mountains were always inhabited by Slavic later Rumanian mountain shepherds.
The question of Székely nation which now speak Hungarian and lives as an island in Rumania. 
http://szekelyfold.terkepek.net/
is very interesting because they were not speaking Hungarian when the Hungarian tribes arrived to th Carpathian basin.
A migration of Székelys led to Moldva. They are called Csángó's.
http://lazarus.elte.hu/hun/maps/1910/talma/bako2.gif

The area occupied by Hungarian people extended to the river Enns of Austria in the 10-th century.
Vienna has a special Hungarian name "Bécs". The folk tales have an expression "Óperenciás tenger" = "Sea O." which can be explained by the German expression "ober Enns".

The Southern end of the Great Hungarian Plain
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...KoH-CS-Szerem.svg/250px-KoH-CS-Szerem.svg.png
where the rivers Danube, Tisza, Dráva and Száva meet was rich agricultural and wine-growing area which used to be inhabited by Hungarians until the Turkish invasion in 1521. (This part was earlier occupied that the Battle of Mohács 1526.)  


> And secondly, where do they put an end to their migration?


The Carpathian basin is somewhat similar to the steppe over the Black sea.
The mountanous area of the Alpes was improper to their economy.
So the Hungarian tribes settled down there and they led only adventures against Western and Souther Europe.
The settlement was executed after detailed consideration of the feudal anarchy of Germany and Italy as auxiliary troops called by King Berengar and other fights between fathers and sons of kaiser families.
According to the theory of Gy. László the Magyars made double homeland conquest, first in the 7th then in the 9th century.

I have to continue later
Regards
   Frank


----------



## franknagy

> Similarly, important towns in this area are from Serbia, Poland,  Slovacia, Ukraine, while the majority of the towns are in Romania.
> What towns do you have in these mountains?



The Hungarian settlement has not common border with Poland because the Slovak-inhabited mountains separate us.
On the other hand, forced and spontaneous migration has made family connections all over the 1100 year we have living as good neighbors with the Polish people. I myself have a Polish great-grandmother. There were Polish schools in Hungary during the WW II.
Let me enlist some towns
Rumania
Cluj = Kolozsvár
Baia Mare = Nagybánya
Marosvásárhely = Tîrgu Mureş

Serbia
Subotica = Szabadka
Novi Sad = Újvidék

The Ucraine
Munkachevo = Munkács
Beregovo = Beregszász

Slovakia
Bratislava = Pozsony
Štúrovo = Párkány
Nové Zámky = Érsekújvár
Šahy = Ipolyság

Croatia
Čakovec = Csáktornya

That is enough for today.

Regards
    Frank


----------



## AidenGrayson

The Hungarian tribes travel's all over Europe . The Hungarian tribes left the area of the Urals. They passed along the Volga and the Caspian Sea. After several hundred years of wandering, they reached the Carpathian Basin.


----------



## irinet

Nice history, long time travelling! 
Is someone here thinking that Transylvannia, a region in my country, should be within Hungarian borders?


----------



## berndf

irinet said:


> Hi olaszhino,
> I have just one (say, maybe two) historical curiousity: which part of the Carpathian Basin the first Magyar tribes settled? The major part of it is in Romania and you sounded like you are living in it?
> Similarly, important towns in this area are from Serbia, Poland, Slovacia, Ukraine, while the majority of the towns are in Romania.
> What towns do you have in these mountains?
> Firstly, I am asking this in order to clarify myself about the migration of the Magyar (huni) tribes. And secondly, where do they put an end to their migration?





irinet said:


> Nice history, long time travelling!
> Is someone here thinking that Transylvannia, a region in my country, should be within Hungarian borders?


I think we can cut this short:


The lands under the Hungarian crown in 1920 when the kingdom was split up and that were not part of the new Hungarian state created by the treaty of Trianon any more almost all had sizable Magyar minorities. Most of them were under Magyar rule for a long time but never ethnically dominated by Magyars. The question "whom they belong" is idle today and not terrible relevant from a linguistic point of view.
Huns and Magyars are _not_ the same people, despite what the name _Hungary_ suggests. They might have been somehow related the in their _urheimats _(in parts, as the Huns where probably ethnically mixed)somewhere in the east but that we don't know that. The migration waves of Huns and Magyars belong to entirely different historical periods.
The end of the Westward expansion of the Magyars has a definite date attached to it: 955, the _Battle of Lechfield_ where the much of the warrior-aristocracy that ruled the realm at the time was killed and those who survived lost their power base and a new Frankish-feudalistic form of government emerged and the people gave up its nomadic way of life. The Magyars retreated until the river _Leitha_ which formed the western border with the Holy Roman Empire and with Austria for most of the time that followed until 1920.

We can discuss details for ages but I can't see the relevance for the question of this thread. Unless someone can provide a very good reason why it is relevant, I would like to leave it at that.


----------



## francisgranada

As this thread is about the history of the Hungarian language and not about the origin/history/frontiers etc ... of the Hungarian people/nation/state, I shall react only to the following:


franknagy said:


> ... The question of Székely nation which now speak Hungarian and lives as an island in Rumania ...
> is very interesting because they were not speaking Hungarian when the Hungarian tribes arrived to th Carpathian basin....


All what we know for sure is that the Székely speak a pure Hungarian tongue without any trace of a Turkic (or other) substratum. This is valid also for the known written documents.   

Ad marginem: the Szélelys do not indentify themselves as a separate "nation" (in the modern sense of this word; they are traditionally part of the Hungarian nation)



berndf said:


> ...  We can discuss details for ages but I can't see the relevance for the question of this thread....


I agree.


----------



## dihydrogen monoxide

So the Hungarian that Székely speak is important to the history of Hungarian language. Are some of the words in Székely Hungarian preserved in standard Hungarian alongside the substratum? How well is the Székely Hungarian attested? So for study of Proto-Uralic I guess Székely Hungarian is more interesting than standard Hungarian.


----------



## irinet

Thank you Berndf and Francisgranada for your replies. I will follow this thread with great interest.


----------



## francisgranada

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> So the Hungarian that Székely speak is important to the history of Hungarian language. Are some of the words in Székely Hungarian preserved in standard Hungarian alongside the substratum? How well is the Székely Hungarian attested? So for study of Proto-Uralic I guess Székely Hungarian is more interesting than standard Hungarian.


To be clear: there is no special _Székely (or  Székely Hungarian) language_ historically attested, neither with nor without the presence of any specific substratum. The possible Pre-Hungarian or other origin of the Székely people is discussed, but no linguistical testimonies do exist that would suggest that the Székely once spoke an another language than the "rest" of the Hungarians. 

The "language of the Székely", or better the Hungarian dialects of Transylvania, from the linguistical point of view are (of course) important like any other regional variant of a languages, in general. Further more, as Transylvania was isolated from the rest of the Hungarian speaking territory (e.g. during the Ottoman invasion), the Transylvanian dialects tend to preserv some archaical features of Hungarian. But this doesn't mean that in other dialects we cannot find archaical features at all, no more present in Transylvania ...


> So for study of Proto-Uralic I guess Székely Hungarian is more interesting than standard Hungarian.


According to what I've said before, I don't think so.


----------



## olaszinho

_"És végre meg-igéré és meg-is küldé a' könyveket deák nyelven, amelyeket én még Rómában lévén, meg is vettem volt magamnak olasz nyelven, és ottan által olvastam"
Francisgranada

_This is a  very interesting example of the usage of past tenses in old Hungarian. I almost managed to grasp the meaning of the whole sentence without your useful translations.  Apart from a couple of words such as: _meg-igéré and lévén_. However I was not able to find the word "Latin" in your sentence.
Apparently, the perfective prefixes, like m_eg._ were already used with the _old simple past.
_


----------



## francisgranada

olaszinho said:


> ...I almost managed to grasp the meaning of the whole sentence without your useful translations.


Complimenti . 


> Apparently, the perfective prefixes, like m_eg._ were already used with the _old simple past._


Of course, with all the tenses, exactly like today.


> _lévén_


This is a participle, not archaical (though seldom used in the colloquial speach). _Lévén_ corresponds approximately to "having been", but not always can be translated this way.


> However I was not able to find the word "Latin" in your sentence.


It is "deák"  (finally, from the Greek _diakonos_). The expression "deák nyelv" was used in the sense of "the language used by the learned people" as opposed to the "national" languages (Hungarian, Italian, Czech etc ...).  In a certain period it was used practically as a synonym of Latin.

P.S. The modern version of the sentence in my example would be:
_És végre megigérte és meg (here better: el) is küldte a könyveket latin nyelven, amelyeket én még Rómában lévén, meg is vettem (volt) magamnak olasz nyelven, és ottan átolvastam (here better: elolvastam).  _


----------



## olaszinho

Thank you! I mixed up _deák_ with _diák _(pupil).  Obviously I did not know the word _deàk. _Its etymology is extremely interesting, though


----------



## dihydrogen monoxide

I'd like some phonology points cleared up. Why are a and o pronounced the same? Why is ly pronounced the way it is? Is vowel harmony inherited? p becomes f at the beginning of the word, are there some examples where it doesn't, but the word is still of Hungarian origin. Does every Hungarian dialect pronounce e and é the same?


----------



## AidenGrayson

The famous gate ornaments of the Székelys in Transylvania bear a strong resemblance to those in the pagodas of China. Their tombstones are similar to those seen in Chinese cemeteries.


----------



## francisgranada

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> ... Why are a and o pronounced the same? ...


They are not pronounced the same, the short _a _is pronounced [ɒ], practically between [a] and [o], and the long _á _is pronounced [a:]. This pronounciation is the result of sound shifts that took place some hundreds of years ago. There are some few regions were_ a_ is prounced still [a]. 


> Why is ly pronounced the way it is?


 Originally it was pronounced [ʎ], like _lj _or_ ľ _in some Slavic languages. Today it is [j] and in some few dialects [l]. I don't know the exact reason why. 


> Is vowel harmony inherited?


 Yes, it's a typical feature of the Uralic languages. 


> Does every Hungarian dialect pronounce e and é the same?


 Some dialects maintain the original distinction between the open and closed short_ e _(similar to the Finnish _ä_ vs._ e_ or Italian _è_ vs. _é_). The long_ é_ is pronounced the same way in all the Hung. dialects (as far as I know).


----------



## franknagy

Quick notes:

The Debrecen dialect says _í _in place of _é_.

Another example of participle _-ván, -vén_:

"Ádám bátyám száját tát*ván* lábát rántv*án* pávává vált."

My brother Adam having opened his moth wide having yanked his legs converted into a peacock. 



> Ad marginem: the Szélelys do not indentify themselves as a  separate "nation" (in the modern sense of this word; they are  traditionally part of the Hungarian nation)


They say: "A magyart is a székely szarta."
Regards
Frank


----------



## dihydrogen monoxide

What is the origin of the two verbs with the meaning of to be?


----------



## francisgranada

Which two verbs do you mean?


----------



## franknagy

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> Why are a and o pronounced the same?



They are not pronounced the the same. The sound 'a' and the usage of 'a' in the Hungarian alphabet is a strange pecularity. 
*The languages are based on opposition of sounds. These oppositions are present in one language and missing from other.
*
The 2 years old Hungarian children distinguish 'a' from 'o'. Japonese speakers do not hear the difference between 'l' and 'r'.
Hungarians have problems with the Russian hard м and the soft мь, ....

I send you some sentences to practice 'a' and 'o'.
1) Azt mondják a hatalmasok, hogy akinek hat alma sok, nincsen annak hatalma sok. = The powerful people say that whom six apples are too many that has not much power.
2) Az a barom borász kiborogatta a balatoni boromat. = That idiot wine master has spilled out my wine from the Lake Balaton.
3) Bal-jobb, bal-jobb, mennek a majmok. = Left-right, left-right, the monkeys are marching.

Regards
    Frank


----------



## dihydrogen monoxide

I mean how did the difference between van and lennék arise and I've heard that these two forms are not really interchangeable.  And are these two verb forms inherited verb forms that can be found in all Uralic languages or is it just a Hungarian innovation?


----------



## francisgranada

The hypothetical infinive from _van _should be *_volni_ (not attested in written documents), but only _lenni _is used. Both the verbs are of Uralic origin and they are present also today in most of them (typical stems are _vol-/ol_- and  _le-). _It seems that _lenni _originally meant rather "to become" (werden) than "to be", however in some Uralic languages (not only in Hungarian) it means also "to be". 

They are not entirely interchangeable: _volt_=he/she/it was, _lett_=he/she/it became or has become, _van_=is, _lesz_=shal/willl be; but both _volna _and _lenne _mean "he/she/it should/would be".

P.S. For some reason, the conjugation of the "to be" verb used to be mixed from various stems in many languages. Examples: Spanish - _soy, eres, es ... _but _fui, fuiste_ ...; English: _am, are, is _... but _to be, was, were; _Slovak (also in other Slavic language)_ - som, si, je ..._ but_ budem, byť _etc ...


----------



## franknagy

Dear H2O,
My first chemistry teacher was named really H. H. O. 


dihydrogen monoxide said:


> What is the origin of the two verbs with the meaning of to be?


The verb "to be" in Hungarian is extremely irregular as in all languages I know.
Let me enlist the irregularities.
1) It has future form borrowed from the present tense of verb "to become": leszek, leszel, lesz, leszünk, lesztek, lesznek.
2) It has an official infinitive again matching that of "to become": lenni.
3) It has colloquial infinitives *vanni and a supposed disappered one *volni. I give you an example dialog.


- Fényképezd le azt az ufót!
Take a photo of that UFO.- Nem tudom.I can't.- Miért? Van mobilod.Why? You have got the cellular phone.- Vanni van, de nincs hozzá kamera.I do have it but it has not camere.







4) The imperative is again is that of the "to become": legyek, legyél (légy), legyen, legyünk, legyetek, legyenek.
5) It has special negative forms for the 3rd person present when it expresses in Spanish"no tiene(n), no está(n)": "nincs(en)" in singularand "nincsenek" in plural .  Singular meaning "no es" & "no son" in Spanish= "nem". Remember the rule of zero copula.
6) The past tense has only one common letter with the present, the starting v-.
    Present: vagyok, vagy, van, vagyunk, vagytok, vannak.
    Past: voltam, voltál, volt, voltunk, voltatok, voltak.
    The past of "to become" is: lettem, lettél, lett, lettünk, lettetek, lettek.

Let me finish my post with a untranslatable joke.
Mi a szüzesség mértékegysége? Egy volt.
Szüzesség= virginity. Mértékegység: measurement unit. Volt= 1. was, 2. unit of voltage.

Regards
    Frank


----------



## dihydrogen monoxide

I'd like to know who were some of the linguists that studied PU languages and greatly contributed to the field, regarding sound laws, morphology,laws of vowel harmony etc. Which language of the PU family has preserved the most archaisms and what language was the first to cut itself off from the PU community.


----------



## olaszinho

What do you mean with PU?


----------



## dihydrogen monoxide

Proto-Uralic


----------



## olaszinho

Thank you. Probably a whole essay would not be enough to answer your demanding question!


----------



## dihydrogen monoxide

I'm not asking for an essay, I just want the names of the scholars that are most important to the field, since I'm completely new to this language family and I'm aware of the important ones in PIE.


----------



## franknagy

Hi H2O,

I have to add that the conditional mood of "to be" is also mixed with that of "to become".

Present: volnék, volnál, volna, volnánk, volnátok, volnának.
Past: lettem volna, lettél volna, lett volna, lettünk volna, lettetek volna, lettek volna.

Regards,
     Frank


----------



## francisgranada

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> I'd like to know who were some of the linguists that studied PU languages and greatly contributed to the field, regarding sound laws, morphology,laws of vowel harmony etc.



18th century - Sajnovics János, Gyarmathi Sámuel (the "pioneers") 
19th. century - J. Budenz,  J. Szinnyei 

Some names and works from the 20th century, that might be interesting for you:
B. Collinder: Comparative grammar of the Uralic languages (Stockholm, 1960)
B. Collinder: Fenno-Ugric Vocabulary (Hamburg, 1977)
W. Steinitz: Geschichte de finnischugrischen Konsonantismus (Uppsala, 1952)
W. Steinitz: Geschichte de finnischugrischen Vokalismus (Berlin, 1964)
A. Raun: Essays in Finno-Ugric ... (Bloomington, 1971)
Gy. Lakó: A magyar hangállomány finnugor előzményei (Budapest, 1965)
P. Hajdú: Az uráli nyelvészet alapkérdései (Budapest, 1981)
V. Tauli: Structural tendencies in Uralic languages (Haag, 1966)
etc ...


> Which language of the PU family has preserved the most archaisms and what language was the first to cut itself off from the PU community.


The Finnish is considered to be quite conservative in some aspects, but it is a too complex question. The PU communtity first "cut" into Proto-Finno-Ugric and Proto-Samoyedic (see here).


----------



## dihydrogen monoxide

I've read on this forum that Estonian is unreliable because of its loanwords, something along those lines. There's a theory within those who study PIE that verb endings of PU have been borrowed from PIE. I want to know if those who study PU tend to agree or do they think it's not the case at all.


----------



## francisgranada

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> I've read on this forum that Estonian is unreliable because of its loanwords ...


Then all the languages are unreliable, including the English ...


> There's a theory within those who study PIE that verb endings of PU have been borrowed from PIE. I want to know if those who study PU tend to agree or do they think it's not the case at all.


As far as I know this theory is far not commonly accepted. There are also linguists that proposed a common Indo-Uralic language (super)family instead. Also the so called Nostratic theory has been proposed, as many PIE-PU (but not only)  similarities (included some personal endings) seem to be shared also by other language families (e.g. Altaic/Turkic). The problem is, that whatever might be the "truth", these theories cannot be proven. Finally, the similarities between language families may also be pure coincidences.                                                          

Borrowing personal endings and inserting them into an existing grammar is an extremely rare and improbable phenomenon. Plus, the conjugation system in Uralic languages is quite complex and there are many other factors (e.g. the correlation between the nominal possessive endings and the personal endings of verbs, etc...), that make difficult to accept the "borrowing theory" (at least for me ...)


----------

