Hungarian alphabet

The Hungarian alphabet is an extension of the Roman alphabet.

One sometimes speaks of the smaller and greater Hungarian alphabet, depending on whether the letters Q, W, X, Y which can only be found in foreign words and traditional orthography of names are listed, or not.

The 44 letters of the (greater) Hungarian alphabet are:

A	Á	B	C	Cs	D	Dz	Dzs	E	É	F
G	Gy	H	I	Í	J	K	L	Ly	M	N
Ny	O	Ó	Ö	Ő	P	(Q)	R	S	Sz	T
Ty	U	Ú	Ü	Ű	V	(W)	(X)	(Y)	Z	Zs

Each sign shown above counts as a letter of its own right in Hungarian.

(i.e. they are not diacritic marks in the stricter sense of the word). Thus, the letter ó is not an O with acute accent, but a long ó, and the letter ny is not an N and a Y, but rather the single letter NY.

While long vowels count as different letters, long (or geminate) consonants don't. Long consonants are marked by duplication: e.g. <tt>, <gg>, <zz> (ette 'he ate (det.obj.)', függ 'it hangs', azzal 'with it'). For the di- and tri-graphs a simplification rule applies: only the first letter is duplicated: e.g. <sz>+<sz>→<ssz> (asszony 'woman'), <ty>+<ty>→<tty> (hattyú 'swan'), <dzs>+<dzs>→<ddzs> (briddzsel 'with bridge (card game)').

Capitalisation

The di- and the trigraphs are capitalised in names and at the beginning of sentences or in abbreviations as it is shown above. When writing with all capital letters, one capitalises the second (and third) character as well.

Thus ("The Rules of Hungarian Orthography", a book edited by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences):

• A magyar helyesírás szabályai
• MHSZ
• A MAGYAR HELYESÍRÁS SZABÁLYAI

Pronunciation

One of Hungarian orthography's principles is being phonetic among with being traditional, etymologic and simplifying. The current edition of "MHSz" is the 11th from 1984, reprint 1994 with extended dictionary part. Therefore most words can be read out correctly, if one knows the pronunciation of the letters.

The pronunciation of Hungarian letters in standard Hungarian.

(You might want to increase your browser's display font size to see the IPA symbols more correctly).

Letter	Phoneme (IPA)	Complementary allophones (IPA)[1]	Notes
A	/ɑ/		[ɑ̝̹] might describe it better (raised, more rounded; sign rendered probably incorrectly, containing two diacritic marks below). Still definitely not [ɔ]!
Á	/aː/
B	/b/
C	/ts/
Cs	/tʃ/
D	/d/
Dz	/dz/		may not occur at the beginning of words. When neither post- nor preconsonantic, always realised as a geminate.
Dzs	/dʒ/		when final or intervocalic, usually realised as a geminate: maharadzsa /mɑhɑrɑdʒɑ/ [mɑhɑrɑd͡ʒːɑ] 'maharajah', bridzs /bridʒ/ [brid͡ʒː] 'bridge (card game)', but dzsungel /dʒuŋgɛl/ [d͡ʒuŋgɛl] 'jungle', fridzsider /fridʒidɛr/ [frid͡ʒidɛr] coll. 'refrigerator'
E	/ɛ/		about 40-50% of speakers also know a phoneme /e/ (see also letter É /eː/). /e/ is not considered part of standard Hungarian, wherein /ɛ/ takes the place of /e/.
É	/eː/
F	/f/
G	/g/
Gy	/ɟ/		denoting /ɟ/ by <gy> is a remnant of (probably) Italian scribes who tried to render the Hungarian sound. <dy> would be a more consistent notation in scope of <ty>, <ny>, <ly> (see there), as the <y> part of digraphs show palatalisation in the Hungarian writing system.
H	/h/	1. [ ɦ ] 2. ∅ 3. [ x ] 4. [ ç ]	1. when in intervocal position. 2. not rendered usually when in final position méh /meː/ 'bee', cseh /tʃɛ/ 'Czech (noun/adj.)' 3. seldom in final position, such as in doh 'dampness', méh 'uterus' 4. seldom, such as in ihlet 'inspiration'
I	/i/
Í	/iː/		Vowel length is phonemically distinctive in Hungarian: irt 'he eradicates' ∼ írt 'he wrote'
J	/j/	[ ç ], [ ʝ ]	allophones occur when /j/ postconsonantic final sound; (voiceless after voiceless, voiced after voiced ones). e.g. férj 'husband', kapj 'get! (imperative)'
K	/k/
L	/l/
Ly	/j/		Orthographic tradition. Once /ʎ/, now /j/ in standard Hungarian.
M	/m/
N	/n/	[ ŋ ]	allophone before /k/, /g/
Ny	/ɲ/
O	/o/
Ó	/oː/		minimal pair to /o/: kor 'age' ∼ kór 'disease'
Ö	/ø/
Ő	/øː/		minimal pair to /ø/: tör 'he breaks' ∼ tőr 'dagger'
P	/p/
(Q)			Q occurs only as part of the digraph qu in foreign words, realised as [kv]: Aquincum [ɑkviŋkum] (name of an old Roman settlement on the area of present-day Óbuda). Words originally spelled with qu are today usually spelled with kv, as in akvarell 'watercolor painting'.
R	/r/		also called apical trill as pronounced by trilling the tip of your tongue (the apex) and not the uvula.
S	/ʃ/		This notation is unusual for European writing systems where <s> stands for /s/ virtually everywhere. In Hungarian, /s/ is represented by <sz>.
Sz	/s/
T	/t/
Ty	/c/
U	/u/
Ú	/uː/		minimal pair to /u/: hurok 'loop' ∼ húrok 'cords'
Ü	/y/
Ű	/yː/
V	/v/
(W)			occurs only in foreign words; rendered usually as /v/
(X)			occurs only in loanwords, and there only when denoting [ks]; [gz] is transcribed: extra, Alexandra, but egzakt 'exact'.
(Y)			in loanwords, usually rendered as /i/ or /j/. Occurs very often in old Hungarian surnames where it stands for /i/ or /ʲi/: 'Báthory' [baːtori], 'Batthyány' [bɑcːaːɲi] (<n>+<y> ∼ /n/+/ʲi/ ∼ /nʲi/ ∼ /ɲi/)
Z	/z/
Zs	/ʒ/

^ List of complementary allophone variants possibly not complete.

Lexical Ordering / Collation

While the characters with diacritic marks are considered separate letters, long and short vowels are treated the same when ordering words, therefore, for example, O and Ó are not distinguished, neither is Ö from Ő, but the latter two come after the Os.

The polygraphic consonant signs are treated as one letter.

comb
cukor
csak	<cs> comes after <c>
...
folyik
folyó	<ó> is sorted as <o>
folyosó
...
fő	and <ő> is sorted as <ö>,
födém	but <ö> comes after <o>
...

The simplified geminates of multigraphs (see above) such as <nny>, <ssz> are collated as <ny>+<ny>, <sz>+<sz> etc., if they are double geminates.

könnyű is collated as <k><ö><ny><ny><ű>. tizennyolc of course as <t><i><z><e><n><ny><o><l><c>, as this is a composite word tizen+nyolc ('above ten' + 'eight' = 'eighteen').

Similar 'ambiguities', which can occur with composite words (which are highly common in Hungarian) are dissolved and collated by sense.

e.g. házszám 'house number (address)' = ház + szám and of course not *házs + *zám.

See also

• Alphabet
• Latin alphabet
• ISO 8859-2
• Hungarian language
• Alphabets derived from the Latin

External links

• Typo.cz Information on Central European typography and typesetting (Some sloppy/incorrect information about the history alphabets)
• X-SAMPA for Hungarian