Hungarian
Description
Hungarian (Magyar) is an official language of Hungary spoken by 10.5 million people (98% of the population). Substantial populations of speakers are also in adjacent countries: Romania (2 million); the Czech and Slovak Republics (600,000); the former Yugoslavia (450,000); Ukraine (170,000); and Israel (150,000). A significant number of speakers lives in the US (450,000) and smaller populations--under 20 thousand speakers--in Slovenia, Canada, and Austria.
Hungarian is a Finno- Uralic language surrounded by Indo-European languages. The original Hungarians moved westward into Europe from their homeland east of the Ural Mountains and reached their present settlement area in the Danube basin west of the Carpathian Mountains in the ninth century. It is estimated that it has been separated from its nearest linguistic relatives, Mansi and Khanty, for about 2,500, possibly 3,000 years
Hungarian uses Latin script, first literary sources date back to 1200.
(Source: UCLA Language Materials Project Language Profiles)
Instructor
Adrienn Mizsei
Email
amizsei@sas.upenn.edu
Links:
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/%7Earubin/hungarian.html