Hungarian and language contact Sampsa Holopainen University of Helsinki Uralic language contact 1.4.2018 [email protected] Hungarian language • Part of the Uralic (Finno-Ugric) family of languages • Traditionally considered as a part of the Ugric branch of the family, together with Khanty and Mansi (= the Ob-Ugric languages) • First written records of Hungarian words and names from the 9th century; sentences in 11th c. documents; first coherent text in Hungarian from the 13th c. • The current geographical situation of Hungarian is due to early mediaeval migration (896), partly recorded in historical sources • Ca. 15 million speakers (10 million in Hungary; large numbers also in Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, Austria, USA) Hungarian language Hungarian language Hungarian language • Proto-Hungarian/Ancient Hungarian: • From 2000–1000 BCE (???) until the first written sources • Old Hungarian • From ca. 1000 (896) to 1526 • Middle Hungarian • From 1526 to 1772 • Modern Hungarian • From 1776 Loanwords in Hungarian Loans into Proto-Ugric (?) • Earliest Iranian loans acquired into Proto-Ugric (traditional view): loanwords with irregular cognates • The idea of Turkic loanwords in Proto-Ugric disputed (Róna-Tas 1988; WOT) • Loanwords between the individual Ugric languages? Hu tolvaj ’thief’ <- Proto-Mansi *tūlmāk (> Mansi N tūlmәx) ’thief, volwerine’ (< PU *sala- ’to steal’) Iranian loans • Several layers: earliest Indo-Iranian loans into Proto-Uralic, Proto- Ugric (?) • 30–40 Iranian loanwords found only in Hungarian • Old Iranian (?) loans • Alanian (Ossetic-type) loanwords • Persian loans (?) Old and Middle Iranian loans • tehén ’cow’ <- Iranian *daynu- ’cow’ (> Avestan daēnu-) • tej ’milk’ <- ? Alanian, cf. Ossetic dæjyn) ’to suck (milk)’ • fej ’to milk’ ? <- Iranian *payHas- ’milk (noun)’ (> Avestan payas-) • tíz ’ten’ <- Iranian*dasa- < PI*datsa-; problems with vocalism (why í?) • Also the loans possibly acquired into Proto-Ugric are probably Old- Iranian type: Hu arany ’gold’ < PUg/PU *si̮rańa <- Iranian *zaranya- h (Avestan zaranya-) < PII *ʒ̒rHanyḁ - < *ǵ lh̥ 3-en-yo- Alanian loans • The biggest clearly identifiable layer of Iranian loans • Also uncertain examples • Alanian loans entered also Khanty, Mansi and Permic (independently) • Contacts between Hungarians and Alanians north of the Caucasus in the 7th (?) century • (Contacts between Hungarians and the mediaeval jász settlers in the Carpathian basis?) • Most of the sources outdated: relatively good list of Alanian loans in WOT Alanian loans: examples • asszony ’lady’ <- (←*(a)χsina- > Ossetic æxsin, æxsijnæ ‘lady, mistress’ • kard ’sword’ <- Alanian *kard, cf. Ossetic kard ’knife’ • ? legény ’young man’ <- Alanian *läkwen, cf. Ossetic læg ‘man’, læqwæn ‘son’ • ? szeder ’blackberry’ <- Alanian, cf. Ossetic dzedïr ’blackberry’ Persian loans? • Cultural words, not necessarily evidence of direct contact • vár ’castle’ (cf. Middle Persian war ’shelter, enclosure’, vám ’customs’ (cf. Middle Persian abām ’loan, debt’), vásár ’market’ (cf. Middle Persian wāzār) • WOT explains most of these as Alanian loans Permic loans • A couple of words possibly borrowed from Proto-Permic into Hungarian • ezüst ’silver’, cf. Komi ezis̮ id. • Can also be from Alanian, cf. Ossetic ævzist/ævzestæ ’silver’ (about which see Viredaz 2017) Turkic loans • The most imporant (?) loanword layer in Hungarian • (At least) three layers of Turkic loans • Hungarian lexikon plays an important role in reconstructing the prehistoric varieties of Turkic spoken in Eastern Europe (WOT) • 1. Early Turkic loans before the settlement of 896 (Landnahme, honfoglalás) • 2. Middle layer (Árpád-kori török jövevényszavak) • 3. Loanwords from Ottoman Turkish (16th and 17th c.) Turkic loans • Earliest layer: • Chuvash-type (Bolgar Turkic) donor language: rhotacism, lamdacism • Hungarians part of Turkic tribal confederations • Very intensive language contact, words for central concepts borrowed: • ír ’to write’, gyertya ’candle’, ökör ’bull’, borjú ’calf’, bölcs ’wise’ Turkic loans: middle layer • Pechenegs and Cumans settled in Hungary in the 13th century, assimilation by the early modern times • Kipchak-type Turkic • Limited number of loans • koboz ’instrument’, kalauz ’guide’, komondor ’a dog-breed’ Turkic loans: Ottoman Turkish • Cultural words borrowed from Turkish elite during the era of rule (1526–1683) • papucs ’slippers’ <- papuç, zseb ’pocket’ <- cep, kávé ’coffee’ <- kefe ’brush’ <- kefe Slavic loans • Consists of several different layers (chronologically and areally) • First loans acquired from East Slavic before the settlement in the Carbathian Basin • Loans from South and West Slavic • Important cultural words • Earliest loans show reflexes of Slavic nasal-vowels (szent <- *svętŭ, munka <- *mǫka) • Stress-rule in vowel-substitutions: ” accented vowel of a word in the source language governs whether a it ends up in Hungarian with frontvowel or (predominant) back-vowel harmony” (Hyllested 2014) • Substrate-like influence Slavic loans • East, West, South: examples (Gerstner 2013) • From Czech: csésze ’cup’, kuka ’trash-bin’ • From Polish: bekecs ’a kind of coat’, galuska ’a kind of food’ • From Slovak: boróka ’juniper’, bukta ’a pastry’, kacsa ’duck’, lekvár ’jam’ , pletyka ’rumour’ • From Ukrainian: harisnya ’stocking’, kalamajka ’disorder’, zimankó ’bad weather in winter’ • From Bulgarian: mostoha ’stepmother’, palota ’palace’, rozsda ’rust’, zarándok ’pilgrimage’ • From Croatian or Serbian: bajnok ’champion’, csatorna ’channel’, csizma ’boot’, megye ’county’, paprika • From Slovene: kúp ’cone’, malac ’piglet’, zabla ’piece of metal placed into horse’s mouth’ Slavic loans • Stress-rule (Helimski 1992) • Examples (Hyllested 2014: 217–222) • Hu ebéd ‘dinner’ (not †abéd) ← Late Common Slavic *obĕ̋ d • Hu rosta ‘sifter, sieve’ (not †restö) ← LCS *rešeto, cf. Ru. rešetó id. • Hu. szalonna ‘lard, bacon’ (not e.g. †szelönne) ← LCS *solnīná > *slanīná ‘(salted) lard’ Doublets: • Hu. csalad ‘family’ ~ cseled ‘domestic, servant’ ← LCS *čeljadь Latin loans • The contact situation rather different • Reflexes of the prononciation of spoken mediaeval Latin (s, zs) • Large numbers of religious vocabulary: templom, kápolna, oltár, angyal • Terms relating to education: iskola, rektor, tábla • Various cultural words: konvenció, patika ’apteekki’, zsálya ’salvia’ • Similar stress-rules in vowel-adaptation as with the Slavic and loans (Helimski 1992, Hyllested 2014) Latin loans • Stress-rule (Hyllested 2014) • Hu fülemüle, fülemile ‘nightingale’ ← Lat. philomḗla • Hu bazsalikom (not e.g. †bezselikem) ← Lat. basílicum German loans • An important layer, 500–600 words • Contact started in the middle ages, intensive contact in the modern period • Oldest loans from Bavarian Romanian loanwords • A relatively small layer • More loans in dialects (esp. in csángó) • Contacts between Hungarian and Romanian started in the 12th c. in the earliest • áfonya ’blueberry’ (<- afin), palacsinta ’pancake’ (<- plăcintă), tokány ’a kind of food’ (<- tocană) Romani loans • Few loans in standard Hungarian, more in slang • csaj ’girl’, csávó ’guy’, kajál ’to eat’, manusz ’man’ Other loans • French (already some loans in the mediaeval period) • Italian • Yiddish • English Loans from Hungarian into other languages • gulyás, huszár, kocsi, paprika, puszta • Hungarian loanwords in Slovak, Romanian, Serbian.