User:Cserlajos/Linguistics

This page is to develop the article History of the Hungarian language, as a little information is known in Wikipedia about the topic.

Middle Hungarian (1526 – 1772)

Historic proceedings

The happenings of the 1530s and 1540s brought a new situtation to the country: the time of Humanism – which only a few decades earlier, under Matthias of Hungary flurished – was over; the population, both in villages and towns, was terrorized by Ottoman raids; the majority of the country was lost; and the remainder began to feel the problems of the new Habsburg rule. This predicament caused backwardness in the cultural life as well.

However, Hungary, with the previously listed great territorial and human losses, soon entered into a new cultural era, the Protestant Reformation. This religious movement heartened many authors to find new ways. Cultural life was primarily based in Trasylvania, but Royal Hungary also saw the rebirth of the Hungarian culture.

The first printed Hungarian book was printed in Cracow, Poland, in 1533. It is a partial Bible-translation, containing the letters of Saint Paul. The translation was done by Benedek Komjáti. The New Testament's first printed edition was published by János Sylvester (1541). He also composed the first scientific analysis of the Hungarian language, in 1539 – his work's title is "Grammatica Hungarolatina". Like Komjáti, Sylvester printed his works in Cracow.

The previous publications, however, were not Protestant in their sense; the first directly reformed Hungarian book was Imre Ozorai's "Argument", published in Cracow first in 1535 and second in 1546.

Among other works, Aesop's Fables – a collection of moral short stories – were first translated into Hungarian by Gábor Pesti (1536). These are the first denoted Hungarian short stories. The first attempt to standardize Hungarian was done by Mátyás Bíró Dévai. He proposed a logical and feasible orthograpy to the language. His book, called "Orthographia", is known from its second edition, printed in 1549.

Bálint Balassa

Historic Hungarian text samples

Old Hungarian

Hungarian
Latiatuc feleym zumtuchel mic vogmuc. yſa pur eſ chomuv uogmuc. Menyi miloſtben terumteve eleve miv iſemucut adamut. eſ odutta vola neki paradiſumut hazoa. Eſ mend paradiſumben uolov gimilcictul munda neki elnie. Heon tilutoa wt ig fa gimilce tvl. Ge mundoa neki meret nu eneyc. yſa ki nopun emdul oz gimilſtwl. halalnec halalaal holz. Hadlaua choltat terumteve iſtentul. ge feledeve. Engede urdung intetvinec. eſ evec oz tiluvt gimilſtwl. es oz gimilſben halalut evec. Eſ oz gimilſnek vvl keſeruv uola vize. hug turchucat mige zocoztia vola. Num heon muga nec. ge mend w foianec halalut evec. Horogu vec iſten. eſ veteve wt ez munkaſ vilagbele. eſ levn halalnec eſ poculnec feze. eſ mend w nemenec. Kic ozvc. miv vogmuc.

English
Do you see, my friends, with your eyes, what we are: truly, we are dust and ash. How much of grace in he (God) created our ancestor, Adam. And he was told to live on every fruit of the Paradise. Whilst he (God) forbid him from the fruit of one tree. He told him why he can not eat from it: "truly, on the day when you eat from the fruit, you will die with the death of death." He had heard about his death from the creator God, but he forgot it. He gave way to the allure of Evil. And he ate from the forbidden fruit. And in this fruit, he ate his death. And the fruit's juice was so bitter that it broke away their throats. Not only for himself, but for the whole of his race he ate death. God had been infuriated, and he dropped him into this back-breaking world. And the nest of death and hell arrived. And for the whole race of he. Who are they? We are they.

– Quoted from the Funeral Sermon and Prayer, 1192.

Middle Hungarian

Hungarian
III. fabula. Az egeröl Bekarol es Heiarol.
EGY eger futos vala a' patak mellet, es eremeſt altal ment volna á vizen: de nemlehete. Talaluan egy bekat á parton tanachot kert töle, mikeppen altal mehetne á vizen. A beka veuen egy fonalat, megkötte az egernek á labat az ö labahoz, monduan: Vly á hatamra, es en altal viſzlek: tarch kemenyen magadat. Midön hatara ült volna a beka, beſzekelek á vizbe es úſzni kezde. De midön á közepin volna, be kezde merülni a vizbe es az egeret vtanna vonni fenek fele. [...]

English
3rd fable. About the mouse, the frog and the hawk.
A mouse was running along the brook, and wanted to cross the water directly: but it could not. As it had found a frog on the bank, he asked the frog how it could cross the water. The frog had brought a twist, and said: "Sit on my back, and I will take you across: keep yourself strongly." When it had sat on the frog's back, the frog entered the water and began to swim. But when it was at the center, began to sink in the water and to pull the mouse behind it towards the bottom. [...]

– Quoted from: Gáspár Heltai: Szaz fabvla. Kolozsvár, 1566.

Reference works

• Molnár József – Simon Györgyi: Magyar nyelvemlékek. 3rd edition, Tankönyvkiadó, Budapest, 1980.
• Dr. Inczefi Géza: A magyar nyelv fejlődéstörténete. Typescript. Tankönyvkiadó, Budapest, 1969.
• Gáspár Heltai: Száz fabvla. Heltai Press, Kolozsvár, 1566.
• A magyar középkor története. Pannonica, 2006.
• Péter Ruffy: Bujdosó nyelvemlékeink. Móra Publishing, 1977.

See also

• Hungarian language
• Hungarian literature
• Funeral Sermon and Prayer
• Old Hungarian 'Lamentations of Mary'
• Hungary
• History of Hungary

External links

• link1
• link2