THE OLD HUNGARIAN PERIOD
THE SYSTEM OF THE LANGUAGE
OF THE OLD HUNGARIAN PERIOD

THE OLD HUNGARIAN PERIOD

From the point of view of the history of the Hungarian language the time of the reign of the Angevine kings and Sigismund is considered the middle period of the Old Hungarian age. Phonetical and morphological changes - which started when the Hungarians began their independent life, and were wide-spread in the age of the Árpád dynasty - became completed and firm by this time. The spread of intellectual culture was parallel to the spread of material culture. Vocabulary was quite rich. The number of schools increased and not only ecclesiastical, but also secular people could learn.

Literacy also spread. More and more people visited foreign schools, such as the universities of Paris, Padua, Bologne, Vienna and Krakow. Universities were founded in Hungary, too: at Pécs in 1367, at Óbuda in 1389. The spread of culture helped the development of the language, which became suitable for the more accurate and sophisticated expression of thoughts.

There were thousands of charters, issued at royal chancelleries or charter-issuing offices. The very few Hungarian phrases they include inform us about the vocabulary, phonetic and morphological relations of the age. Starting from the end of the 14th century longer written works were also issued, which included a rich material about the condition and development of the language of the age. These texts are partly ecclesiastic, partly secular works.

Ecclesiastic linguistic relics

The majority of ecclesiastic linguistic relics are codices. The earliest Hungarian codex is the Jókai codex, which includes the legends of St Francis of Assissi. This is the first hand-written book in Hungarian, a copy of a codex translated from Latin after 1372, made around 1448. The original text was translated by Observant Franciscan monks for the Clarissan nuns or the Beginas of Óbuda, who did not speak Latin. The original translation was lost, only a copy survived. The copy was probably made in Óbuda (or Gyöngyös).

The text of the Jókai codex originates from several Latin translations. The biggest part of it is from a 14th-century collection of legends, entitled "Actus Beati Francisci et sociorum eius" (The Life of St Francis and his friends). This source describes St Francis similar to Christ. It tells us about St Francis's 40-day fast, his prayers on mount Alverna, it describes how he obtained Christ's five wounds and how he founded the Franciscan order.

It also mentions pleasant episodes and miracles: how a wild wolf was converted in Gubbio at the request of St Francis and how the saint preached for his "sisters, the birds". The parts describing St Francis's virtues (poverty, obedience and devoutedness) were taken from a collection of legends, called "Speculum perfectionis" (The Mirror of Perfectness). Besides these sources the translators also used St Bonaventura's biography about St Francis.

The spelling of the Jókai codex does not use the secondary signs of punctuation, it follows the practice of chancellery spelling. Its language is rather archaic; the copy shows an earlier state of the language. For example, its spelling does not reflect the openness of the vowels in certain words, like , for example (in modern spelling) 'husszú' [long], 'társot' [company], 'lossan' [slowly], 'magamot' [myself], 'fiadot' [your son]. From among the changes in consonants it does not show the mt > nt assimilation (for example, 'himt', 'romt', 'cimterem'), nor the assimilation of postfixes -val/-vel: 'malasztval' [with grace], 'járásval' [with walk], 'sebességvel' [with speed]...etc. It uses a lot of archaic words: 'álojt' [think], 'ösztövérít' [consume], 'késál' [fight], 'leuzát' [scandal]...etc.

Instead of the word temple it uses church; regarding the word puszta it does not know it as a noun plain, instead of this word it uses dreary. There are a lot of words created by conscious word forming: derivated and compound words. For example: kedveletes = kedves [nice], jelenségbeli [private, individual], községbeli [common], átkozottak [damned], hogyhana = mintha [as if]...etc. The structure of sentences in the codex are strongly influenced by Latin. The Latin text is often clumsily translated word by word, and the Hungarian version follows not only the meaning, but also all the comparing means, word order, passive voice and agreement of the Latin.

The first Hungarian Bible translations the Hussite Bible. This is the only Hungarian product of Hussitism. The Bible (or at least the greatest part of it) was translated by two secular priests from Syrmia: Thomas Pécsi, altar priest from Kamonc (today: Kamenica) and Master Bálint Újlaki, parish priest from Belcsény (today: Beocin). Both of them studied at the university of Prague between 1399-1411, and having learnt about the teachings of János Husz, they became Hussites themselves. They started the Bible translation around 1416, and finished it before 1441. Together with Hussite teachings they adopted Hussite spelling and used it in their translation.

The translation did not follow the spirit of Catholic teachings. For example, the expression spiritus sanctus 'The Holy Spirit' was translated as the holy breath, which was considered heretic. As the Franciscan inquisitors pursued them, in 1439 priest Thomas and his followers escaped to Moldavia. The pursuers caught them up and took away the Bible translation. Fortunately they did not destroy the confiscated translation, but they used it themselves. The original translation was finally destroyed during the 15th century, its text survived in manuscripts. The codices which include the text of the Hussite Bible are the following:

The earliest copied codex of the Bible translation is the Vienna codex. It was probably copied from the original one around 1450. It includes some smaller books from the Old Testament: Books of Ruth, Judith, Esther, the Maccabai, Baruk, Daniel and twelve smaller prophets. The sequence of the books does not follow the order of the Vulgate. The codex was copied by three different persons. The greatest part of it originates from the second person. The copiers made a lot of spelling mistakes, but they all follow the signs of Hussite spelling. The signs for open and closed 'e' sounds are the most consistent in this codex.

The second manuscript in chronological order is the Munich codex. It includes the four gospels of the New Testament. There is a 12-page Hungarian calendar - with the names of public holidays, the saints and a calendar wheel - on a parchment bound in front of the gospels. With the help of the wheel one could compile the calendar for every year. The calendar wheel is valid for the years between 1416 and 1435; this shows that the Bible translation must have been started after 1416.

The Munich codex was copied by three different persons. The copy is not as consistent in spelling (with special regard to the signs for the 'e' sound) as the Vienna codex. The copier of the biggest part wrote his name, the place and date of copying under the finishing sentence of John's gospel. According to this the copier was Emeric Henzsel's son, George Németi; his work was finished in the Moldavian town Tatros (today: Trotus, Rumania) in 1466. His name, Németi refers to the fact that he might have come from a Saxon family.

The Apor codex consisted of several manuscripts of different origin and content. It might have been a result of a number of copies. The several misspellings and misuses of words in it refer to this fact. Its copiers were probably Catholic monks. Only the part containing psalms from the Old Testament - made around 1490 - came from the Hussite Bible. This part was made by two persons. The other parts were copied by four different persons. These are already from the 16th century, and contain translations made in the spirit of Catholicism. The so-called "three significant services" might have been made around 1500, which describes the order of services of the three Mary celebrations. In the part which was made around 1510 there are medieval hymns and prayers from the Old Testament. The part which describes Jesus's torture may have been copied around 1515.

The three codices of the Hussite Bible are closely connected by their contents, language and mode of expression. The original condition of the language of the Bible translation was probably preserved by the Vienna codex, the other two codices contain the dialects of the copiers. The translators had to cope with many problems so that they could express the richness of the Bible's culture in the Hungarian language. Biblical, ecclesiastical linguistic elements, Hungarian extracts known from masses, which were used in Hungarian Christianity, might have helped their work. They may have known German and Czech Bible translations as well, and these could influence their usage of words.

They created more than two hundred new words by derivation, compound words and the renewal of old words. They used several special words, which became archaic since then. For example, álanalkodat = csel [trick], címerlet = cím [title], ragadozat = préda [prey], villamodat = hajnal [dawn], levált = farizeus [Pharisee], hirvadat = halványság [plainness], monnó = mindkettő [both], holval = reggel [morning]...etc. Their language is full of emphatic adverbials and pronouns. For example, míglen, mikoron [when], netalántál [probably], önnön bennük [in themselves], minenmagunk [ourselves]...etc. The consistent use of linking words is also typical of the language. For example, monnal = mint [like], és úgy = tehát [therefore], mint, miként, miképpen [as]...etc.

Certain forms of verbs, which later became archaic, were quite frequently used, for example, future tense with -nd (látand, üldözend, meghaland) [will see, will chase, will die]. The structure of their sentences, the agreement of the modes and tenses of verbs were frequently influenced by the Latin language. In spite of the linguistic inaccuracy and Latinisms we can say that the translators of the Hussite Bible had created the literary language of the 15th century.

From among ecclesiastical linguistic relics also deserves mentioning a short one, called "Lines and Glosses from Marosvásárhely". It was discovered in the Koncz codex of Marosvásárhely. It was made by an unknown translator around 1410. It contains a translation of a part from the Book of Kings, one of the books of the Old Testament. There are numerous mistakes and mistranslations in its text. Its language can be characterised by vowels referring to pronunciation without lip-rounding. For example, melléled = mellőled [next to you], midén = midőn [as], kelket = kölyköt [young of an animal], tivis = tövis [thorn]...etc. The translator inserted four short glosses (altogether 11 words) next to the Biblical text.

The short relic from 1433, called the Laska lines, is also of ecclesiastical type. This is a 5-line Hungarian text in a Latin codex. Its author is a Benedictine monk, Demeter Laskói. The content of the relic is a prayer to Christ written in verse, a poetic translation of a Latin prayer also written in verse. Its language can be characterised by the use of closed vowels (i, ü). Its spelling resembles to chancellery spelling.

Secular linguistic relics

The secular linguistic relics of the age are almost all Latin-Hungarian word lists. Actually these are dictionaries of the time. They were made to make learning Latin easier, and they were used in school education and in chancelleries. The Latin words are grouped around concepts. The Hungarian meanings are written above the Latin words. These word lists are very important from the point of view of medieval Hungarian vocabulary, word formation and the ethymology of words. The earliest Hungarian dictionaries developed from these word lists, too.

The oldest Latin-Hungarian word list is the Königsberg word list. It may have been compiled around 1380. It was probably used in a royal chancellery. It contains 159 Latin words, but only 100 words were explained in Hungarian. It is the work of two copiers, whose mother tongue might have been German. The word list contains words referring to family relations, senses, good and bad characteristic features, emotions, illnesses and the names of items of clothing, tools and weapons.

The Beszterce, Schlägl and Sopron word list can be traced back to a single original one. All the lists were made with the mediation of several lost copies. The original list may have been prepared between 1380-90. The sample could have been the Latin material of a Latin-German list of words, made in the Bavaria-Austria region.

The Beszterce word list was copied by a guest teacher, George from "Tótország" [Slovakia] around 1395. The word list may have been a school book used in a town school. It contains 1316 Hungarian words, grouped around 21 main concepts. It also lists words, which became archaic by today. For example, hort [greyhound], pikonhog [a type of helmet], pakocska [teasing], kotorgárt [shield], higy [earring], egyveng [brother or sister]...etc. The majority of its words shows closed vowels; for example, iszop = iszap [mud], sum = som [dogberry], lopus = lapos [flat]...etc. It is very interesting from the point of view of the history of culture: it does not know the names of fire weapons, although it gives a detailed description about the weapons of the Sigismund age.

The Schlägl word list was compiled around 1405. Its copier is unknown. It contains 2140 Hungarian words, grouped around 32 main concepts. We can find words of spiritual culture in it. For example, elme, értelem, szándék, ok [mind, sense, will, reason]...etc. Its words belonging to literary education are: for example, the names of musical instruments (kürt, síp, gajd, hegedű, lant...etc.) [horn, whistle, a type of wind instrument, violin, lute...etc] and the job names of entertainers (kürtös, igric, dobos) [horn-player, minstrel, drummer]. Archaic words also occur, for example, verő = kalapács [hammer], kőláb = oszlop [column], állterem = álkapocs [jaw]..etc. In some words there are very closed vowels, for example, harum = három [three], habus = habos [foamy], orrus = orros [nosy]...etc.

The Sopron word list was probably a fragment of a longer word list. There are only 5 main concept groups with 217 words. It was copied around 1435. The copier was inaccurate and unskillful, he may have been a student. The list is shorter than the Beszterce and Schlägl word lists, but it contains words which are not included in earlier bigger word lists.

The Jász word list - which was prepared after 1422 - can be found in a Jász-Latin word list. It contains only 6 (maybe 8) Hungarian words; these are names of food and drinks, and items needed for cooking, for example, vaj, árpa, fú = vadkacsa [butter, barley, wild duck].

The relic called "The Hungarian language-master of student John of Rotenburg" is a collection of words similar to word lists. Its words are the notes of a man whose mother tongue was German. Between 1418 and 1422 the student wrote the most important Hungarian words and expressions to a page of a Latin school book. These were, for example, names of family relations, words referring to eating, washing, clothing and everyday life, even some obscene expressions. The language-master contains some fragments of sentences, and short sentences, such as "Is this yours?", "You give me some wine!", "I'm talking to you."...etc.

We can find shorter or longer glosses among secular linguistic relics. The gloss called the "Mondsee gloss", which contains three words "ravasz [róka] átkozta szél" ("cunning {fox} damn wind"), was written around 1390 in the codex of legends of the Upper-Austrian Mondsee abbey. The Vienna glosses can be found in a school book from around 1423, which was taken from Esztergom to Vienna. The glosses were written by four different persons. One of them - as his name shows - Jakab Bélai, was a student, whose mother tongue was German, so may have learnt the Hungarian language together with Latin. The biggest collection of glosses is the Schlägl glosses. This contains 130 words, which may have been copied to a Latin codex around 1430. The Schlägl word list was attached to this codex. The majority of the glosses are nouns: names of plants and animals.

THE SYSTEM OF THE LANGUAGE OF THE OLD HUNGARIAN PERIOD

Concerning place names, the number of names created by place name suffixes (-d, -s, -I) decreased, while the number of compound names significantly grew. It was very popular to name a place after the patron saint of the local church: Szentjános, Szentimre, Szentanna...etc. Another widespread tradition was to put nationality names in front of place names: Magyarfalu, Németfalu, Oroszmező...etc [Hungarian village, German village, Russian field].

Grammar

The development of the grammatical system follows the line of the ancient and early Old Hungarian period. The most important phonetic changes, which made the language more sonorous and similar to its modern form (like, for example, the openness of vowels, the simplification of diphthongs, and the assimilation of consonants), were finished or almost finished by this time. Spelling, however, preserved the original phonetic condition for a long time.

Due to phonetic changes and tendencies towards different phonetic equalisations there were changes in the roots of the words as well. Low-position vowels at the end of word roots (a, e), then later middle-position vowels (o, ö) separated from word roots and became part of suffixes. The development of the complete system of modern types of word roots started; single and multi-form roots and the different versions of v-roots appeared (for example, bokor: bokrot; mező : mezeje; sző : szövök; ló : lova; keserű : keserves [bush, field, weave, horse, bitter]).

New grammatical means of the morphological system appeared. Concerning verbal formative syllables there were various compound affixes and formative groups besides the simple formative syllables which were used earlier. For example, -ng, -sít, -doz/-dez/-döz, -dokol/-dekel/-dököl, -aszt/-eszt, -asztal/-esztel, -aml/-eml, -lkodik/-lködik...etc. The number participles formed with the affix -andó/-endő, -ván/-vén is significantly big. The new noun formative syllables are: -ós/-ős, -atos/-etes, -cska/-cske, -dad/-ded, -lat/-let, -ságos/-séges, -ságú/-ségű, -zat/-zet; the new form the word nő [woman] was -né...etc. The possessive affix -é develops into -i, a formative affix of place names.

In the usage of ordinal numbers a new affix appears: -ik (for example, harmadik [third]). In the conjugation of verbs all the modes and tenses are used. To express past actions and happenings narrative past (mene, láta ) and compound past continuous (megy vala) were often used. To describe permanent conditions participles with affixes -va/-ve, -ván/-vén. -atta/-ette were used instead of verbs. Even more, personal suffixes were added to them. For example, in the Vienna codex: nézvéjek = ők nézték [they watched it]; in the Munich codex: aluvánk = aludtunk [we were sleeping]; in the Vienna codex: elmenettem = elmentem [I have gone], lakattam = laktam [I lived]; in the Munich codex: evezettek = eveztek [they were rowing]...etc.

To express future not only the present tense is used, but also with the help of auxiliary verbs with the ending -nd, and 'fog' [will]. In the usage of modes and tenses of verbs a strong Latin influence can be felt: the verbal predicates of subordinated sentences are often in conditional mode, instead of affirmative or imperative modes, which would be more accurate according to Hungarian grammar. For example, in the Vienna codex: "midőn a király víg volna" [when the king would be merry]; in the Jókai codex: "parancsolá, hogy semmit ne szólna" [he ordered that he would not say anything]...etc.

The inflection of nouns shows the increase of the number of suffixes. It is the first time the suffix -szor/-szer/-ször appears; -ként becomes a suffix as well, from the word kéj, kény; and -kor also becomes a suffix originating from the noun kor. New suffixes are -nként/-nkéd; -stul/-stül; -lan/-len. Besides the -i suffix, indicating plural possessive in case of nouns, -ai/-ei, then -jai/-jei also appears. In plural possessive nominal structures the plural could be expressed by the signified noun, too. For example, embereknek házuk [people's houses].

The structures of sentences varied in this period. In the text relics we can find every kind of sentences. Concerning simple sentences the most popular ones were the affirmative sentences, but different forms of questions, exclamations and wishes were also used. For example, in the Vienna codex: "Avajha eladattatánk" [If only we could sell it]; in the Munich codex: "Jaj, tinektek" [Woe is you/ Oh, dear], "Ne akarj félned" [Don't be afraid]...etc. Sentences were separated by periods or commas, or no punctuation was used at all. Question and exclamation marks were not known then. The predicate of a sentences could often be a participle. For example, in the Jókai codex: "ő vala jövendő" [he was going to come]; in the Munich codex: "Valának evők és ivók" [There were people eating and drinking]; "valának csudálkodók" [there were people wondering]...etc.

The agreement of the subject and the verb in number often follows the Latin pattern: after a quantitative or collective subject there is usually a plural verb. For example, in the Munich codex: "hallák a két tanítvány" [the two students heard}; "a gyülekezet egybe gyülekezének" [the congregation gathered together]...etc.

In sentences the verb and the participles could be complemented with an object or different adverbials - as before. The number of free adverbials increases, and number of fixed adverbials referring to abstract relations also grew.

Concerning the complements of nouns, qualitative adjectives are often nouns (names of materials, colours, different kinships and jobs). This situation urged the appearance of double parts of speech (noun-adjectives). New types of (adjectival) participles also appeared: hallandó = hallásra alkalmas [ears suitable for hearing] fülek, keresendő [something to look for], szeretendő alázatosság [loveable obedience]; tisztelendő fiú [a boy to be respected]...etc. The participle való complemented with an adverb was often used as adjective: in the Jókai codex: "Szent sebekről való csuda" [a miracle about holy hands], in the Beszterce word list: "mívesnek való étek? [food for an artist]..etc.

Words with qualitative adjectives are often in the plural, after Latin pattern. For example: harminc napok [thirty days], két latrok [two rascals]...etc. In structures with possessive adjectives the number of emphatic suffixes -nak/-nek increased: Izraelnek fiai, Szamaritánusoknak városai [sons of Israel, cities of the Samaritans}...etc.

Appositions are relatively rare. Their role is to create an atmosphere and define the signified word more accurately.

Complements to adjectives are frequently used. These are always adverbs, often with fixed structures, and they express different abstract relations. there were only a very few complements to cardinal numbers and adverbs.

Concerning compound sentences, all the modern types of subordinate or co-ordinate clauses were in use. This fact also proves that the language of this period was suitable for expressing various meanings and logical relations. Latin influence is very strong in the agreement of mode and time of clauses. Separation from the Latin language began only in the next period of linguistic history.