🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug10.014056.10657@midway.uchicago.edu> hau4@ellis.uchicago.edu (sven  hauptfeld) writes:
> P.S. It seems to me that English, French, German, Spanish and Italian
> pronounciation should be relatively well known, at least among people who
> are interested enough to read sci.lang; but I'd REALLY like to see guides
> like these for Portuguese, Romanian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish,
> Estonian, Hungarian, modern Greek, Turkish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Czech,
> Slowak, Dutch... (more Slavic languages, too - I know some of them, but 
> other people don't!)

Right. So here is Hungarian.

Of course native speakers are invited to make corrections.

Olivier Clary (clary@meteo.fr)

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	PRONUNCIATION GUIDE :  H U N G A R I A N


This is how I wrote accents:
    o' acute accent
    o~ diaeresis (two points over letter)
    o" double acute accent

I did not explain letters that coincide with IPA, like g [g].




a [O>] (a very open o, reversed round a in IPA)

a' [a:]

c [ts], in fact affricate 
  cz is an equivalent old writing (family names, etc.)
  but ch (in German words): like in German _ich_ (c cedilla in IPA)

cs [tS], in fact affricate
  ch is an equivalent old writing (family names, etc.)

e [E]

e' [e:]

gy [dj] approximately, in fact voiced palatal stop (reversed f in IPA)
        (that is, the d is weak and is made between the palate and the
         middle of the tongue)

i [i]

i' [i:]

ly [j]

n [n]
  but [m] before b or p
      [g~] (English ng) before g or k

ny [nj] approximately, in fact like Spanish n~
        (same remark for the n as for the d in gy)

o [o] (between IPA [o] and [O])

o' [o:] (same sound)

o~ [0]

o" [0:]

qu [kv] in German words

r [r] (like in Spanish)

s [S]

sz [s]

t [t]

ty [tj] approximately, in fact voiceless palatal stop [c]
        (unvoiced equivalent of gy)

u [u]

u' [u:]

u~ [y]

u" [y:]

x [ks]

y see gy, ny, ty
  also an old writing for final i (family names, etc.)

zs [Z]



A few more rules:

Groups of consonants:

- They all get voiced if the last one is voiced and is not l r or v:
  sd [Zd]. They all get unvoiced if the last one is voiceless: zt [st]
- Before j, consonants that have a palatal equivalent (d,n,t) make long
  palatal sounds: dj [ddj]   nj [nnj]   tj [ttj]
- Before a sibilant, consonants that have an affricate equivalent and
  their palatal equivalents make long affricate sounds:
        tsz [tts]   gys [ttS]   dz [ddz]   etc.
  And another sibilant gets assimilated:
      Ma'st is szeret. ['ma:St is ,sErEt] "She loves another one too"
- A repeated consonant is pronounced long. For two-character consonants
  only the first character is repeated: ggy [ddj]
- A consonant cannot be pronounced long if the following letter (which
  may be the following word!) is a consonant, except if there is a pause:
   Itt. Ma'r itt van.  ['itt   ma:r 'it vO>n]  "Here. He's already here."

Stress, intonation:

- Stress is on the beginning of words and on the beginning of groups
  of words.
- Intonation falls at the end of sentences, only questions asked
  with the same words than the affirmative (without an interrogative
  pronoun or an _-e_ particle) have a rising-falling intonation,
  with the highest point on the syllable before last.