History of the Hungarian Language
This ancient language is a Finno-Ugric language that was once thought to have been a Turkish language.
Hungarian bears little resemblance to its Finno-Ugric cousins, Estonian and Finnish.
The origins of the Hungarian language (Magyar) have been steeped in controversy, but one thing is for certain: Hungarian is a very old language. And, while Hungarian one of the most ancient languages in Central Europe, it bears little resemblance to its fellow Finno-Ugric languages, Estonian and Finnish.
Scholars have argued long and hard over whether Hungarian is a Turkish language or a Finno-Ugric language. However, it seems that many Turkish words have been loan words, and Proto-Hungarian arose from Finno-Ugric roots (specifically, the Ugric branch of the language tree). These Turkish loan words were introduced so early into Hungarian languages development that scholars have found it difficult to distinguish which words were loan words and which words were originally a part of the Hungarian that was spoken from before the turn of the 1st millennium to 400 AD.
Surviving text from Medieval Hungary are, unsurprisingly, church texts. The earliest surviving Hungarian text dates from the 12th century; Bible translations exist from later centuries.
Since then, Hungarian has adopted other loan words from the Slavic languages, from Latin, and from German. However, Hungarian remains one of the most difficult languages for English speakers to learn.
