Dialects and accents

[darkina]

I have a curiosity:
are there very different dialects and accents in Hungarian?

I suppose there must be differences between the ways people speak in different places, but is it very marked? For example, are there words/expressions that are used in a place and not in another? Are there really different dialects, or are the differences not too big?
Or is it easy to recognise where in Hungary someone is from, just judging on the accent? (When I was in Szeged I had a French friend who was learning Hungarian at Uni and she was pretty good, and she had friends in the Tokaj region who told her that she was getting a Szeged accent). What are the differences? Vowels being more open or closed or stuff like that?

[CoBB]

The differences are small enough not to prevent mutual understanding. There are many dialectal words (some of which are expected to be known for people in other regions, even though they never use it themselves) and accents are often characteristic; you guessed right about vowel shifts, those are indeed the most audible marks of each dialect. Especially a, á, e and é can change a lot.

A különbségek elég kicsik, hogy ne akadályozzák a kölcsönös megértést. Sok tájnyelvi szó létezik (ezek közül párat más régiókban is ismernek, még ha nem is használják őket), és a kiejtés is gyakran jellegzetes; jó tipp volt a magánhangzók változása, tényleg ez a legjobban hallható különbség a nyelvjárások között. Különösen az a, á, e és é ejtése változatos.

[darkina]

Ok... uhm so there is not too much to say about it then

Maybe it's me, but I find that in the song Az Igazi Nevem, the singer's vowels are somehow more 'marked' than what I can hear in Bonanza Banzai's songs. She has very clear vowels.

[nJohn West-Hungary]

I have a curiosity:
are there very different dialects and accents in Hungarian?

HUNGARIAN DIALECTS:

http://fonetika.nytud.hu/nyelvjaras/atlaszkep.htm

[darkina]

HUNGARIAN DIALECTS:

http://fonetika.nytud.hu/nyelvjaras/atlaszkep.htm

Cool map

[zhiguli]

csángó, said to be one of the most divergent dialects:

http://www.hi.is/~maurizio/csango/csangolanguages.htm

[CoBB]

It is indeed, since it was unaffected by the revision: it's basically archaic Hungarian. But that link is scary, there are many orthographical errors in the Hungarian column...

Ez így van, mivel nem érintette a nyelvújítás: alapvetően régies magyar. De a link elég ijesztő, a magyar oszlop tele van helyesírási hibákkal...

[darkina]

It is indeed, since it was unaffected by the revision: it's basically archaic Hungarian. But that link is scary, there are many orthographical errors in the Hungarian column...

Wow, some are so obvious that even I can spot them

Maybe because it's not a very Hungarian page...

Copyright "Associazione Amici dei Csango" (Roma, Italy) - 2003

[CoBB]

If anyone wants to listen to some Csángó, here it is:

Ha valaki akar egy kis csángót hallgatni, itt talál:

http://mek.niif.hu/03000/03072/mp3/index.html

[Levo]

If anyone wants to listen to some Csángó, here it is:

Ha valaki akar egy kis csángót hallgatni, itt talál:

http://mek.niif.hu/03000/03072/mp3/index.html

Gyakorlatilag az egészet értem teljesen.
Vajon ilyen lehet egy svédnek a norvég, egy olasznak a szárd, egy csehnek a szlovák?

[''']

A nagybatyam (nincsenek ekezeteim) azt mondta hogy kapot egy kazettat amin csago nok beszeltek (ez volt a kazetta lenyege) es hogy o nem ertette oket meg. Biztos hogy nincs valami olyan csango ami teljesen mas mint a mai magyar? Mert a cseten mondta az egyik magyar nekem hogy a csango faluban teljesen ertheto magyart beszelnek.

[Levo]

A nagybatyam (nincsenek ekezeteim) azt mondta hogy kapot egy kazettat amin csago nok beszeltek (ez volt a kazetta lenyege) es hogy o nem ertette oket meg. Biztos hogy nincs valami olyan csango ami teljesen mas mint a mai magyar? Mert a cseten mondta az egyik magyar nekem hogy a csango faluban teljesen ertheto magyart beszelnek.

Ez az, hogy régebben én is hallottam már olyan csángót, amiből szinte semmit nem értettem az első percekben és nagyon oda kellett figyelnem, hogy belejöjjek. Egy dokumentumfilm volt egy kisfiúról, akit felküldenek a hegyi szállásra vigyázni az állatokra teljesen egyedül ott a vadonban.

[Bondi]

A megértés erősen függ a szövegtől vagy a helyzettől. Idegen nyelvek esetében is, ha nem tudod, miről szól egy adott szöveg vagy beszédhelyzet, akkor még nagy szókinccsel is borzasztó nehéz megérteni.

Vicces tíz részes minisorozat, érdemes megnézni:
székely nyelvlecke magyaroknak:
http://kukker.manna.ro/kereses/székely%20nyelvlecke

Úgy látszik, homokszem a gépezetben az ékezet...: I., II., III., IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., IX., X. Kezicsókolom.

[Łukasz]

I've come across this in a few books about the Hungarian language that in some dialects the «e» which is the harmonic counterpart of «a» can be distinguished from the «e» which is the harmonic counterpart of «o» and «ö». That would mean that the «e» in «(ők) kérnek» is different from the one in «(ti) kértek». Does this distinction still exist in some dialects today?

[Kenny]

If you mean the distinction of /e/ (as opposed to "é" /e:/) from /ɛ/, it does exist in some dialects, mostly rural ones, but it's not too common, at least in my esteem. I live in a little town and I have lots of friends from other areas of Hungary (Budapest, Szeged, Debrecen, Kecskemét, Pécs stb.) and I don't hear it used too often. Even if I do, it makes no difference to me, as I make no effort to detect this differentiation.

[andris]

I realized I use slightly different e-s in some words, after i read about it.

[Bondi]

I realized I speak two versions of Hungarian. If I’m not at home, or I’m writing, I use the standard language, but if I’m at home I use quite a few dialectical/regional (tájszólási) words. The most obvious ones are the personal pronouns: én - te - ő - mi - ti - ők. We tend to use the plural ‘k’ ending everywhere: én - te - ő - mink - tik - ők.

Sometimes I even say hun, instead of hol. :)

[''']

If you mean the distinction of /e/ (as opposed to "é" /e:/) from /ɛ/, it does exist in some dialects, mostly rural ones, but it's not too common, at least in my esteem. I live in a little town and I have lots of friends from other areas of Hungary (Budapest, Szeged, Debrecen, Kecskemét, Pécs stb.) and I don't hear it used too often. Even if I do, it makes no difference to me, as I make no effort to detect this differentiation.

by /ε/ you mean /æ/ right? English and French have /ε/ ([GB] air, flesh, [fr] fait) English and magyar have /æ/ ([hu] ez, [GB] am)

I use hun and " ehun van la!" but only when I'm joking around. Although my favourite dialectal words are tik and tikmony (tyúk, tojás)

[Kenny]

I'm positive that we do not have /æ/ in Hungarian but then again I might have missed something. "Ez" is simply /ɛz/.

[''']

I checked with my phonology lecturer. It's /æ/. Unless you pronounce fait as it it were ,,fet" which is wrong. and if our <e> is /ɛ/ then how do you distinguish "flesh" ,,fles'' /flɛʃ/ and "flash" /flæʃ/?

Also, it can't be /ɛ/ because I have trouble distinguishing french é /e/ and ai /ɛ/ even though I CAN make both since magyar é is /e:/ and english e is /ɛ/ both of which I use and produce natively but never in the same lang. If we had /ɛ/ and it contrasted with /e/ I'd have no problem distinguishing them.