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Hungarian language
A Ugric language of the Uralic family which, through long contact with Turkic peoples, took in hundreds of old Turkic words.
Hungarian is a Ugric language of the Uralic family and, with 14 million speakers, its largest member. Besides Hungary it is spoken in Slovakia, Romania (Transylvania), Serbia (Vojvodina), Ukraine and Austria, and is one of the EU's 24 official languages.
For centuries the Hungarians lived alongside Turkic peoples on the Eurasian steppe, so Hungarian contains hundreds of words from old Turkic languages — such as alma (apple) and búza (wheat) — connected with farming, herding and daily life.
These linguistic ties inspired Hungarian Turkology, with scholars such as Vámbéry and Gyula Németh researching the historic links between Hungarian and Turkic.
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Updated: October 3, 2026