By the 10th century, the
Hungarians had established a principality in present-day
Hungary and its neighbourhood. In 1000, Vajk — the later
Stephen I of Hungary — got his
crown from the
Pope, and the history of the Christian
Kingdom of Hungary began. In the 1490s, Hungarian was spoken by about 3.2 million people; this number was fairly high at the time. The first examples of official and legal use are dated back to these years. Some personal letters and wills are known. Nevertheless, the
Ottoman Empire put pressure on neighbouring nations, just like on Hungary — the latter was unstable at the time, due to internal lordship disputes. This led to the Hungarian (led by
Louis II of Hungary) loss of the
Battle of Mohács (1526). In 1541, Ottomans finally captured the capital,
Buda as well. The country was split into three parts; the southern regions fell under Ottoman rule; the western parts officially remained "Kingdom of Hungary", with Habsburg kings; and the eastern area, mainly
Transylvania and the
Partium became independent. Historical linguists set the end of the Old Hungarian period at 1526, as it is such an important date in Hungarian history.
Literary records The
Latin language was made official in the country—especially in the 11th to 15th centuries, the language of literature and religion was Latin. However, Hungarian was used in certain cases; sometimes it was fitted into Latin documents, to avoid later disputes about proprietary rights. However, the first official document of Hungary is not in Latin, but in
Greek—this is the "Charter of the nuns of Veszprémvölgy", dated to 997. The text contains some Hungarian (and also some Slavic) place names: e.g. (compound formed from 'shaft' + an obsolete Turkic
loanword, 'coalition'—today
Szárberény); 'plough'; (from
meleg 'warm' + -
di diminutive suffix). , 1055 The next most important document is the "
Establishing charter of the abbey of Tihany", dated to 1055. In the Latin text, 3 Hungarian sentences, 58 words, and 33 suffixes are present. The longest sentence is, in the original spelling,
feheruuaru rea meneh hodu utu rea (reconstructed pronunciation: ; modern Hungarian: "
Fehérvárra menő hadi útra"—the postposition "rea", meaning "onto", became the suffix "-ra/-re"—English: 'up to the military road going to
Fehérvár'). Today, the vellum is kept in the abbey of
Pannonhalma. Skipping intermediate Hungarian relics, the next important item is the "
Funeral Sermon and Prayer" from 1192. This is the first text completely in Hungarian. The document is found on the 154th page of the Codex Pray (
Pray here is not an English word but a name). —Quoted from the
Funeral Sermon and Prayer, 1192.
Literature in Hungarian is counted since the previous writing. The first known Hungarian poem has the title '
Laments of Mary'—its theme is the story of
Jesus' crucifixion, from the viewpoint of
Mary. It was denoted around 1300, but possibly it is not the first version. Its text is clear, easy to understand and logical, free of
latinisms. The first verse: The next important relic—with a cheerless history—is the "Fragment of Königsberg", dated approximately to the 1350s. This is the remains of the first known, explicitly proven Hungarian
book. The codex had arrived at
Wrocław,
Poland, by the end of the century; there, because it was not understandable to the Polish bookbinder, it was chopped and used to bind a Latin book. The other important book from the time is the Codex Jókay; a 15th-century copy of an original from 1372. The codex is about the life of
Francis of Assisi. , in the Codex of Munich, dated to 1466 In the early 15th century, some non-comprehensive Latin-Hungarian dictionaries, or rather word lists, were composed. Some shorter texts are also known. The most important work is however the first translation of the
Bible: the
Hussite Bible, dated to 1416. The Bible was translated by priests
Tamás Pécsi and
Bálint Ujlaki. They were affected by the concepts of
Jan Hus during their university years (1399–1411) in
Prague. The
Inquisition pursued Hussitism, and the translation was confiscated from the translators; regardless it became so popular that several authentic copies of the original survive. More and more Hungarian books were written, most of them religious. Over and above the "Laments of Mary", the other important item of Old Hungarian poetry is
Szabács viadala ("Triumph of
Šabac"). Reputedly, it was denoted in the year of the battle (1476); in this, Hungarian troops led by King
Matthias of Hungary had a glorious victory over the
Ottoman army — its issue is secular. It is possibly a fragment of a longer poem. A quotation: Some
Old Hungarian script inscriptions are also known, such as the "Alphabet of Nikolsburg" (1483) and a number of deciphered and undeciphered inscriptions.
Linguistic changes Vocabulary In this period, Hungarian developed several new words. One way this happened was through
loanwords coming from languages whose speakers mediated the new concepts. On the other hand, internal word formation also took place, in which the words for new concepts were derived from earlier words. Compared to Modern Hungarian, Old Hungarian was rich in derivative suffixes. Most of these suffixes are also derived from other suffixes, so they can be aligned in "suffix-bushes". There were numerous diminutive suffixes, non-productive in today's Hungarian, e.g. -
d ("", from ""—"tiny hill"); -
t (it left its trace in some geographic names);
-n, -ny, -m (as in
kicsiny, from
kicsi—very little). Forming compounds was also a way to coin new terms. But then again, there are several loanwords dating back to the period 896–1526. Loans were mainly acquired from
Slavic languages (for example, 'king'),
German (e. g. 'prince'), and
Latin (e. g., 'church'). As emerges from the previous examples, these words are primarily associated with Christianity and politics. Other loans are the names of animals living outside Hungary, terms of technology, and so on.
Grammar ;Verbs Like English, Modern Hungarian has two verb tenses: past and nonpast. Futurity is expressed using the auxiliary verb
foɡ. However, Old Hungarian had six verb tenses: Past Narrative (Latin: praeteritum), Past Finite, Past Complex, Present, Future Simple, and Future Complex. Past Narrative was marked using the suffixes
-é,
-á in transitive and
-e,
-a in intransitive. The tense was used to describe an array of past events originally. The verb
várni 'to wait' conjugated in this tense: Future simple was expressed using the suffix -
nd. Future complex (the present-day future tense of the language) is conjugated in the following way: : Infinitive + auxiliary verb 'fog' :
menni fog—he/she is going to go == Middle Hungarian==