page_title: History of the Hungarian language
section_title: Literary records
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Hungarian language / Old Hungarian (10th to 15th centuries) / Literary records
caption_attribution_description: English: Text fragment from the founding declaration of the Benedictine Abbey of Tihany (Hungary), 1055, preserved in the Pannonhalma Archabbey. These are considered to be the oldest surviving written words in Hungarian. The text reads as follows: "feheruuaru rea meneh hodu utu rea" (compare to modern Hungarian: "Fehérvárra menő hadi útra", note how the postposition "rea", meaning "onto", became the suffix "-ra/-re"), meaning "up to the military road going to Fehérvár"
context_page_description: Hungarian is a Uralic language of the Ugric group. It has been spoken in the region of modern-day Hungary since the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in the late 9th century.
  Hungarian's ancestral language probably separated from the Ob-Ugric languages during the Bronze Age. There is no attestation for a period of close to two millennia. Records in Old Hungarian begin fragmentarily in epigraphy in the Old Hungarian script beginning in the 10th century; isolated Hungarian words are attested in manuscript tradition from the turn of the 11th century. The oldest surviving coherent text in Old Hungarian is the Funeral Sermon and Prayer, dated to 1192.
  The Old Hungarian period is by convention said to cover Medieval Hungary, from the initial invasion of Pannonia in AD 896, to the collapse of the Kingdom of Hungary following the Battle of Mohács of 1526. Printing begins during Middle Hungarian, from 1526 to 1772, i.e. from the first books printed in Hungarian to the Age of Enlightenment, which prompted language reforms that resulted in the modern literary Hungarian language.
context_section_description: 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. saɣarbrien (compound formed from saɣar 'shaft' + an obsolete Turkic loanword, brien 'coalition'—today Szárberény); saːmtaɣ 'plough'; meleɡdi (from meleg 'warm' + -di diminutive suffix).
  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: /fɛhɛːrvaːru reaː mɛnɛɣ hɔdu utu reaː/; 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 point 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 English; it is a name). The sermon begins with the words Latiatuc feleym zumtuchel mic vogmuc. yſa pur eſ chomuv uogmuc (/laːtjaːtuk fɛlɛim symtyxːɛl mik vɔɟmuk iʃaː por eʃ xɔmou vɔɟmuk/ — "Do you see, my friends, what we are: truly, we are only dust and ash.")
  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 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 1430. 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 these concepts, 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.
caption: Hungarian words in the founding declaration of the Benedictine Abbey of Tihany, 1055
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