Interesting parallels
in English and Hungarian

This was one of the first word pairs (in grammar school) that started me researching the connection. I thought excitedly how interesting it was that the English word SAIL is SZÉL = WIND in Hungarian. I thought it peculiar: the same sound, same overall meaning. The connection—one needs wind to sail.

sz = [s]      é = [ei] though it is not a diphthong

If two words have the same or similar forms and the meaning is the same or similar (logical connection), then I am quite sure that we are looking at the same word. The chances of an accidental agreement are mathematically very slight.

The word SZÁLL, which means FLY confirms the Hungarian origin as the word is in a system in Hungarian.
SZELLŐ = breeze; SZELLEMES = witty

Interesting parallels
in English and Hungarian

Playing on the idea of the soul being of the quality of the wind - invisible, light, yet something is there - in both languages, it is easy to see how the SAIL can become the SOUL as well.

Same in Hungarian:  SZELLEM = soul, wit, mind

Also consider Seele, German; siela Lithuanian; soul, ziel Dutch; soul Norwegian; soul, själ Swedish; Sjæl Danish sjel Norwegian; sielu, soul Finnish; sál Faroese, Icelandic

How much the Hungarian word is in a system

Just an interesting addition is another way of saying soul in Hungarian:

LÉLEK = soul            LÉLEGZIK = breathe

SZÉL = wind and LÉLEGZIK has things in common - this invisible something that blows or we breathe in


Sroll down to connection to LIVE-LIFE-ALIVE connection

My favourite example: HOUSE

It is curious to me that the makers of this map see the relationship between HOUSE - HUS - HOOSE - HAUS etc. but do not see that the Hungarian HÁZ would be in the same group. As you see the colour of the word, it basically stands on its own.

This is ridiculous. The Hungarian word sounds the same and means the same. I would go further and say the CASA kind of words are the same as well with the h/k sound change, like in hover>cover.
In Hungarian, the meaning is created by the consonants, and vowels further specify things.

The English etymology dictionary does not know where the word comes from. Unknown origin.
Well, let me explain...

HOUSE

The Hungarian language has several ancient stems around which a large number of words collect with the same basic meaning. Such a stem is HO (the consonant H has the meaning, O is the most common vowel sound used with it).
Consider the meaning of all these English words I listed. They all cover or protect something, metaphorically, too:

HUT, hovel, home, hose, hame, humbug, haze, hazy, hood, hair, hat, hoar, hover, cover, card (here H became K)

HOUSE - HÁZ

Check out the many Hungarian words with the same underlying meaning

For the hover-cover-over triplet, there is a corresponding Hungarian word: hever (leisurely lie on something, a bed)

Conclusion

The word groups examined so far reveal a striking pattern. In Hungarian, several ancient semantic roots (such as KR/GR, HO/HAZ, RO, TER/TAR, ESZ/ISZ) [see below] form large, coherent, and still productive systems, where meaning is preserved, expanded, and transparently connected across dozens or even hundreds of words. These systems are not fossilised remnants, but living structures that continue to generate new meanings.

In most other European languages, the same roots appear only in fragmented form – as isolated words, semantic residues, or borrowed elements whose original internal logic is no longer felt. Latin, long assumed to be a primary source, often proves to be a carrier rather than an origin, preserving only a small number of shape- or action-related words while compensating for lost meaning through prefixes and formal constructions.

The Celtic languages stand out as partial exceptions, preserving more of these ancient roots than other Indo-European branches, which may reflect their early presence in Central Europe and contact with an older linguistic layer. English, influenced by both Celtic and Germanic sources, retains many of these elements, though without a unified system.

Taken together, the evidence suggests the existence of a very ancient European semantic layer, once widespread, but now largely lost. Hungarian appears to have preserved this layer with exceptional completeness and internal consistency. While this does not deny later contacts or influences, it strongly indicates that the deepest semantic structures of Hungarian are far older than traditionally assumed and cannot be fully explained by mainstream classifications alone.

This research is ongoing – but even at this stage, the patterns observed are too systematic, too numerous, and too internally coherent to be dismissed as coincidence.

WATER

WATER must be a basic word in every language as it is a basic part of life. Yet, the sound [v]/[w] can be found in most European languages - they likely show a common origin. I do not propose less than the idea that they are different forms of the same word in the once-spoken language of ancient Europe.

The VI ancient stem means things that force something else into motion.

In the domain of eating and drinking, Hungarian preserves a complete and internally transparent semantic system, while other European languages rely on functionally sufficient but structurally fragmented vocabularies.

Hungarian builds eating, drinking, food, appetite, causation, quality, and place from a single transparent system.

Other languages express the same basic needs using separate, unrelated roots.

Vocabulary exists everywhere — semantic architecture does not.

Constantly every ancient root shows intact even today in Hungarian

SZER - another root  - this mostly appear in other European languages via Greek and Latin

All words shown are built on the native SZER root and express order, arrangement, structure, system, or organised relationship. 

It is amazing to see how the underlying meaning of the root creates new words, and they are so strong that they can create words with metaphoric meanings

LAMP-LÁMPA

Quite amazing - how come the so called linguists do not see these connections?

An amazing link

The many onomatopoeic Hungarian words resonate with their English equivalents. The English grammatical -ing that shows continuous motion can be found in Hungarian, too with the same meaning!
In Hungarian, you will find it with different vowel sounds because the Hungarian language harmonizes the main and the ending words' vowels.

Further examples of the -ing in Hungarian

And more words found since the creation of the above slide

🇭🇺 Hungarian (RO field) 

(i.e. not visually listed, but same root + meaning)

rombolódik, romlékony, rombadőlt, rombolóerő, rozsdásodik, rozsdásodás, roppant, ropogós, rongál, rongálás, rondít, roggyadt, rohadás, rothadás, rögös, rücskös

🇬🇧 English 

wreck, crumble, crunch, crack, crumbling, corrosion, corrode, fray, frayed, tattered, decay, decayed

🍀 Celtic (Irish / Scottish / Welsh / Breton) 

rùsg, rùisgte, ròineach, ruisc, ruadhachadh, rhosg, rhwygo, rusk, roz

🇩🇪 Germanic (non-English) 

riss, rau, rauh, rotnar, rjúfa, verrotten

🇸🇱 Slavic 

razvalina, razrušit, razpad, ruda

🇱🇦 Latin 

ruptura, corruptus

🇫🇷 French 

rouille, rompu, rude

🇹🇷 Turkish – control language (no RO system)

çürük, pas, yıkmak, dökülmek

Additional words found since the preparation of the above slide

Continued

The root system beautifully is shown in Hungarian

🔵 Core meaning of TER / TAR

spread · extend · lay out · area · domain · duration
(physical → abstract)

🇭🇺 Hungarian (reference system – note the density)

Core examples (everyday language)

tér, terület, terem, terep, telek, tanya, tenger, tó, táj, térkép
terjed, terjeszt, terjedelem, tág, tágul, tágas
terít, terítő, terítés, tál, tányér, tálal
teremt, terem (ige), termel, termék, természet, termékeny
távol, távolság, táv, túl, tova
terv, tartomány, tart, tartós, tartalom, tartalék
tár, tárol, térül, türelem, tájékozódik, tájékoztat

From just this list, we already have 45+, without dialects or rare forms.

Realistic Hungarian count (conservative):  55–70
(fully productive, still growing)

🇬🇧 English (mostly via Latin/French)

Clear examples

terrain, territory, term, terminal, terminate
extend, extension, extent
tract, attract, extract
turf, tarry (delay), tarry (spread pitch)
store, storage (semantic parallel, not root)

Even being generous, English mostly reuses Latin carriers.

14–18 solid items

🍀 Celtic (Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Breton)

Examples across languages

tir / tír – land
talamh – ground
treabh – spread / plough
treud – group spread out
tarraing – pull, draw out
traws – across
treabhadh – cultivation

18–25
(stronger than Germanic, weaker than Hungarian)

🇩🇪 Germanic (non-English)

Examples

Terrain (loan)
Teil – part
tragen – carry (extend through space)
tragen → ertragen
Ort (place, but different root)

10–14
(mostly broken or borrowed)

🇸🇱 Slavic

Examples

teritorija (loan)
tlo – ground
raztegniti – stretch
trajati – last (duration)
prostor – space (different root)

8–12

🇱🇦 Latin (carrier)

Core

terra
territorium
terminus
tendere
tractus

5–7
(narrow, already abstracted)

🇫🇷 French

Examples

terre
territoire
terrain
terme
étendre (extend)

6–9

🇫🇮 Finnish

Examples

tanner – firm ground
tila – space
terä – edge (semantic drift)

3–5, no root system

🇹🇷 Turkish (control)

Examples

tarla – field
taraf – side
uzatmak (extend – different root)

2–4, no system

Hungarian geniuses of the 20th century

Because of their legendary knowledge, their brilliant imagination, their strange language spoken among themselves, their strange English accent, the 50 or so Hungarian scientists to whom the world owes the greatest discoveries of the 20th century have been jokingly called Martians in American scientific circles.

According to an American study, the 20th century was prepared in Budapest, because it was a Hungarian mother tongue, and almost all the scientists who launched and developed the computer technology, atomic and space research that defined the 20th century were educated in one of the famous Budapest schools. "Neumann, Szilárd, Wigner, march out to the Városliget!" - The arithmetic teacher didn't say this to three kids with water, but to three math geniuses: They were classmates at the Fasori Gymnasium in Budapest, and their mathematical knowledge was so astonishing that their teacher sent them out for a breather instead of writing a test, because they solved even the most difficult problems in no time. All three later became world famous. 

Jenő Wigner invented the nuclear reactor, 

Leo Szilárd the atomic bomb and 

Ede Teller the hydrogen bomb. 

Their knowledge unleashed enormous power from the bottle, but all three protested against the use of atomic energy for warfare, against people. They were looking for a source of energy in nuclear fission, not a destructive bomb. Together with Einstein, Leo Szilard wrote to the US President asking for the peaceful use of nuclear fission. It was not his fault that his great invention was used as a weapon of mass destruction. János Neumann is the father of the computer, one of the greatest geniuses of his time. The computer he built in 1943 was the size of a room, but it is undoubtedly the ancestor of computers that have now shrunk to the size of a briefcase. John Neumann was an adviser to US President Eisenhower, who talked him out of attacking China. At his deathbed, senior army officers took turns to keep him from spilling military secrets in a feverish sleep. It was unnecessary. In his deathbed, János Neumann spoke Hungarian...Not only the creation of the computer, but also important steps in its development are linked to Hungarian names.

János Kemény is the creator of the most widely used programming language, Basic, and the e-mail system that conquered the world.

Károly Simonyi developed the spreadsheet program Excel, he is the second man in the famous Microsoft company, and Bill Gates is the man who made him the richest man in the world.

László Lovász and László Bélády are considered the greatest figures of the IT revolution for their software development, while 

András Gróf is credited with the creation of microprocessors and personal computers respectively.

Kornél Lánczos, a distinguished theoretical physicist and mathematician, was a colleague of Einstein, to whom the creator of relativity wrote: "You are the only person I know who approaches physics in the same way I do." 

Hungarian scientists were particularly attracted to the science of flight. Their discoveries that conquered the air were decades ahead of their time. 

Born in Pankota, Arad County, Oszkár Asbóth was educated in Arad. As a colleague of Tódor Kármán, he is a prominent figure in the history of helicopters. Awarded an honorary doctorate by President Kennedy, he has been awarded honorary doctorates by thirty universities. Tódor Kármán is the namesake of craters on the Moon and Mars. He was the inventor of the first helicopter and jet aircraft. Kármán's research led to the development of the supersonic aircraft and rocket technology. 

Albert Fonó is the father of the jet propulsion principle.

The thin-walled structures developed by Miklós Hoff are still used worldwide to build aircraft, space rockets and submarines.

Zoltán Bay is a pioneer of space exploration. In 1946, at the same time as American researchers, he succeeded in sending signals to the Moon and detecting echoes with his radar, which he had set up in Budapest.

Győző Szebehelyi was instrumental in getting the Americans to the Moon: he designed the orbit of the Apollo spacecraft. 

The names János Csonka and Donát Bánki should be familiar to anyone who gets into a car: the hundreds of millions of petrol engines in the world all run on the carburettor they invented. They got the idea of a carburettor that mixes petrol with air from a florist's daughter who sprayed water on roses by blowing air into a thin tube."I've had a stressful day today," you tell your mother, but did you know that the concept of stress was first recognised and defined by Hungarian scientist János Selye a few decades ago.

Dénes Mihály is the television broadcast, the talkie,

Peter Goldmark, colour television,

Antal Csicsátka, the inventor of stereo technology.

Ernő Rubik's ingenious invention, the world-conquering Rubik's Cube, is no child's play - although you may have managed to solve all six sides of it. In fact, it requires very complex mathematical skills on the part of both the creator and the player.

The most important discoveries of the 20th century were made by Hungarians, six American presidents were advised by Hungarian scientists. The world is amazed: where does this world-shaping intellectual power come from?