Hungarian phonology

The phonology of the Hungarian language is notable for its process of vowel harmony, the frequent occurrence of geminate consonants and the presence of otherwise uncommon palatal stops.

This is the standard Hungarian consonantal system, using symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Hungarian orthography, unlike that of the surrounding Slavic languages, does not use háčky or any other consonant diacritics.

[16] Gósy also mentions a different short /a/ that contrasts with both /aː/ and /ɒ/, present in a few words like Svájc ('Switzerland'), svá ('schwa'), advent ('advent'), hardver ('hardware',[17] this usage is considered hyperforeign[citation needed] or simply dated), and halló (used when answering the phone; contrasting with haló 'dying', and háló 'web').

In Standard Hungarian, the first three collapse to [ˈmɛntɛk], while the latter one is unknown, having a different form in the literary language (mentesek).

Vowel harmony must be maintained throughout the entire word, meaning that most suffixes have variants.

For example, nyíl 'arrow' (plural nyíl-ak) corresponds to Komi ньыл /nʲɨl/, Southern Mansi /nʲʌːl/.

Palatalizable consonants are palatal ones and their non-palatal counterparts: d /d/ ~ gy /ɟ/, l /l/ ~ ly /j/, n /n/ ~ ny /ɲ/, t /t/ ~ ty /c/.

The middle alveolar[clarification needed] stops may be omitted in clusters with more than two consonants, depending on speed and articulation of speech: azt hiszem [ɒs‿hisɛm] ~ [ɒst‿hisɛm] 'I presume/guess', mindnyájan [miɲːaːjɒn] 'one and all', különbség [kylømpʃeːɡ] ~ [kylømʃeːɡ] 'difference'.

In morpheme onsets like str- [ʃtr], middle stops tends to be more stable in educated speech, falanxstratégia [fɒlɒnʃtrɒteːɡiɒ] ~ [fɒlɒŋkʃtrɒteːɡiɒ] ~ [fɒlɒŋksʃtrɒteːɡiɒ] 'strategy based on phalanxes'.