How many letters are in the Hungarian alphabet?

The standard Hungarian alphabet has 44 letters. This includes 14 vowels, the basic consonants, 8 digraphs (cs, dz, gy, ly, ny, sz, ty, zs) and the trigraph dzs, each counted as a single letter.

They are the double-acute (hungarumlaut) vowels, unique markers of Hungarian. ő (U+0151) is a long front rounded vowel and ű (U+0171) is a long front rounded close vowel. They differ from the umlauts ö and ü, which are the short versions.

Are q, w, x, y part of the alphabet?

Yes, but only marginally. They appear in foreign words and names and in older spellings (the y in surnames and in the digraphs gy, ly, ny, ty). They occupy fixed positions in collation but are rare in native vocabulary.

What is the difference between ö/ő and ü/ű?

ö and ü are short rounded front vowels written with an umlaut. ő and ű are their long counterparts written with the double acute. Vowel length is phonemic in Hungarian, so the marks change meaning, not just pronunciation length.

Why do digraphs count as single letters?

Each digraph represents one phoneme (cs = the 'ch' sound, sz = 's', s = 'sh'). Because they are single sounds with their own alphabet slot, they are treated as indivisible letters in spelling, collation and crosswords.

Hungarian Alphabet Reference

Email me this result

Get this tool's output sent to your inbox, plus one useful tool a week. No spam, unsubscribe any time.

This is a complete reference to the 44-letter Hungarian alphabet, including the vowels, consonants, the eight digraphs, the trigraph dzs, and the distinctive double-acute letters ő and ű.

How it works

The table lists every letter in official Hungarian alphabetical order with its uppercase form, Unicode code point and a short note. Use the search box to filter by character, name or code point, and click any row to copy the character. Everything is computed and copied locally.

The structure of the alphabet

Hungarian has 14 vowels, formed by four qualities of length and rounding:

short / long unrounded: a/á, e/é, i/í, o/ó, u/ú
short / long rounded front: ö/ő, ü/ű

The ő and ű with their double acute are unique to Hungarian and a few other orthographies; do not confuse them with the German-style umlauts ö and ü, which are the short versions.

The consonant digraphs each spell one sound: cs (ch), dz (dz), gy (palatal d), ly (historically a sound, now = j), ny (palatal n), sz (s), ty (palatal t), zs (zh), plus the trigraph dzs (j as in “jungle”). The plain letter s is pronounced “sh”.

Notes

When a digraph is doubled, Hungarian writes it in short form: sz + sz becomes ssz (not szsz), and gy + gy becomes ggy. The marginal letters q, w, x, y appear mainly in foreign words and in old family-name spellings. All data here runs entirely in your browser.