Languages
Hungarian is the only official language of Hungary and widely spoken by non-Hungarians also. According to the 2001 census 1,766,733 people (99.4%) speak Hungarian, 393,642 (22.1%) English, 286,351 (16.1%) German, 68,960 (3.9%) Russian and 57,648 people (3.2%) speak French in Budapest. Hungarian is the mother language to near all of the residents, while the other languages spoken as second languages.
| Language | 1715 | 1737 | 1750 | 1851 | 1880 | 1890 | 1900 | 1910 | 1920 | 1930 | 1941 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hungarian | 19.4% | 22.5% | 22.2% | 36.6% | 56.7% | 67.1% | 79.6% | 85.9% | 90.2% | 94.3% | 97% |
| German | 55.6% | 57.8% | 55.2% | 56.4% | 34.3% | 23.7% | 14% | 9% | 6.5% | 3.8% | 1.9% |
| Slovak | 2.2% | 5.6% | 6.5% | 5% | 6.1% | 5.6% | 3.4% | 2.3% | 1.5% | 0.7% | 0.3% |
| Other | 22.8% | 14.1% | 16.1% | 2% | 2.9% | 3.6% | 3% | 2.8% | 1.8% | 1.2% | 0.8% |
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of Budapest
Famous quotes containing the word languages:
“The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“No doubt, to a man of sense, travel offers advantages. As many languages as he has, as many friends, as many arts and trades, so many times is he a man. A foreign country is a point of comparison, wherefrom to judge his own.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The trouble with foreign languages is, you have to think before your speak.”
—Swedish proverb, trans. by Verne Moberg.