Old Hungarian Alphabet Table
| Capital | Small | Unicode name | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter A | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter AA | long counterpart of A |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter EB | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter AMB | Hungarian digraph mb |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter EC | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter ENC | Hungarian digraph nc |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter ECS | Hungarian digraph cs |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter ED | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter AND | Hungarian digraph nd |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter E | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter CLOSE E | distinct quality letter (close e) |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter EE | long counterpart of E |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter EF | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter EG | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter EGY | Hungarian digraph gy |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter EH | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter I | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter II | long counterpart of I |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter EJ | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter EK | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter AK | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter UNK | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter EL | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter ELY | Hungarian digraph ly |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter EM | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter EN | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter ENY | Hungarian digraph ny |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter O | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter OO | long counterpart of O |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter NIKOLSBURG OE | variant named for the 1483 Nikolsburg alphabet |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter RUDIMENTA OE | named variant of OE |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter OEE | – |
| ๐ฒ | ๐ณ | Capital Letter EP | – |
| ๐ฒก | ๐ณก | Capital Letter EMP | Hungarian digraph mp |
| ๐ฒข | ๐ณข | Capital Letter ER | – |
| ๐ฒฃ | ๐ณฃ | Capital Letter SHORT ER | distinct quality letter (short er) |
| ๐ฒค | ๐ณค | Capital Letter ES | – |
| ๐ฒฅ | ๐ณฅ | Capital Letter ESZ | Hungarian digraph sz |
| ๐ฒฆ | ๐ณฆ | Capital Letter ET | – |
| ๐ฒง | ๐ณง | Capital Letter ENT | Hungarian digraph nt |
| ๐ฒจ | ๐ณจ | Capital Letter ETY | Hungarian digraph ty |
| ๐ฒฉ | ๐ณฉ | Capital Letter ECH | – |
| ๐ฒช | ๐ณช | Capital Letter U | – |
| ๐ฒซ | ๐ณซ | Capital Letter UU | long counterpart of U |
| ๐ฒฌ | ๐ณฌ | Capital Letter NIKOLSBURG UE | variant named for the 1483 Nikolsburg alphabet |
| ๐ฒญ | ๐ณญ | Capital Letter RUDIMENTA UE | named variant of UE |
| ๐ฒฎ | ๐ณฎ | Capital Letter EV | – |
| ๐ฒฏ | ๐ณฏ | Capital Letter EZ | – |
| ๐ฒฐ | ๐ณฐ | Capital Letter EZS | Hungarian digraph zs |
| ๐ฒฑ | ๐ณฑ | Capital Letter ENT-SHAPED SIGN | – |
| ๐ฒฒ | ๐ณฒ | Capital Letter US | – |
| ๐ณบ | – | Old Hungarian Number One | value 1 |
| ๐ณป | – | Old Hungarian Number Five | value 5 |
| ๐ณผ | – | Old Hungarian Number Ten | value 10 |
| ๐ณฝ | – | Old Hungarian Number Fifty | value 50 |
| ๐ณพ | – | Old Hungarian Number One Hundred | value 100 |
| ๐ณฟ | – | Old Hungarian Number One Thousand | value 1000 |
Old Hungarian - székely-magyar rovás, officially “Old Hungarian (Hungarian Runic)” in the ISO 15924 registry - is the carved writing of the Carpathian Basin: an alphabetic system Wikipedia treats as a child of the Old Turkic script, apparently brought by the Magyars when they settled the basin in 895. Its name gives away its medium, because rovás derives from the Hungarian verb ró, “to carve, to score” - these letters were usually cut into wood or sticks with a knife, not written with ink.
Its survival story is unlike any neighbor’s. Latin alphabet pressure after the Christian kingdom pushed it out of administration, yet it lived on in Transylvania among the Székely Magyars and in the tally sticks of shepherds counting livestock; a 13th-century chronicle mentions it first, the 1483 Nikolsburg alphabet is its oldest known letter chart, and inscriptions keep turning up into the 17th-19th centuries. The 20th century revived it, complete with political disputes - Wikipedia’s scholarship section is refreshingly blunt that much of the romantic lore fails scrutiny.
The table below lists the entire Unicode block (U+10C80–U+10CFF, added in version 8.0, June 2015): 51 distinct letters, each shown in its capital and small pair, followed by the six numerals 1, 5, 10, 50, 100 and 1000. Twenty codepoints remain unassigned. The script runs right to left and is explicitly not boustrophedon - the direction never alternates.
How to use
- Read the table in three bands: the 51 letter rows show the capital glyph and the small glyph side by side (they are separate codepoints - U+10C80–U+10CB2 capitals, U+10CB3–U+10CF2 smalls), the final 6 rows are the numerals. The Note column flags the Hungarian digraph letters (cs, gy, ly, ny, sz, ty, zs and the older mb/nd/mp/nt/nc clusters) and the long-vowel counterparts (AA for á, II for í, OO for ó, UU for ú).
- Treat the digraph names as the pronunciation key: a letter named ECS is the sound of Hungarian cs, ESZ is sz, EGY is gy - Wikipedia’s letter inventory is built around the digraph spelling of old Hungarian orthography. The NIKOLSBURG and RUDIMENTA rows are variant forms of OE and UE named for their source alphabet charts, which is why the block keeps both.
- Read numbers the Mediterranean way: the six signs form the same additive tally family as Roman, Etruscan and Chuvash numerals - Wikipedia calls them “almost the same” - and their real-life habitat was the rovás-stick: carve the count, then split the stick lengthwise so both parties of a deal keep a matching half, “to avoid later disputes.”
Frequently asked questions
Is Old Hungarian actually related to the runes of Europe?
Not by descent. Wikipedia treats it as a child system of the Old Turkic script - the Central Asian runiform family - with most missing letters derived by script-internal extensions and a few borrowed from Greek; scholar Klára Sándor adds that its origins are probably in the western Turkic runiform writings. Germanic runes merely look similar. If you want the rune family that does descend from an Italian alphabet, that is the runic script, a different lineage.
What does rovas mean and why carve letters at all?
Rovás means “notch, score”, from the verb ró “to carve” - because the letters were usually carved on wood or sticks, and even church wall inscriptions were engraved rather than inked. Carving in wood favors straight strokes and right-to-left order, which is exactly what the surviving material shows. The ISO 15924 name still hedges: “Old Hungarian (Hungarian Runic).”
When was the script actually used, and did it ever die?
Attested from the 10th century with marginal use into the 17th, per the ISO 15924 registry: strongest in medieval Transylvania, pushed out of administration under King Stephen, kept alive by Székely communities and shepherds’ tally sticks, first named in Simon of Kéza’s 13th-century chronicle, charted in the 1483 Nikolsburg alphabet (folk inscriptions like Énlaka 1668 come later), then revived in the 20th century. Today it lives on signs, tattoos and nationalist graffiti - which is precisely why its scholarship is contested.
How do the old hungarian numbers work?
Six signs for 1, 5, 10, 50, 100 and 1000, combined additively like Roman numerals - they belong to the same ancient tally family as Roman, Etruscan and Chuvash numerals. Their signature use was bookkeeping: shepherds carved livestock counts on sticks and cut the stick in two lengthwise, so each side of a transaction held a physical receipt. No position, no zero - just notches with denominations.
Why is the script politically controversial?
Two layers. Scholarly: Wikipedia quotes Klára Sándor’s view that most romantic claims are false - the authentic record is a Székely writing of Turkic runiform origin, found only in historic Székely lands, and modern revivals have added letters and reshaped old ones. Political: because rovás signs often carry irredentist messaging, the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party famously replaced the rovás sign of the city Érd with “szia” (“hi!”) in 2017 - and nobody noticed for a month.