Etymologically
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van

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Pronunciation

Forms

van (present vagyok, vagy, van, vagyunk, vagytok, vannak; past volt; future lesz; conditional volna or lenne; subjunctive legyen or folk légyen; infinitive lenni)[2] The older third person singular vagyon survives in regional and archaic use, and the third person plural vagynak beside vannak is dialectal or obsolete.[2] The infinitive of the verb's own stem appears only in the phrase vanni van “there is, indeed”.[2][3] Old Hungarian had vala (past), vadnak (third person plural) and vagyon; old spellings include uogmuc “we are” (c. 1195), wagun and uolna (Königsberg Fragment) and vattoc “you are” (Vienna Codex).[4][5] Dialect forms include vót, ólt, vaon and von, and a second person singular vagyó.[4][3][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Uralic *wole- (“to be, to become”), one of the words Hungarian inherited from the Finno-Ugric period.[4][5][7][8][9][1] Its cognates are Mansi āl-, Khanty wǎl- (“to live, to be”), Komi-Zyrian ve̮l-, Udmurt vi̮l-, Western Mari ə̆la-, Erzya uľe-, Moksha uľe- and Finnish olla.[5][9][4] In Mansi the initial /w/ was lost before the original /o/.[4][8]

The oldest Hungarian stem contained an /l/, kept in vala, ⟨volt⟩, ⟨volna⟩ and való; the /a/ ~ /o/ alternation of these forms is the same as in halott beside holt.[4][5] In ⟨vagyok⟩, ⟨vagy⟩ and ⟨vagyunk⟩ the /l/ of the stem became /ɟ/ by palatalisation and affrication, as in hogy and így.[4][5][7] The MSzFE explains the rounded vowel of ⟨volt⟩ and ⟨volna⟩ by the following /l/ and dental, and the dialect forms without /l/ (⟨vót⟩, ⟨vóna⟩) by the vocalisation of the /l/.[8]

The old third person singular vagyon was at first a noun, formed from the bare stem with the deverbal suffix -n, and meant “what is, what exists”; it took on a verbal function only when ⟨vagy⟩ became fixed as the second person singular.[4][5][7] The present ⟨van⟩ is a late back-formation from the third person plural ⟨vannak⟩, which arose by assimilation from vagynak ~ vadnak.[4][5][7][10] TESz rejects the view that the ⟨gy⟩ of the stem is a frequentative or present-tense suffix, and ÚESz the derivation from a pronominal stem.[4][5]

The verb is suppletive: its future, subjunctive and infinitive (⟨lesz⟩, ⟨legyen⟩, ⟨lenni⟩) belong to lesz, which goes back to the Finno-Ugric period, to Proto-Uralic *le- (“to be, to become, to live”), with a suffix -sz that was first frequentative, then a present-tense marker, and finally part of the stem.[5][7][1] ÚESz compares a Turkic and a Mongolian verb ⟨bol-⟩ “to be”;[5][4] TESz holds that the comparison with Altaic words needs further study and that a Uralic etymology is mistaken.[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A charter of 1138, known from a copy of 1329, has the personal names Mawag and Mauog; their second part may be a form of the verb, “who is”, but the reading is uncertain.[4][5] The first sure record is in the Funeral Sermon and Prayer of about 1195: yſa pur eſ chomuv uogmuc “behold, we are dust and ashes”, where the verb is the copula, and vola in a compound past tense.[4][5][8]

Semantic evolution

TESz and ÚESz give four main uses: “to exist, to be somewhere”, recorded with certainty from the Königsberg Fragment; the copula, and the auxiliary in compound tenses with vala, volt and volna, both from the Funeral Sermon; and valakinek van “someone has”, the Hungarian way of expressing possession, from the Jókai Codex (copied about 1448).[4][5] The derivative volta “being, presence” appears in the same codex.[5]

The noun vagyon “what exists” shifted to “material goods, property” by 1692, and later also meant “mass” and “intellectual gift”.[11][5] In the same way the third person van itself became a noun: “an existing thing” in 1835, “a being” in 1855, and “wealth, property” in 1886; ÚESz compares Chuvash pur and Ottoman Turkish var, both “there is” and “wealth”.[5] The noun van “property” is folk usage and is recorded by the dialect dictionaries.[2][12]

Dialects use the verb also for “to cost” (sok pénzembe van “it costs me a lot”) and “to happen” (van úgy “it happens that”).[3][13][6]

Timeline

  • 1138 – Mawag, Mauog, personal names in a charter known from a copy of 1329, perhaps containing the verb.[4][5]
  • c. 1195 – uogmuc “we are” and vola in the Funeral Sermon and Prayer.[4][5]
  • 13th–14th century – wala, uolna, uog and wagun in the Königsberg Fragment, dated about 1350 by TESz and to the early 13th century by ÚESz.[4][5]
  • c. 1448 – vadnak, vagyon and the possessive construction valakinek van in the Jókai Codex (copy of a text written after 1372).[4][5]
  • c. 1456 – vannak and voth in the Sermones Dominicales.[4][5]
  • 1604 – van in Szenczi Molnár's dictionary.[4][5]
  • 1692 – the noun vagyon “property, wealth”.[11][5]
  • 1835 – the noun van “an existing thing”.[5]
  • 1886 – the noun van “wealth, property”.[5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To exist, to be among the things that are; of a living being, to be alive: Van Isten?[2][1]
  2. To be somewhere, to stay or be present; to live or work somewhere: Anya a konyhában van.[2]
  3. Of a time or a period, to be current, to last: Nyár van.[2]
  4. To happen, to take place: Mi van veled?[2]
  5. With an adverb, to be in a state of health or in some circumstances: Jól vagyok.[2]
  6. Third person, with a possessive subject: to have: Van egy kutyám.[2][1]
  7. To amount to at least so much: Van az húsz kiló is.[2]
  8. Unstressed, as the copula of a nominal predicate outside the present third person: Beteg voltam.[2][1]
  9. As an auxiliary, with the adverbial participle in -va, -ve, expressing a state: Az ajtó zárva van.[1]

Noun

  1. (dialectal, folk) property, wealth; the same as vagyon.[2][12][5]

Word family

  • vagyogat
  • vagyon
  • vagyonos
  • való

Usage notes

In the present indicative third person the copula is left out (A ház nagy.), and in that person the verb is not negated with nem or sem.[2] The old form vagyon still occurs in archaic and regional speech.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Bárczi, Géza; Országh, László (eds.) (1959–1962), A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára, 7 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó; online at ertelmezo.oszk.hu
  3. ^ a b c Bálint, Sándor (1957), Szegedi szótár, 2 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 2, 642
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 3, 1084
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
  6. ^ a b Kiss, Géza (1952), Ormánysági szótár, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 580
  7. ^ a b c d e Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó
  8. ^ a b c d Lakó, György (ed.) (1967–1978), A magyar szókészlet finnugor elemei, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 3, 669
  9. ^ a b Rédei, Károly (ed.) (1986–1991), Uralisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó / Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz; online as Uralonet, uralonet.nytud.hu
  10. ^ Bárczi, Géza (1941), Magyar szófejtő szótár, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Egyetemi Nyomda, p. 178
  11. ^ a b Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 3, 1068
  12. ^ a b B. Lőrinczy, Éva (ed.) (1979–2010), Új magyar tájszótár, 5 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 5, 631
  13. ^ Csűry, Bálint (1935–1936), Szamosháti szótár, 2 vols., Budapest: Magyar Nyelvtudományi Társaság, p. 2, 439