Na ki a király(né)?

or

The role of -né in Hungarian

The usage of ’-né’ in Hungarian is something that even most of the Hungarians don’t know – unfortunately, as it’s one of the most interesting and beautiful parts of the Hungarian language in my opinion.

Basically, ’-né’ is a variant of ’nő’, meaning ’woman’, or, when used as an adjective, ’female’. The Hungarian language originally does not have grammatical genders, but due to the influence of Indo-European languages, such as Latin and, more significantly, German, in some cases it seems natural to distinguish between male and female forms of a noun in modern Hungarian. For example, ’tanár’ (’teacher’), when not used to name the profession but to talk about a certain person, refers only to a man – to “make it female”, ’nő’ should be added at the end (‘tanárnő’). It is similar to the Lehrer vs. Lehrerin phenomena in German.

Though grammatically ‘né’ is a form of ‘nő’, its meaning is somehow different. When adding ‘né’ to a family name, it means ‘Mrs.’ – e.g. ‘Kovácsné’ means ‘Mrs. Kovács’. The complete meaning of ‘x + né’ (where x = any noun) is that a woman became x by marriage and she is the wife of x. Cannot understand? Don’t worry, neither does most of the Hungarians, though it is not as complicated as it seems. Let me explain with a few examples.

Basic form	Meaning		Meaning.2
király	king	+ nő = királynő	Queen (reigning)
		+ né = királyné	Queen Consort
herceg	prince	+ nő = hercegnő	Princess
		+ né = hercegné	wife of a prince
miniszterelnök	prime minister	+ nő = miniszterelnöknő	female prime minister
		+ né = miniszterelnökné	wife of the prime minister

As you can see from the examples, it does matter whether you add ‘né’ or ‘nő’. Speaking about a ‘grófnő’ (‘countess’) means that she is a countess by birth, and probably unmarried, while a ‘grófné’ is definitely married – and we don’t know whether she is a countess by birth or not. A ‘trónörökösnő’ (‘Crown Princess’) is the heir to the throne in her own right, while a ‘trónörökösné’ is the wife of the Crown Prince. Another, a little bit more difficult and my personal favourite example is the case of ‘sógorné’ and ‘sógornő’. Both can be translated as ‘sister-in-law’. However, the former means the wife of my brother, while the latter means the sister of my spouse, regardless of my and my spouse’s gender.

by Alla