ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Regular sound correspondences between Hungarian and other Uralic languages

Okay, kiddo, let's talk about sounds in different languages. Hungarian is a language that is part of a group of languages called the Uralic languages. There are other languages in this group, such as Finnish, Estonian, and many more.

Now, when we look at these different languages, we can see that some of the sounds are the same in all of them. For example, the sound that we make when we say the letter "m" is the same in Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian.

However, there are also some sounds that are different in these languages. For example, in Hungarian, there is a sound that we make when we say the letter "ú" that is not found in any other Uralic language.

But, even though there are some differences, there are also patterns that we see when we compare the sounds in these languages. We call these patterns "regular sound correspondences".

These correspondences help us understand how these different Uralic languages are related to each other. They tell us which sounds have changed over time and which sounds have stayed the same.

So, in summary, Hungarian is a language that is part of a group of languages called Uralic languages. These languages share some sounds, but also have some differences. Regular sound correspondences help us understand how these languages are related to each other by showing us which sounds have changed and which ones have stayed the same.