The Hungarian language is totally different in vocabulary and grammar from the Teutonic, Latin, Slav, or Celtic languages. Between Russian and German, or between Russian and English there is much affinity, both groups of languages belonging to the Aryan, or Indo-German class of idioms. Between Hungarian and German, or Hungarian and Slav, there is no affinity whatever. The Hungarians have indeed inserted some Slav and German mortar into crevices left open by an occasional decay of the Hungarian material; but the structure and functions of the Magyar language are totally alien to either Slav or German idioms. It is an agglutinative language, the root of words being almost invariably formed by their first syllables, unto which all affixes and pronouns are soldered according to a fairly regular process of word and case-formation. In Aryan languages the root is, as it were, subterranean, and frequently hard to lay bare. In Hungarian the root is always transparent. The vowels have a distinct musical value, and do not resemble the musically indeterminable vowels or diphthongs of English or German. Consonants are never unduly accumulated, as in Bohemian; and strong accents on one syllable of a word are unknown. Generally, the first syllable of the word has a heavier stress on it. Hungarian is rich both in its actual vocabulary, especially for outward things and phenomena, more especially still for acoustic phenomena; and in its prospective word-treasury. In few languages can new words, expressing shades and phases of meanings, be coined with greater ease. This facility applies to abstract terms as well as to material ones. It is probably not too much to say, that for purposes of Metaphysics or Psychology few languages offer so ample a repository and laboratory for terms as does the Magyar language. Although far from being as adapted for rhyme as English or German, yet Hungarian has many and sonorous rhymes. On the other hand, it crystallizes with readiness into all the metres of Greek or Latin poetry. A peculiarity of Hungarian (and Finnish) are the diminutives of endearment and affection.