Forming part of the university’s Institute of Hungarian Linguistics and Finno-Ugric Studies (mnyfi.elte.hu), ELTE’s Department of Modern Hungarian Linguistics is a unit of research and education with rich traditions and an autonomous professional profile. The department has existed on a legally continuous basis since 1791, when the first department of Hungarian language and literature, headed by András Vályi, was formed at the University of Nagyszombat. The immediate predecessor of the department was the 2nd Department of Hungarian Linguistics, founded in 1952 and headed by Géza Bárczi. The department adopted its present name in 1970.

With its high number of staff members (including 13 tenured lecturers and 2 emeritus professors), the department has a broad portfolio of research and education. Ever since the beginnings, its professional profile has been shaped by two main spheres of activities. Firstly, in response to continuously changing challenges, the department has always played a proactive role in research on descriptive grammar. In the new millenium, this has been organically supplemented by investigations in semantics and pragmatics, producing a novel, authentic synthesis of enhanced complexity in the description of Hungarian. Secondly, the department has also played a proactive role in providing professional background for L1 education, including strong participation in the relevant teacher training programmes. In addition, individually and in smaller groups, staff members have also engaged successfully in research and education covering such areas as stylistics, text linguistics, sign languages, cognitive linguistics, and various fields of applied linguistics (spelling, rhetoric, communication, language strategies).

The department has strong ties with ELTE’s DiAGram Research Centre for Functional Linguistics, headed by Professor Gábor Tolcsvai Nagy, which operates as an institute-level research centre of the university.

Past and present heads of the department include István Szathmári (1970–1985), Jenő Kiss (1985–1986), Pál Fábián (1986–1990), Borbála Keszler (1990–2004), Géza Balázs (2004–2019) and Szilárd Tátrai (2019–).