The Hungarian name for the language is magyar[ˈmɒɟɒr] or magyar nyelv (listen). The word "Magyar" is also used as an English word to refer to Hungarian people as an ethnic group, or to the language.
Hungarian is a member of the Uralic language family. Linguistic connections between Hungarian and other Uralic languages were noticed in the 1670s, and the family itself (then called Finno-Ugric) was established in 1717, though the classification of Hungarian as a Uralic/Finno-Ugric rather than Turkic language continued to be a matter of impassioned political controversy through the 18th and into the 19th centuries. Hungarian has traditionally been assigned to a Ugric branch within Uralic/Finno-Ugric, along with the Mansi and Khanty languages of western Siberia (Khanty–Mansia region), but it is no longer clear that this is a valid group. When the Samoyed languages were determined to be part of the family, it was thought at first that Finnic and Ugric (Finno-Ugric) were closer to each other than to the Samoyed branch of the family, but this position is currently considered questionable.