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Interlingual Taboos

It's the "devil's own language". As Chico Buarque noted in his (2004) novel Budapest, Hungarian is 'rumoured to be the only tongue in the world the devil respects.' The novel's opening sentence portends the general theme of despair: "

"It should be against the law to mock someone who tries his luck in a foreign language..."

I've got a lot of sympathy with that position, but no sympathy for those expats who use it as an excuse not to really try. That said, most weeks, in my never ending attempt to expand my linguistic colonisation of Hungarian (or Hungarian's colonisation of my mind), I manage to say something really stupid and embarrassing.

I could be due to simple mispronunciation e.g. saying

• Szarok meaning 'I am shitting'
• Instead of sarok meaning 'corner'

or just a bad choice of phrase e.g. saying

• Kézimunka literally 'hand-work', which should mean 'needlework' or 'embroidery' but practically means 'hand-job' p.s. despite my guess being technically correct, this was obviously not the right word to use. And be warned, dictionaries are very coy about this so will let you walk blindly into these social faux pas without even hinting at alternative meanings
• What I should have said was 'kézm?vesség' meaning 'handicraft' or 'handmade'
  

Funny huh? You should have been there when I said the last one, I was talking to my friend's mother at the time.

But all that aside, even taking perfect knowledge into account you can still come a cropper when trying to communicate across the language-culture divide. Unfortunately, there is yet another level of complexity that just can't be planned for. Well, there are plenty more levels of complexity, but let's just keep this discussion nice and shallow, shall we?

Even if what you are saying is perfectly respectable, correct and normal you can still manage to offend or amuse a native speaker with your efforts. That's because innocent words in one language resemble something embarrassing or appalling in another.

Linguists and anthropologists have even studied these transnational transgressions, particularly were one culture then starts avoiding saying certain words in one language because they know they sound rude in another. This avoidance behaviour has come to be known as avoiding 'intercultural taboos' (see also "Interlingual Word Taboos", American Anthropologist, 53(3) 338-344, 1951).

To cut to the chase here's a short list of some of the words that don't sound quite right to either Hungarian or English speakers:

English to Hungarian

• Church sounds like 'csöcs', which means 'breasts'
  
• Cookie sounds like 'kuki', a childish way to refer to male genitals
  
• Chalk sounds like 'csók', which means 'kiss'
  
• Bus sounds like 'basz', particularly when said by someone with an American accent, which means 'f**k'
  
• Thing sounds like 'fing', which means 'fart'
  

Hungarian to English

• Puszi = Literally 'kiss' but used as a way to say goodbye, so more like 'love and kisses'. Sounds like 'pussy'.
• Fakanál = 'wooden spoon', though pronounced something like 'f**king hell' with a Liverpool accent.
• Sajt = 'cheese', though sounds like 'shite' pronounced with an Irish accent
• Pisztráng = 'trout', though is pronounced 'piss-trang'
  

The upshot of this is that people really do avoid pronouncing these words properly even when they are desperate to sound native otherwise. Hungarians generally have a problem saying 'w' and use 'v' instead, they never aspirate their plosives enough, and really can't get a grip with sticking out their tongues enough to make a decent 'th' sound. But when it comes to saying 'thing' they wouldn't even want to try. Who in their right mind wants to practice saying something that sounds increasingly like 'fart'? Fingom sincs! (see below)

Useful Vocabulary

• Fingom sincs - 'I haven't got a clue' (literally, 'I haven't got a fart')
• Halvány lila fingom sincs - a more colourful version of the above (literally, 'I haven't a pale violet coloured fart')
• Puszipajtás - 'buddy', basically a friend you know well enough to hug (non-gender specific).
  

Cherries are not the only fruit

There is always some weird stuff going on in the garden. Spring had the woodpeckers out in force each morning and late afternoon, sounding like the noise of distant road drills. Right now it's the emergence of pomegranate blossom. 

I know, it doesn't sound much like Budapest, but this is Buda, the hilly side of town. The bit that forms a backdrop to the castle district. Up here we get woken up by the raucous din of warblers, chaffinches... fighting over their mating and nesting territories. It's noisy, but you can get use to it.

I'm trying my best to pick the two cherry trees clean of fruit before they are go over. I'm getting through about a breakfast bowl a cherries a day so far and have rediscovered my childhood talent for scaling trees effortlessly. For the first few days it was great, but I'm beginning to hate the prospect of eating any more cherries. So I've taken to giving the things away in big bags. It's retarded, I know, but I just can't let the stuff go to waste.

Elsewhere in the garden the walnuts are coming along. The English word 'walnut' comes from an Old English word  meaning "foreign nut" ('wealhhnutu' - wealh meaning "foreign"). I was a bit slow on the uptake last Autumn, as I had never had the opportunity to collect walnuts straight from the tree. This meant I picked some too early and was put off by the bitter taste of the unripe nut oils.

I was a bit over eager as I know the nut oil is much higher in omega-3 when fresh and young. It's also meant to have preventative properties against the onset of Alzheimer's. Anyway, by the time I tried them again, half had already gone. The ones I did manage to collect managed to last me through till early May. Which meant suffering for about 3 weeks while the garden never offered anything free to eat.

But while I never made full use of the bounty offered by the walnuts, I completely missed out on the almonds before it was too late. Truth is, I hadn't got a clue they were there even though there are 5 of the things scattered front and back. I just never expected to see an almond tree and especially one full of nuts.

Two of the trees are currently doing battle with a form of wood ear or cloud ear mushroom (Auricularia auricula-judae), which is that jelly-like mushroom that Chinese love and westerners seem to hate - and I'm indifferent to, but it's fun to pick and eat occasionally. Always worth trying to serve them to unsuspecting guests to see their reaction.

But as you can see, the almond trees are pretty packed with nuts, so I'm collecting new recipes to try out. Particularly those that use almonds and pomegranate or walnuts and pomegranate.

Of all the trees in the garden the pomegranate was the last to come
into leaf and the last to blossom. It's not much of a tree all told, more of a straggly bush or shrub and stands about 5 meters tall. But it is a wonder that the thing is here at all. It's not the hardiest of plants, so can only cope down to about -10C, so that it has managed to get through all the Winters unscathed is great.

As the plant was the last to come into leaf (starting as late as April), the blossom buds only really started to show up 10 days ago.

 They all bare an uncanny resemblance to a viper's head when looked at head on.

About 4 days ago these buds broke open and the blossom has started to emerge, ranging from deep orange through to blood red.

I know of no others anywhere round here, so I am pretty certain that the tree is self pollinating. I am also experimenting with some pomegranate seeds I collected last year to see if I can get some to grow. Only recently I found out the best method of propagation is by hardwood cuttings taken in Autumn, leaves removed and buried 2/3rds into soil.

Useful Vocabulary

• Az élet nem habos torta - life isn't a bowl of cherries
• Kiválasztja a legjobbat - cherry pick
• Hullott gyümölcs - windfall (this is the literal meaning of windfallen fruit)
• Váratlan szerencse - windfall (this is the meaning of unexpected gift, blessing...)
• Fafüle gomba - wood ear mushroom
• Bogarat tett a fülébe - plant the seed of an idea (the Hungarian literally means "put a beatle in someone's ear")
  
• Potyázik - to freeload
  
• "A dolgok természetéb?l következik, hogy..." - it is in the nature of things that...
  

One last time

Yes, before you start, this is all unbelievably tedious. Again I'm posting up comments that should have remained just that, but as it happens there is a liberal (cough) loose with a penchant for redacting anything that calls other people's attention to her haughtiness.

As a side story, a musicologist with a loose pen and sloppy thinking then starts going off on one thinking I am someone else. The back story isn't really worth recounting. Fill in the pieces for yourself.

All that said, I take offence to people taking offence and deleting my comments without even trying to engage (at any level) in a conversation. So here is the comment thread from another post lovingly reconstructed for your delectation.

Comments

Eva, you often repeat that you distrust the Hungarian branch of Gallup ("Gallup is occasionally off by ten points."), but you have to learn to revise your opinions based on evidence.

You last repeated this statement in the run up to the referendum when you commented:

"Médián is talking about 46%, Gallup 54%, Marketing Central 33% and Publicus, whoever they are, 68%. (At every election we have, I suspect, a bogus polling company. This time it seems to be called Publicus. I have an idea whose brainchild this was.) As for Gallup, Gallup of Hungary is usually so far off that it is not worth taking them seriously. It's a shame that Hungarian Gallup is tarnishing the name of this oldest American polling company." (your post from March 7th, 2008)

The final turnout was 50.48%, which made the Gallup prediction the closest.

You don't seem to have revised your opinion or knowledge base based on plain stark fact.

Posted by: dinayekapelye | May 21, 2008 at 12:46 AM

Dinayekapelye,

You can't refute "occasionally" with one instance where Gallup were on the money.

Do have evidence that Gallup are never or rarely 10% off?

Or more interestingly, that Eva's preferred pollsters "(Századvég, Médián, Marketing Centrum, Tárki, Szonda Ipsos)" have similar margins of error?

Unless you have the evidence or the argument to support your criticisms, please don't waste our time.

Posted by: Adrian | May 21, 2008 at 01:57 AM

Adrian,

Your understanding of scientific knowledge and progress is unfortunately based on the very outdated (but widely used) model of monotonic logic and Popper's empirical falsificationist approach.

Having said that Eva's reasoning is based on the approach Popper worked so hard to prove misguided, that of the justificationist approach (dependent on either panrationalism which Eva favours or irrationalism).

Your logic is neither here nor there. I merely pointed out that one needs to revise one's opinions based on evidence or at least be more cautious, or better still clearly acknowledge one's bias.

And to answer your next question the model of reasoning you should be using if that of non-monotonic models such as Bayesian logic/probability.

For the record, I didn't refute or attempt to refute anything, I merely drew attention of an existing dataset that could help in revising opinions based on probabilities.

That said, it would be great to have the data and statistics as you outlined. My feeling is (to revert to abductive reasoning) that there would be little or no statistical difference between the main polling companies.

Posted by: dinayekapelye | May 21, 2008 at 02:35 AM

[Redacted here: comments on another discussion thread removed]

Water polo, anyone?

Posted by: Dumneazu |May 21, 2008 at 03:00 AM

Dumneazu,

As you appear interested in exploring this issue further I can recommend "I was a Teenage Logical Positivist (Now a Septuagenarian Radical Probabilist)"
Dick Jeffrey's PSA Presidential Address (1998) link http://www.princeton.edu/~bayesway/KC.tex.pdf

Though in your case that would be "... quinquagenarian..." - well, perhaps not. I think the teenage logical positivist is still dominant.

Posted by: dinayekapelye | May 21, 2008 at 04:21 AM

Hey, [Redacted], I'm not saying you are stupid, just extremely unethical, as befits a libertarian. Heck, a 3.50 in Economics is nothing to sniff at, is it?

But to the bemused spectators out there, V-who-can't-be-named seems to think it is fun to post his latest comments using the name of my band (the Hungarian klezmer band Di Naye Kapelye) with a hyper link to my photo from my band's web page. (I guess he gets a kick out of "outing" a Yiddish folklorist. Who would have thunk!)But then, all publicity is good publicity! Buy the CD, [Redacted]!

If anybody is interested in who V/[Redacted] is in the real world, I'm happy to divulge.

Posted by: Dumneazu | May 21, 2008 at 04:47 AM

Dinayekapelye,

"I merely pointed out that one needs to revise one's opinions based on evidence or at least be more cautious, or better still clearly acknowledge one's bias."

It's hard to imagine how Eva could be more cautious than by qualifying her point about Gallup than with "occasionally".

What do you mean by 'bias' here? The statistical meaning - she's a historian, not a statistician or a philospoher of science: or the ordinary one, in which case her bias, after the many thousands of words she has written is plain enough to anybody who has bothered to read them, and doesn't need any further comment. Why this insistance that she be bias free?

The rest I didn't understand, but I don't think you wanted me to understand, I think you just wanted to awe me with a display of technical langauge. Sad.

Posted by: Adrian | May 21, 2008 at 06:46 AM

[Redacted here: comments on another discussion thread removed]

Adrian,

It is not my fault you cannot follow a conversation. I have pitched my argument at the level of a reasonably intelligent postgraduate. This is not a blog for dullards. I make no excuses for your educational level, that is not my problem. You are simply wrong to assert that I don't want you to understand, I would love nothing more than to have a conversation reciprocated in kind. If you insist on assuming that I or anyone else has not got passed a 101 course in statistics and probabilities (which your reply inferred) then what do you expect?

The words/concepts/phrases you probably had difficulty with were: monotonic logic, Popper, empirical falsificationist, justificationist, panrationalism, irrationalism, non-monotonic, Bayesian logic/probability, abductive reasoning. You can simply look these up, if you don't know what they are. It would take chapters if not books to write my replies if I couldn't assume (which I do) that we are all ridiculously over-educated.

You are quite right Eva uses the hedging statement "occasionally", she also adds "in my opinion", "I personally" another hedging statement ("...some are better than others. I personally find Gallup the least reliable"). The statement from the 7th March goes further though and is marked with fewer hedging statements ("Gallup of Hungary is usually so far off that it is not worth taking them seriously. It's a shame that Hungarian Gallup is tarnishing the name of this oldest American polling company"). So here we also have the words "usually" as a qualifier.

In linguistics, particulary in the field of pragmatics hedging statements are studied in detail. What is worth noting is that these adjectives, adverbs, subclauses act along Gricean principles (search under the term 'Gricean Maxims' to learn the basics) to give additional information about the veracity, certainty, verisimilitude, completeness etc... of an utterance.

But these qualifying statements work at more than one level, particulary as part of a larger and ongoing communicative act (such as an online web log). Whilst Eva is making these statements she is also sure that you and everybody knows who she is and her academic background. As such, most individuals are less inclined to call to question the implicit assumptions she encourages you to make n.b. I do not assert by this that she either knows or understands the nature and manner in which she communicates this information, she is after all a historian, not a linguist, psychologist, logician or orator. For her, after years in academia, she simple presents information and ignores contrary information/statements.

So yes, Eva makes it clear that these are her personal opinions, that is and was not in doubt. Even though she claims that Gallup Hungary is 'tarnishing the good name' of Gallup in general it is a personal opinion. If you are happy with that, then fine, it's hardly worth taking further.

Might you concede in return that one might conceivably revise one's opinions in line with experience and evidence to the contrary? Or are we all doomed to stick to our beliefs no matter what? Worse still not acknowledge or answer for our errors of fact or judgement. As it happens historians belief systems, line of reasoning, use of facts and logic have to obey the same principles as everyone else's, even if their methods differ. You are simply restating panrationalism.

Dumneazu,

You are mistaken. I'm afraid your anger clouded your judgement somewhat. I am not who you assume I am.

I am not your friend Bufo bufo. What is more I have never met any of the established Pestiside or expat crowd. Although I know who you all are etc... It doesn't take much if you spend most of your time hacking (in its positive sense, not destructively) away on computers. So please don't bother to divulge any information for my gain.

A simple look at the content and style of my writing would have told you that I was not who you thought. There are plenty of lexical analysis tools freely available that would statistically confirm this. Our (mine and Bufo bufo's) idiolect are markedly different in structure and vocabularly.

And I presume you know who I am, even though we haven't met. I have never tried to hide it and it is completely obvious to anyone who isn't a complete 21st Century dimwit.

As you remarked on my "affected erudition" and basically accused me of proving by my comments that my level of discourse was of the same content and quality as the worst of Fidesz and Orbán without showing a willingness (or ability) to respond to the actual content of what I wrote, then I thought it amusing. Obviously you didn't.

It had nothing to do with your ethicity, caste, creed, religion or otherwise either - which you again inferred. You couldn't be more wrong on that point. As it happens I already know your music and would also recommend the CD.

I'm interested that you called what I did 'unethical' though. I wish you would say more. I am not familar with the model of ethics you refer to, so presume it is a home grown variety, as such I need to know how linking to your webpage constitutes a breech of ethical contract (assuming we had a such a contract).

The only theorist I can think you must be referring to is that of Emmanuel Levinas' ethical hermeneutics. For the benefit of Adrian: Levinas argues that the pursuit of knowledge is secondary to our 'ethical duty to the other'. Dumneazu, am I on the right track, or was this just a flippant remark meant to arouse sympathy from the audience and direct revulsion against me? Booo, sisss

"- I foresee, Mr Deasy said, that you will not remain here very long at this work. You were not born to be a teacher, I think. Perhaps I am wrong. - A learner rather, Stephen said. And here what will you learn more? Mr Deasy shook his head. - Who knows? he said. To learn one must be humble. But life is a great teacher."
- 'Ulysses' by J.J. p.41

Oh, there I go again. It's a kind of Tourette's. Or may be I'm just a Szent fazék, after all.

n.b. It happens that dispite Eva's claim to the contrary my posts were blocked by her comment filter. That is because I mentioned Bufo bufo by his nom-de-plume. This effectively swallowed my posts. Eva's claims to the contray are simply wrong, though it was a side effect of her campaign to redact comments she found unfavourable.

p.s. Additional words/concepts/phrases to look up (for the benefit of Adrian): hedging statements, Gricean Maxims, pragmatics, hermeneutics, bufo bufo, lexical analysis, idiolect

Posted by: YouKnowWho | May 21, 2008 at 11:40 PM

YouKnowWho. Your last comment is deleted. I don't allow insulting comments to appear on this blog.

Posted by: Eva S. Balogh | May 21, 2008 at 12:44 PM

YouKnowYou

Thanks for dumbing things down for me. I managed to understand nearly everything you wrote.

I'm familiar with Grice having studied him both in Philosophy as an undergraduate, and in Linguistics as a postgraduate. Could I draw your intention to his conversational maxims - especially of quantity - and suggest you try to use them in your future posts.

P.S. I enjoyed the quote form Ulysses.

Posted by: Adrian | May 21, 2008 at 02:30 PM

A comment on comments

Comments on my blog, these are currently turned off. This is simply because I am messing about with a server-database cluster and am having timing and lock problems with complex database queries. I have this almost sussed, but until it is streamlined and working to perfection (with the help of hibernate and memcached) I will be keeping the service threadbare. Once everything is fully tuned comments will be back on.

Just for Reference

These are a series of comments and an exchange from another blog to which I have often contributed and largely been in agreement with. I have been told these (my comments) 'overstepped the mark'. As I point out I am not one to come to the defence of Orbán or the modern Fidesz, far from it, but I am one to call a spade 'a spade'. Even if that results in someone accusing me of lacking imagination or "affected erudition".

"Philippus aunswered, that the Macedonians wer feloes of no fyne witte in their termes but altogether grosse, clubbyshe, and rusticall, as they whiche had not the witte to calle a spade by any other name then a spade." Nicolas Udall's 'Apophthegmes, that is to saie, prompte saiynges.' (translated in 1542) based on Erasmus's  work 'Apophthegmatum opus' itself a translation of the earlier work Plutarch's Apophthegmata' (178 BC)

You decide:

 

Language of Fear: Fidesz communication (I)

Whilst "Élet és Irodalom" is one of the few rags that bothers to live up to the epithet journalism, the general tone and language of this piece is recursively referential. Meaning, overblown drama.

Language of Fear: Fidesz communication (II)

@Dumneazu: "The declining tenor of comments in the last posting"...

@Dumneazu

OK, let's help you too. I'll just pick two, one from you, one from Eva.

First Eva claimed by response was a non-sequitur to which I took the trouble to point out and join the dots.

Just picking one part of this from her original claims (or relating the claims of others):

'"your text following your introductory sentence had nothing to do with the topic on hand."

So to help you join the dots where you only see non-sequiturs...

I said "the most disturbing and misguided accusation of the piece is that this government has been frozen in action in the fear of the necromancy of Orbán's future reign of terror. That is apathetic excuse for political and fiscal impotence."

In response to you relating that: "The left got stuck somewhere. In my opinion their problem is that in the last seven years they have been terrified of you. Ever since 2002 basically all their actions have been motivated by the pathological fear of the return of Viktor Orbán. And over the years they got to the point that they sacrificed Hungary on the altar of their paranoia."'

And yes, strangely I didn't know those quotes verbatim, but I at least have read the sources and choose to deploy them to back upmy point.

The Monty Python was too point out that I do not take myself that seriously, but the sketch makes an important point. That is, simply contradicting someone is not an argument. Argument meaning a logical and connected series of statements/propositions, not the meaning of disagreement (though that is true in this case also).

The Cicero quote is a case in point as in touch on and answers most of the claims that Eva makes about the use of language and the base nature of political discourse and life. It also answers the implicit claim that this government can be excused their impotence through their fear of the future retribution of the opposition. What really don't you understand in that line of reasoning and what is illogical about this for you?

Secondly, from you, you state that: "The declining tenor of comments in the last posting, although by now somewhat predictable,simply tends to amplify the validity of much of Szilágyi's arguments"

You like Eva rely on implicit argument rather than making your point clearly, something the piece claims is the common trick of the opposition - projecting one's faults on others. You both have either no insight, irony or humour about your own ability to reason.

So, dissecting what you said into clear statements you make three claims in that one sentence all which you need to answer. These are:
1. There is/was a 'declining tenor' to the comments. As I previously asked and repeat, what do you mean by this. Obviously itis snotty talk for declining quality, so please justify that claim.
2. That this 'declining tenor' is 'by now somewhat predictable'. Predictable in what way. I have to date largely agreed with much of what Eva has written. On this point I disagree and take the trouble to point out the basis for my antithetical stance. Can you really predict what I believe and say. I really don't know myself until I am engaged in a conversation. And I really am open to reason,argument and persuasion. I am not open to an all in head-nodding-fest.
3. That this 'by now somewhat predictable''declining tenor' 'simply tends to amplify the validity of much of Szilágyi's arguments.' This you have yet to prove. If you can provide an answer to the question I posed to Eva (and repeated to you above) you might have a basis to make this claim. Without backing up your statement this is simply contradiction and gainsay.

Finally, on the education issue I will pull my trump card. My first and primary degree is cognitive psychology in which I specialised in legal discourse and rhetorical devices form is-attribution, disinformation and subversion.

When you have bothered to answer my questions I will start to provide a proper scientific analysis of the discourse as all of this content is simply a watered down version of that in the cognitive psychology and linguistic literature.

n.b. "I am afraid that even in all your years in the wilderness you are still completely Hungarian" is a statement of fact and completely justifiable given the tone, manner and level of response.

To repeat a final time. It is disturbing and ironic that the language used by Eva and the obfuscation tactics are exactly those used in the piece that she so highly praises for its insight.

p.s. I am sincere in what I write, which is why I take the time to write it. Really, just provide an argument and you will see.

Posted by: Vándorló| May14, 2008 at 06:13 AM

Footnote

Just to explain that as part of my work I build and tailor search engines, which includes web crawlers, indexers etc... This means I archive websites, databases etc on almost a daily basis. This further means that in the last 12 months I have started to archive any website I am interested in.

This has the saving grace that I can always recover material and content that would otherwise be lost through other agents' actions (intentional or more often accidental).

For those who wish to do the same the simplest approach is using a Unix/Linux command 'wget'. If you use windows you should download Cygwin which will give you some of the commands and functionality of linux/unix. As webpages are often written using php, asp, jsp... you can force wget to recursively crawl and save these pages as html. The full command to crawl and archive a website would be.

wget -rFE www.thewebsiteyouwanttosave.com