I began by contacting the Language Consulting Service of the HUN-REN Hungarian Research Center for Linguistics. My questions were answered by research fellow Judit Kozma and junior research fellow Dorottya Jakab, who I couldn’t help but imagine working in an enormous, wood-paneled office that hadn’t changed in centuries.
The Language Consulting Service offers guidance about language, language usage and spelling. Among other things, it helps determine the meaning, usage and stylistic value of words and phrases and resolve more complex spelling problems.
To give you some idea of how thorny Hungarian spelling problems can be, Kozma and Jakab kindly shared this example with me.
“In the Hungarian language, there is a complex grammatical and spelling system of when the elements of multi-word phrases are written together and when they are written separately, and therefore, their spelling rules form a specific system. Knowing the set of spelling rules in connection with this could be especially important for a translator, particularly because in Hungarian, there are terms and phrases that can be written separately and together, but the two spellings have different meanings. For example, the words gyors (‘fast’) and vonat (‘train’) can be written two ways, but the form gyors vonat means ‘a train that travels fast,’ while the form gyorsvonat means ‘a type of train that stops at only a few stations on the railway line.’” So now we know.
Given that the Hungarian language seems so byzantine to me compared to the endless adaptability of English, it doesn’t surprise me that there is an official “Rules of Hungarian Orthography.” The first normative spelling rule book was published in 1832. In 2015, the edition currently in force was published and is taken very seriously indeed.
As the Research Center for Linguistics rather sternly points out in a White Paper, “Hungarian orthography is under strict academic control: the rules of the Spelling Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences are intended to be used. The regulations are not obligatory, but misspellings can certainly cause loss of prestige.”
Kozma and Jakab told me, “Even though Hungarian orthography is not a legal regulation, the rules of the spelling code are still used as a reference, even in the courts. A significant part of the Hungarian speech community considers academic spelling to be a regulation of essentially unquestionable authority.”
Official regulation extends beyond the spelling of words and into the naming of newborn children. Parents can only choose names from officially approved lists separated for male and female children. As at the beginning of March this year, proud Hungarian parents could choose from 1,982 masculine and 2,636 feminine names. In head-spinning contrast, the website BabyNamesPedia lists 20,792 English names for boys and 63,422 for girls.
According to Kozma and Jakab, if a Hungarian parent wants to give their child a name that doesn’t appear on the official list, they must “submit an official request to the Ministry of Public Administration and Regional Development. The applications will be forwarded to the HUN-REN Hungarian Research Center for Linguistics to be considered by the Names Working Group, following a set of principles. These principles include that a name must not be derogatory or overly diminutive, can be written and pronounced easily and can be recognized as either male or female.”
Reflecting Hungary’s increasing diversity, many recent additions to the official list are foreign names, but these must be spelled the Hungarian way. For example, Philip becomes “Filip.”
Parents who are members of one of the 13 officially recognized minorities in Hungary, such as Armenian, Roma or Ukrainian, can choose names for their children from their own culture, but their respective minority governance must approve these. This explains why you’ll never meet a Hungarian “Elvis” or “Willow.”
Although it’s far more officially regulated than U.S. English, for example, I’m wrong to assume that Hungarian is a static language.
“Hungarian, like any other language, can be seen as constantly and dynamically changing,” Kozma and Jakab explain. “The most rapidly changing part is the vocabulary: new words are constantly being created, new meanings may be attached to existing words and phrases, and, of course, loanwords from other languages (nowadays mainly from English) are adding to the vocabulary as well.”
Foreign words that have entered Hungarian from other languages fall into different categories. Some, such as “déjà vu,” “couchette,” and “flow” follow the original spelling. Others are spelled according to Hungarian pronunciation, so “email” becomes ímél, “selfie” is szelfi, and “chat” cset.
Regarding foreign words Hungarians use without adapting them, Kozma and Jakab give the fascinating example of “pen drive.” Although the word is often used in Hungarian, no substitute has been created. The foreign spelling has been kept because it’s proved impossible to find a Hungarian equivalent that’s sufficiently short but still able to express the meaning.
Although I can’t imagine ever becoming fluent in Hungarian, I do admire the richness of the language. These are the English translations of my five current favorite Hungarian metaphor phrases and their more idiomatic meanings.
• The ice cream cone licks back: payback’s a bitch.
• They’re leaving the cabbage for the goat: putting the wrong person in charge.
• I can’t play chess with a horse: we don’t understand each other.
• I don’t believe what he eats/drinks: he’s such a liar, I can’t trust anything he says.
• He/she can survive on ice: that person can survive anything.
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of May 17, 2024.
Producing journalism that is worthy of the name is a costly business. For over 30 years, the publishers, editors and reporters of the Budapest Business Journal have striven to bring you business news that works, information that you can trust, that is factual, accurate and presented without fear or favor.Newspaper organizations across the globe have struggled to find a business model that allows them to continue to excel, without compromising their ability to perform. Most recently, some have experimented with the idea of involving their most important stakeholders, their readers.
We would like to offer that same opportunity to our readers. We would like to invite you to help us deliver the quality business journalism you require. Hit our Support the BBJ button and you can choose the how much and how often you send us your contributions.
