Hungary & the Hungarians - The Keywords

Fülszöveg

Language is not just words and grammar, it works by metaphors and allusions that make up (and also hide away) meanings wich are indecipherable without the knowledge of the culture code. Every student of any foreign language is painfully aware how this meta-langtiage lurking behind even the simplest of turns can make reception of even everyday speech such a precarious affair. For there may be worlds in a word, not unlike the boxes within boxes within boxes of a Chinese puzzle. And bilingual dictionaries, constructed on the principle of equivalence, do not help here, because they do not try to invoke the thoughts, concepts and images that are invoked for the native speaker upon hearing the name of a town or a region, a festival, a form of address, a dish peculiar to his country or the lines of a song. For languages are made up of popular memories, myths and beliefs, customs and ever changing usage, words ring bells - and if our ears don't hear their toll, life is merely a silent... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Language is not just words and grammar, it works by metaphors and allusions that make up (and also hide away) meanings wich are indecipherable without the knowledge of the culture code. Every student of any foreign language is painfully aware how this meta-langtiage lurking behind even the simplest of turns can make reception of even everyday speech such a precarious affair. For there may be worlds in a word, not unlike the boxes within boxes within boxes of a Chinese puzzle. And bilingual dictionaries, constructed on the principle of equivalence, do not help here, because they do not try to invoke the thoughts, concepts and images that are invoked for the native speaker upon hearing the name of a town or a region, a festival, a form of address, a dish peculiar to his country or the lines of a song. For languages are made up of popular memories, myths and beliefs, customs and ever changing usage, words ring bells - and if our ears don't hear their toll, life is merely a silent movie.
This book was born out of innumerable futile efforts to explain to visitors what is behind a gesture or a melody, a name, an attitude. It is both a guide to the "screts" of the Hungarians' code-language and a concise cultural encyclopaedia of Hungarianness.
" anyone who seriously wishes to find out what distinguishes Hungarians from other nations ("makes them tick") could start with this book, go on with this book and (very nearly) end with this book. One of the happiest aspects of the whole undertaking is the form that the author has chosen for imparting his immensely varied information, a form that allows him to combine sarcastic comment with factual precision. At times he reminds me of Dr Johnson The treatment of political and historical issues, including (or specially) sensitive ones is refreshingly free from cant. Indeed the book is remarkably outspoken On the other hand, he never makes the mistake of treating totalitarianism or Russian imperialism as merely a bad joke, a fact which makes his essays into black humour all the more telling."
Vissza