Hmm... I'm Hungarian and I think some chauvinistic minds need to spend some time abroad. Don't be offended, I offered that to my fellow Hungarians as well! Simply for the reason because today the Carpathian Basin is a nuthouse. You need to get out of there and have a "bird eye view". Most of our "problems" are artificial. They incite hatred among the native nations, and wait for them to cut each others throat. Today we have an insane anti-Magyar puppet-government in Hungary, while there are chauvinistic governments in Slovakia, Romania and Serbia. But if you get out for a while, you will appreciate things we have in common. We lived together in peace up until WWI. Or at least only the Osman-Turkish Occupation could break up Central-Eastern Europe before.
We need nationalism, we need to conserve our values that make up as nations. But that shouldn't draw chauvinism, we shouldn't jump at each other just because we speak a different language. I bet most of us from Eastern Europe have someone in their family tree who came from a neighbouring nation.
I'm not too familiar with post-Orban politics in Hungary. Does the present administration in fact wish a continued dialogue with the Tusk/Kaczyński government?
I read Hungarian better than I speak it, but I can't get ahold of newspapers from Hungary. Polish newspapers from Poland vs. Polish-language newspapers published here in the States, on the other hand, are quite easy to come by, as well as magazines such as 'Wprost' and 'Polityka'.
Bwaah... Newspapers and the official media are no good. To get a picture of the real situation it’s better to read blogs and unofficial news sites, watch a few deep-buried TV programmes and listen to online radio stations and podcasts...
Does the present administration in fact wish a continued dialogue with the Tusk/Kaczyński government?
To tell the truth, I don’t really know about any initiatives other than introducing the Day of Polish-Hungarian friendship. IMHO, to strengthen the relationships with Poland, our government should first stand up for Hungary and the Hungarian people, but they clearly do not even have an attempt at that.
Just to have a little more light about some points. I'm hungarian also, and got married with a polish woman. So I have a strong relationship with the pole culture.
By the facts now: Hungarians, are related to asian groups of ethnicity, not slavic, neither turk or persian. By the language they are more related to finnish guys, then others. Of course there lot's of influence from german, latin, greek and slavic. Who does not?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_people Lectures: Khazars, from Arthur Koestler
In Northeast of Hungary there's a specific hungarian ethnic group named Palócs. Guess what? It's not necessary to be an expert to conclude, they are Polands absorbed by hungarians. Not a problem, since these people respect each other for centuries.
Other point, Hungary can achieve the "Pan-Hungary", only by culture and language, never by terrytory, since Hungary signed the Helsinki Agreement.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki_Agreement
However, to a european country join the European Union, the country MUST, achieve some points. Regarding minorities, for example Slovakia and Romania, Had to solve the problems with hungarians, and other minorities in their countries. They solved the problem and they joined. Same was applied to Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia, and Romania. Austria was the first to solve it, for croatians and hungarians. These major problem was created by Trianon Agreement.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Trianon
The problem with Rutenia in Ukraine is a double problem. Rutenia, belongs to Ukraine today, because of russian invasion of 1956, not Trianon. Ukraine has a big problem. They want to join EU, but they have to give back Rutenia to Hungary. Hungary by the other side, can not get Rutenia Back, because of Helsinki Agreement. The Solution, probaly is Rutenia become an Independent Country, like Montenegro on Serbia.
This could be the same situtation to serbia and Hungarians from Servia. If some day Serbia joins the EU, they must sove the problems of hungarians there, Like Romania made with the Transilvania (with hungarians and saxons), and Slovakia, in the southern region. My aunt, is always visiting Bihar, in Transilvania. Today Bihar is double language Romanian and Hungaria, like the EU constitution says.
And the problem with WWII, I think it was more a problem, of the supposed austrian-hungarian empire.
What I learned about the hungarian culture, since the "Onoguria" times, is a people who always give Sanctuary for those who needs it. It's possible to check it, about the kabars, austrians, croatians, and incredibly spanish and frenches. Yes, the city of Banat, was founded by then, when they were pursued by catholic inquisitors.
I could spent all night long here, typing many other things about hungarians. I read, a lot about this ancient and controversal history, and I believe that a european union can be only possible if we forget the bad past.
Personnaly, I always considered the eastern europeans more brothers. The western more like cousins :). I like the ukrainians, the poles, slovakians, croatians, slovenes, romanians, bulgarians, georgians, estonians, russians. After centuries, in terms of race, we're the same people. Only with dna analysis it's possible to discover a relationship. In fact, it was proved 1 man in 200, around the world is descendant from Gengis Khan.
And yes, I know there's the culture, the language, the religion and so on. But Socrates said once, "It's respecting the differences, we can live really free".
I believe in the hungarian-polish friendship, I'm hungarian (Szilagyi), married with a polish woman (Chrusciak). And if someday I have a son, he will have both surnames.
The saber is saved, and I leave a toast for the Polish fellows here (in preference with a tokaji), like the saying of the post. Cheers !
A rather silly question... Hungarian women won all the Miss World competitions held from 1989 to 1995. They are well regarded for their good looks. Do you get out often, krakow?
I was engaged to a Hungarian woman, it feels like centuries ago. She was stunning, but one of the most difficult women I have ever met.
You mentioned the Palócs living in a particular section of the country. If I'm not mistaken either, Hungary consists of various "ethnic" groups historically concentrated in certain regions, for instance the Szeklers in the present Romanian/Hungarian border town of Szek in Mezoseg. Are these groups of Hungarian, i.e. Uralic ethnicity, or European?
Congratulations on your English post. Despite many grammatical errors, I believe I understood the content almost one hundred percent!-:) No doubt many of them are just plain typos (he-he)
No doubt the Palócs are polish people. Hungarians by their nature, are people whose always gave "asylum" for pursued or defeated people. The formation of hungary by itself was made by many ethnicities.
Note for example the Szeleys are Kabars, and other good example are the Cumans (The Kum surnname in Hungary is very common), a people from the step, like the Jassic too. The Palócs people, indeed are poland people, but why they were aggregated, it's a mistery.
Other point the kabars (Szekely) were formally a part of the kazar empire. From some reason, they broke up with the kazar empire. Now, using some linguistig transformations, and considering the way they use to write centuries ago (silabic from the right to left, like the jews, and mentioning here the Rovas), Szekel could be naturally lKesze, and transforming a bit more kezer, almost kazar. With the centuries the magyar language predominated that language. The word corruption is very normal.
Other point remember Onoguria, means 10 tribes, from a proto-turkic language, as Bulgaria means mixed people. The Megyer tribe, the main tribe who ruled over the others, was Uralic people indeed, of finnic origin, not samoyed (siberian). Maybe one of the remained untouched in terms of culture are the Mordovians. In the coat of arms from Hungary you can see there are seven houses (Megyer, Jenő, Keszi, Nyék, Kér, Tarján, while Kürt - Kurt/Kubrat/Dulo was one of the most ancient clans from Old Great Bulgaria - and Gyarmat merged into one tribe making it seven total) and that's the real magyar confederation. Onoguria (10 tribes) was formelry these 7 plus 3 Kabar tribes whose names are not known for sure (with the usual suspects being Ság, Ladány, Berény, Tárkány). The history from Hungary, mixes everytime, within the huns, khazars and bulgars. I made a particular reasearch of the origin of my surname, and I discovered, that my clan, it's bulgarian not hungarian. The surname was changed 4 times, since 300 BC.
The ancient Onoguria, was more close to black sea, and use to represent a third of the khazar empire. It's supposed the Khazar empire was composed between 30 to 35 tribes confederated. Today in Cazaquistan, there a remaining part of old-Onoguria, a tribe called Madiar. In their grave, is wrote the under the name, the word Madiar.
One point that's important, Poles and Hungarians, had a interesting treat about the northern carpatian. There were Gorales (Polish) and Szekelys (Hungarians) living together.
Despite origins from the Poles (I read theories about wandals, kipchaqs, slavs or vikings), whatever they come from, they are very repectfull.
Well, it's known, there were several nomad invasions in Europe. Since it's known began with Attila. The hunnic empire, and a tribe under then began to rule, the akatzires, then forming the khazar empire. After this consider the Pechenegs, and then the Kipchaqs (may be ancestors of Poles) and finally mongols. The newest always pushing the oldest to the west. It's known the current state of Poland was formed by a good part from old kazars. These jewish khazars were hosted in the territory of Galizia, main city Krakow. Read the book from Arthur Koestler, it's all there. The history from Galizia, in parts are very similar to Hungary. Other point reinforces it, consider there are only 3 territories around the world named Galizia-Poland (Galatia-Israel or Galizia-Spain), all then founded and occupied by jewish people. Khazarian Empire was the unique jewish country around the world.
In some post I read, the Poles and Hungarians has some common part of DNA. Surely, people from step probably share the same root. Hungarians-Uralic and Poles-Kipchaqs. It's the genetic "shiny" factor.
Another theory says, the people who have blond hair and blue eyes, come from an very old ancestor, a human mutation, to make him more able to survive in cold territories (more adaptative to the snow).
Abou the english, well it's hard to make it right when you have to make it in one shot.
A thought-provoking post! Just keep on practicing your English. At least you seem to have learned more than merely the 'bread-and-butter basics'-:) Also, you realize that there's always room for improvement.
Many people however write much better than they speak. Still others speak well, but are slower in comprehending, while others speak and understand fluently, but write with umpteen errors! Rarely do all three skills come together. LOL
Apropos of nothing, but apparently you reside presently in Brazil. How long did it take you to learn Brazilian Portuguese, as opposed to the European variety?
You seem to be linguistically inclined. What other languages do you know fluently? Any chance you'll learn Polish one of these days??
My ex who is Hungarian, spoke - English, Italian, German, French and for some strange reason was learning Japanese...I think some people have an apptitude for languages...
.....and then there are others who THINK they have, but don't-:) Present company excluded, of course LOL
In the order given, I'd probably say that Japanese looks the hardest, but is one of the most logical and mathematical, I've heard. I know a few greetings, and for a short while, I had my daliances with Korean. From there, I meandered into Turkish (from Hungarian) and, well, I've basically put those languages on temporary hold.
Well, I have to say, my grandfather, was a specialist in languages, he use to speak 16 languages, between alive and dead languages, these includes, latin, greek, sumerian (don't ask me how was this), italian, spanish, portuguese, french, jewish, spanish, hungarian, german, russian, quechua, chachapoa, japanese, mandarim, and strangely, he hated the english. He was a writer and wrote two books in hungarian. Becauses os problems of internal fights and inheritance in my family, the original books were lost. I think languages it's in the blood. He was french-hungarian, and fought in WWII, in the french side.
I was born in Brasil (it's with S not Z, and Brasil means "live coal",it's not portuguese word, how almost everybody use to believe, but indeed it's arabic. But to clarify, I'm a first generation born here, and grew up, among hungarians here, I use to talk hungarian, almost to my 3 years, but how my father it's a engineer, we use to move around Brasil, to other places, and this forced me to learn the portuguese and forget the hungarian. I got my hungarian citizenship 4 years ago. We in Brasil, we do speak portuguese not spanish, how may people use to think. In Brasil, we have around 150 million portuguese speakers, around 200 thousand spanish speakers, and same number of Guarani (indian language) speakers. Portuguese it's a very complex latin language derived from an ancient language named Romance.
In Brazil, there's a big colony hungarians, were I live aside, named Vila Anastacio. It's a suburb inside the city of São Paulo (fourth biggest city in the world, it looks like New York, lots of things in common). This suburb, there's lots hungarians and other generations of hungarians, of then here. It's normal, to found then walking down by the street here. And there are suburbs of italians, portuguese, spanish, jewish, japanese, arabic and germans. My grandfather from the side of my mom, came after the WWII. my dad, ran away the russian invasion of the 1956, with my uncle, whose today is living at USA.
My wife, who descend from Polands, came from a city named Cascavel, in other state from Brasil, named Paraná. We suspect they're from Galizia, and probably came before the WWI. In south of Brasil, where the weather, is more like Europe (yes, we have snow), they formed many cities. There are cities of Polands (like Cascavel), Ucranians, Russians and Germans (like Pomerode, Potsdam-Pozdan). In fact, the second biggest oktoberfest of the world is in Brasil, in the city of Blumenau. In these citis, is very common to find people, speaking the language of their ancestors. Very common. There's 2 cities, in south Brasil, colonized by hungarians, it's Apucarana (Apu, I know it's a way to say father or in latin pater, I'm not an expert, but probably it's a word corrupted, originally meaning "Patria"), and another city named Bratislava (Posony). In state of Rio de Janeiro, there's a entire city of finnish people named Penedo. However Germans and Polands, are majority in south of Brasil. From my city São Paulo to Cascavel, the distance it's the same from Budapest to Paris. Brasil it's the fith biggest country in the world.
Languages, I'm a native portuguese speaker; english and spanish it's almost obligatory to learn here, but you have to pay by yourself for this here. No facilities from the state, I mean schools. I got some german lessons. Made some hungarian lessons, here, (very expensive), but in fact, polish it's a considerable possibility, since the polish colony in São Paulo, give the lessons for free. Spanish for us, is very easy, it's almost like dutch and german, you know. A six month class of spanish, and you can become a fluent speaker. Italian, also, it's very easy to us. One year of lessons, and it's ok. French more hard, something like 2 years. English very hard, since it's a germanic not an latin language like the others. For a portuguese speaker learn the english at least 4 years. That's because, (this is not a critic for the english), the sintax of portuguese is inverted in comparison to english. And same applies to spanish speakers.
I have plans to the future to move to Budapest, where, I ahve aunts and cousins. Gyor city it's another possibility. I heard about Slovenia, they like the hungarians, it's another possibility I consider, like Austria, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, and Poland also. I work with Information technology and Poland, it's the best country to work with this in central and eastern Europe. I saw some IBM executives talking about the global market, and Poland, it's the open door for those who want to invest in this part of Europe. If it's a good possibility of this happens Warsow and Krakow are my choices. In fact, when arriving in Europe, I will learn the language what I have to learn, no problem with this.
Things in Brasil, are not going fine. Many problems with corruption, and global crisis, that will reach us next year. The retirement funds here, are broken, public health is bankrupted. Education, it's not good, how I told you, if want to learn something, you to do it outside the regular schools from state. We pay almost 35 % of taxes here. It's amazing, we work 4 months for the government for free, considering one year of work. And nothing come back to us. Car traffic, man, I will tell you. Big problem.
In comparison with Finland, were I heard they pay lots of taxes, but the state can give a more worthy life for the citizens.
Well, Brasil in other instances, have lots of good things. Nice shores, nice food (becoming more expensive now). We buy a dozen bananas here, for 1 dolar. In supermarket I use to spend 200 hundred dollars, to buy food and house stuff for cleaning and other things. We have many many rivers. Water will never be a problem for Brazil, like food.
Marek, my uncle in USA (he's living there, since 1958), told me once, if you can tell some jokes, and make somebody laugh, and express complex ideas in english, you're ready to work with the americans.
And something to know, turk (from torok) it's a chinese word, meaning nomad people, this word became used after the dissolution of khazar empire. So, this is a concept, neither a language or ethnicity. Many people believe hungarians are close to turks. Considering the sequence of facts of history, I guess turks are close to hungarians, since the concept of hungarians (ten tribes) in "strictus sensus", of the word is oldest than turk-torok (nomad people) concept. I think people use to get confused because of the turkish invasion, in medieval times.
And other point, Nipon and Japan means the same thing. In old hungarian language this means Sun Land. Strangely the Japan Flag, has a symbol of a sun in red. This only shows the hungarian-magyar language, are more close to asiatic groups rather than germanic or slavic.
A curious language to me, among countless others I've encountered in my linguistic 'prowls' (I'm currently reading a book called "The Atoms of Language" by a Professor Mark Baker of Rutgers U.) is Georgian. It's the only language I know among the Indo-European tongues, in which PAPA = mother and MAMA = father!!-:)
I was born in Brasil (it's with S not Z, and Brasil means "live coal",it's not portuguese word, how almost everybody use to believe, but indeed it's arabic. But to clarify, I'm a first generation born here, and grew up, among hungarians here, I use to talk hungarian, almost to my 3 years, but how my father it's a engineer, we use to move around Brasil, to other places, and this forced me to learn the portuguese and forget the hungarian. I got my hungarian citizenship 4 years ago. We in Brasil, we do speak portuguese not spanish, how may people use to think. In Brasil, we have around 150 million portuguese speakers, around 200 thousand spanish speakers, and same number of Guarani (indian
A very interesting description of a country and its language. Brasil is certainly a country I would like to visit as well as Argentina. It must have taken you a long time to put this essay together.
Yes I made it, sorry about. It's because I did not turned key correctly in my brain.... lol. For us in Brasil, dependind of the circunstances, the S and Z, have the same sound. So Brazil and Brasil, have exactly same sound for us, differently from the guys who speak english or german, or hungarian. These people must write with Z, to sound it right. The portuguese rules, despite being phonographic, do not follow certain rules. The study of portuguese is very complex in comparison to english. For the current S for example in portuguese, can be written as being S, C, SS, Ç or SC. All then with the phonographic value of the english S. So, how a foreigner can write in portuguese? My german techar is in Brasil almost 5 years, and still writing many words wrong.
MIchal2, it was not so hard to made how you thought.... Argentina is completely different country, they Speak a variatnion of Spanish, named Castellano (small differences between then), and the food is nice. I was in Buenos Aires, around 10 years ago. Nice food, nice women. In fact, it's the only country in Americas, where the people can request the spanish citizenship. Neither mexicans can do it.
regards, David
Archives - 2005-2009 / News / Polish-Hungarian friendship - reality till today or just a phantasmagoria
