lebi001
16 Apr 2011
Language / Polish and Hungarian, how similar? [53]
Hi,
a suggestion that can make you books back story completely valid. I am from a small Hungarian town Bekescsaba (Békéscsaba). Located near the Romaian border, so at least 150-200 kms away from Slovakia. Yet every street sign is written in Hungarian and Slovakian and there is a very strong "Tot" culture ( Tot or toth, is the name for slovaks living in Hungary). The reason for this is that in the beginnning of the 18th Century black plague completely wiped out the region thus people were offered tax free living and land from other areas of the Habsburg empire to move there, as its is a very fertile agricultural area.
My parnets moved there from elsewhere but all my friends parrents and grand parents who are from there speak "Tot" language that is very similar to current Slovakian. An other similar town is Szarvas, 45 km from Bekescsaba, that has even stronger connections to its Slovak ancestry. When my parrents moved there in the 70s they said that some older people could only speak Tot and some very bad Hungarian... they simply didnt need Hungarian. So your language background can stand on very strong basis. In both places there are kindergartens and primary schools that teach kids in both languages even now. So this way you may enforce your Polish connecetion easily. For instance that the girls ancestors moved from Slovak reagion to Poland and some distant relaives moved to those cities in Hungary. The languages are similar anyway.
This strong connection to other countries is not unique anywhere in Europe and I reccommned you research it. The reasons are normally the similar: plague, war, forced ethnic migration (jews, romani etc) Probably you will find it under Habsburg forced migration.. or sthing like that. as it was a Habsburg Empire previously (Poland probably not as far as I remember but the migrations is still possible).
+ my wife is Bulgarian. She understands croatian, serbian, macedonian, czech and slovak to a certain extent. Polish not really. So the similarities can be associated between other languages as well unless you want to make it a story about a person with Polish origin.
good luck
Hi,
a suggestion that can make you books back story completely valid. I am from a small Hungarian town Bekescsaba (Békéscsaba). Located near the Romaian border, so at least 150-200 kms away from Slovakia. Yet every street sign is written in Hungarian and Slovakian and there is a very strong "Tot" culture ( Tot or toth, is the name for slovaks living in Hungary). The reason for this is that in the beginnning of the 18th Century black plague completely wiped out the region thus people were offered tax free living and land from other areas of the Habsburg empire to move there, as its is a very fertile agricultural area.
My parnets moved there from elsewhere but all my friends parrents and grand parents who are from there speak "Tot" language that is very similar to current Slovakian. An other similar town is Szarvas, 45 km from Bekescsaba, that has even stronger connections to its Slovak ancestry. When my parrents moved there in the 70s they said that some older people could only speak Tot and some very bad Hungarian... they simply didnt need Hungarian. So your language background can stand on very strong basis. In both places there are kindergartens and primary schools that teach kids in both languages even now. So this way you may enforce your Polish connecetion easily. For instance that the girls ancestors moved from Slovak reagion to Poland and some distant relaives moved to those cities in Hungary. The languages are similar anyway.
This strong connection to other countries is not unique anywhere in Europe and I reccommned you research it. The reasons are normally the similar: plague, war, forced ethnic migration (jews, romani etc) Probably you will find it under Habsburg forced migration.. or sthing like that. as it was a Habsburg Empire previously (Poland probably not as far as I remember but the migrations is still possible).
+ my wife is Bulgarian. She understands croatian, serbian, macedonian, czech and slovak to a certain extent. Polish not really. So the similarities can be associated between other languages as well unless you want to make it a story about a person with Polish origin.
good luck