|
Hungarian is quite a difficult language to come to grasp with. This little article should help you with pronunciation on names, and help you communicate better should you visit Hungary!
In Hungarian, every vowel forms a syllable, so all vowels must be pronounced individually, even when several follow each other. The sounds of Hungarian vowels (a,e,i,o,u) as modified by various accents are approximated below, together with those consonants that are not pronounced as in English.
a – similar to ‘u’ in tuck
á – is a long ‘a’ as in father
c – ‘ts’ as in lots
cs – ‘ch’ as in church
é – ‘ay’ as in pay
gy – similar to the ‘de’ in dew or the ‘du’ in duration
í – as ‘ee’ in weed
j – as the ‘y’ in yet
ly – as the ‘y’ in yet (archaic spelling of j)
ny – similar to ‘nu’ in tenure or the ‘ni’ in onion
o – similar to the ‘ou’ in ought
ó – as the word ‘awe’
ö – similar to the ‘ur’ in fur
õ – similar to the ‘ur’ in fur but longer
s – ‘sh’ as in shop
sz – ‘s’ as in soap
ty – as the ‘tu’ in tune
u – as the ‘oo’ in look
ú – as the ‘oo’ in moon
ü – similar to the ‘ew’ in hew
û– similar to the ‘ew’ in hew but longer
zs – as the ‘s’ in measure or vision
Thinking about giving Hungarian names to your dogs? Hungarian ancestors named their dogs primarily after their characteristic features, for instance Füles (=All ears), Fürge (=Swift), Bongyor (=Curly), Ügyes (=Skilful) were popular names. Often they used names referring to features that were desirable at work (herding and guarding sheep). Thus few-week-old komondor and kuvasz puppies were called Vitéz (=Hero), Bátor (=Brave), Morcos (=Grumpy), although these features were not typical of them yet.
The ancestors had a good sence of humour too, so it happened that they named their dogs after their enemies. It must have been very good feeling to push aside Dárdás (=Lieutenant) or to send Dékán (=sacristan) to hell.
Sometimes they found funny names for their dogs, like Mitvisz (=What-is-he-taking), Nocsak (=Well, well!), Nolám (=Look!), Mivelélsz (=What-do-you-live-on). Also a common practice was to name dogs after rivers, as it was thought the river had cleansing properties, and would guard againt disease. (Duna, Tisza, Sajo)
|