Since the days following the Second World War American cultural influence has been ever increasing in Europe. Sometimes it is justified to call this influence “sub
cultural” rather than cultural as action movies, thrillers on the TV screens and in paperback books, temporarily popular songs and the language of TV, radio and newspaper advertisements all serve as a vehicle for new words, expressions, and in fact the verbal culture of a whole new way of life. This process has been further ac
celerated by the introduction of satellite television and radio broadcasts that know no state borders, and the fact that English is now the most wide-spread second language taught in schools in most countries of the world.
In countries such as France and Germany as well as Hungary, linguists and so
ciologists have long made efforts to draw people’s attention to the dangers1 of in
discriminate use of foreign words and expressions when there are suitable words readily available in one’s own native language. It is easy to understand worries that languages exposed to an overwhelming cultural-subcultural effect might lose some of their original values in terms of vocabulary and even in grammatical structures.
On the other hand, much less attention is paid to the phenomena in which the influence of a foreign language induces changes in the recipient language that do not contradict its original rules and structure.
The present paper, with its limited means and within the constrains of space, aims to draw some attention to this field of cultural interaction. It is important to identify the points where a foreign language generates changes in the recipient lan
guage without adversely affecting its original structure and rules for two reasons:
(1) they might serve as a useful guideline for translators, offering them alterna
tives with which they can break up monotony when working on a transla
tion and thus these expressions will enrich and improve the recipient lan
guage,
(2) by identifying such words and expressions it will become easier to find and weed out the undesirable ones that are alien bodies in the texture of the lan
guage.
1. Certain statements in this paper suggest normative approach, which is usually avoided in an essay paper. In the case of the Hungarian language, however, the grammar and usage is gov
erned by the Academy in a definitive way, making decisions regarding grammatical correct
ness easier than it is in many other languages.
Tamás Vraukó
We find the most typical examples of the influence of a foreign language in the vocabulary. A recipient language often borrows words in order to name things that are new to a society or merely for fashion or snobbery. Thousands of such words are found in each language in the world. Although these words are the focus of constant attacks by the language purists, sometimes they fit the lexical system of a language. Such is the case with the following adoptions of English words in the Hungarian language:
Original English word Hungarianized version
cola2 kóla
see you szia
Both kóla and szia, which is a single word derivative of the English see you, fit the Hungarian vocabulary in terms of the consonant—vowel ratio and the usual composition of front and back vowels. Hungarian does not like words containing both front and back vowel, this is why pairs of inflections came into being, that is, alternative inflections with front and back vowel versions.
The meaning of both words changed when they became wide-spread in Hun
garian. Cola came to Hungary with the popular soft drinks, but now the word kóla has come to mean all kinds of carbonated soft drinks, including orange etc. in some parts of Hungary. See you was first learned by Hungarian prisoners of war in Southern Germany at the end of the Second World War. They did not speak Eng
lish, and they only realised that it was some sort of a greeting, and they started to use it when they met and when they wanted to say bye. Later they brought it home to Hungary where it soon became very popular with young people. As Hungarian usually puts approximately the same amount of stress on each syllable, the now widely used form of szia has come into being.
The two examples above illustrate cases of pure adoption. Sometimes adoption takes place in spite of the fact that words of similar or entirely the same meaning exist in the recipient language. The following examples are taken from the military vocabulary of English and Hungarian:
English word Original Hungarian equivalent of the English word
New Hungarian word or substitution Brigadier General dandártábornok
obs. brigadéros
brigádtábornok
Corporal obs. káplár tizedes, szakaszvezető
2. For the present paper the origin of expressions is not sought, e. g., the word “typhoon”
is of Chinese origin, and it was relayed to Europe by the British. Similarly, the word “paprika”
is of Southern Slavonic origin, but it was relayed to English via Hungarian. Only the direct source of an expression is mentioned here.
In the past few decades the word brigád , that is brigade, has come to mean a team of workers in Hungary, and not a military unit. Although both brigade and general exist in Hungary, the two were not combined until recently. Today TV com
mentators and journalists very often translate Brigadier General as brigádtábornok.
It would still be difficult to condemn this and declare brigádtábornok absolutely wrong, as the old Hungarian word brigadéros was very often used in the 18th cen
tury (e.g. during the 1703-1711 War of Independence), so brigádtábornok sounds familiar.
The other word, káplár, does not appear to be resurrected. The English word corporal is most often translated into Hungarian as tizedes or szakaszvezető, which are both very low ranks, between Private and Sergeant. But the British and Hun
garian military hierarchies are not entirely the same and the ranks do not always fully correspond to each other. To translate corporal as káplár into Hungarian is certainly not making a mistake.
A great deal of expressions that “infiltrate” into the Hungarian language via trans
lation is found among sentences of polite social communication and everyday col
loquial speech. The sheer amount of American and British films and novels trans
lated into the languages itself makes it inevitable that many of these expressions find their way into the languages and there create forms that are new or somewhat different from traditional forms in those languages. The reason is probably not on
ly that many translators are not properly trained or inexperienced. It is quite likely that they very often find, perhaps not always consciously, that a literal translation of an English construction would be acceptable in their own native language. In languages such as Dutch, German, and the Scandinavian languages, tracing direct English influence is perhaps not as easy as it is in Hungarian, since these languages belong to the same Germanic group and their structure is basically much closer to English than that of other European languages, and especially closer than that of Hungarian.
A widening category of positive interference is found when an English infinitive induced the use of an infinitive in Hungarian sentences where the occurrence of an infinitive was formerly not typical:
English expression Original Hungarian equivalent
“Induced” Hung, form
it is good to see you örülök, hogy látlak jó látni téged /Önt
The one single example is intended to illustrate a whole range of analogous ex
pressions, e.g. it is good to find you here, it is good to hear about you etc., with the re
striction that it is good to meet you (again) is usually not translated into Hungarian with an infinitive. The original Hungarian version, örülök, hogy látlak is closer to another English infinitive structure, I am glad to see you. The Hungarian construc
tion with an infinitive is common in sentences containing a substantive verb in the infinitive, like:
Jó diáknak lenni ebben az iskolában. It is good to be a student at this school.
Tamás Vraukó
“Substantive verb in the infinitive” is English terminology, as Hungarian de
scriptive grammars list the infinitive with the nouns.
Another Hungarian that-clause type (a clause introduced by hogy) which ap
pears to have given way to infinitives as a result of translations is the clause ex
pressing purpose:
English construction Original Hungarian form “Induced” Hungarian Form
Aunt Barbara is too old to look after the children
Barbara néni túl idős ahhoz, hogy vigyázzon agyerekekre.
Barbara néni túl idős a gyerekekre vigyázni.
The purpose infinitive is wide spread in Hungarian, very often in sentences the structure and organizing logic of which is fairly similar to English sentences:
Iwent to the restaurant tohave lunch. Bementem a vendéglőbe meg
ebédelni.
This fact has probably contributed to the easy acceptance of infinitives in that- caluses.
Other Hungarian that-clauses stubbornly resist changes. It is not possible to alter the that-clause in the Hungarian equivalents of the following English ques
tions:
Where do you think you are going? Mit gondolsz, (hogy) hová mész?
What do you think you are doing? Mit gondolsz, (hogy) mit csinálsz?
The word order of these sentences is rigid. It would be difficult to change the word order and produce fully grammatical sentences, even if we try to preserve the that-clause:
Mit gondolsz, hogy csinálsz?*
In some exceptional cases, however, it is possible to create a Hungarian sen
tence structurally analogous with its English equivalent:
How much do you expect you will Milyen árat remélsz kapni
be paid for this? ezért?
English nominal clauses have easily found their way into Hungarian transla
tions. While nominal clauses have been used in Hungarian for a very long time, now more than ever they flourish in the translations of movie and TV scripts, ad
vertisements and novels:
English Nominal Clause A Common Hungarian
More dubious is the use of a Hungarian nominal clause in the translation when all appears in the English sentence:
English Nominal
The Hungarian translation containing a nominal clause is not grammatically incorrect, but it sounds cumbersome and overcomplicated. Still, some translators insist on following the English text as close as possible, and do not use csak, which is an easy translation of all in this case.
Various expressions have appeared in Hungarian as a result of literal transla
tions of English expressions of polite social formalities:
English Expression Its original Hungarian Equivalent
“Induced” Hungarian Version
What can I do for you? Miben segíthetek (Önnek)?
Mit tehetek Önért?
How about a drink? Szeretne inni valamit?
Nincs kedve inni
In the case of the second sentence, stress is on a drink, that is, egy ital in Hun
garian. Talking about a drink simply in the nominative or in the accusative was for
merly unusual in Hungarian. Drink was, and in colloquial Hungarian still is, part of the expression to drink something. Hungarian people usually do not talk about a drink, but about something to drink.
It is not surprising that relatively few proverbs and stock similes are translated literally. Each language has its own set of proverbs and stock phrases that are dif
ferent in details but again the logic in them is the same:
Tamás Vraukó
The early bird catches the worm. Ki korán kel, aranyat lel.
[Those who get up early, find the gold.]
A bird in hand is worth Jobb ma egy veréb, mint holnap
two in the bush. egy túzok.
[A sparrow today is worth a bustard tomorrow.]
One of the few idiomatic expressions that are now sometimes found literally translated into Hungarian is the following:
I have done it more times than you Többször csináltam én ezt már, have had a hot meal. mint ahányszor te meleg ételt
ettél.
Many people would not even recognise that some of the expressions discussed here came into being as a result of interference through translation. They would find them natural elements of the language. Others would perhaps find examples to prove that some of them had existed in our language long before modern cross cultural relations and large-scale translation became language shaping factors.
For the author of this paper, identifying elements induced by a foreign language and which are in accordance with the rules of our language is standing evidence of the ability of the language to renew and enrich itself by improving its structure and vocabulary. It is just as important as the other side of cultivating our language:
weeding out loan words that have only been introduced through negligence or for fashion, to replace existing and usable elements of the language.
In addition to this, it might also serve as a useful guide for translators who wish to avoid monotony and work to create vivid and colourful translations of foreign works.
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