Mini Hungarian language lesson: #introduction
A few half-decent jokes aside the thing I'm most proud of having done in the Bad Place™ was my monster thread on the quirks of the Hungarian language and culture.
So it's only fair if I introduce myself by way of looking at the Hungarian word for introduction: "bemutatkozás"
This word has got a bit of everything that makes the language tricky to learn for monolingual English speakers.
Like, what even is the word stem here?
It's the verb "mutat" ("to point/to show"), which is the meat in a sandwich of affixes.
(In fact etymologically it is quite possible that the origin of this word is just "mut" with "-at" itself being a suffix.)
(It's important to note here that "bemutat" can also mean "to give someone the finger", which spawned the classic joke:
"Hi Steve, haven't seen you in ages, who's this lovely lady with you?"
"Oh, she's my wife."
"And aren't you gonna introduce me to her?"
"Of course, how rude of me. [turns to wife] Fuck you, Joan!")
But let's turn our attention to the "-koz" suffix, cos it's a right weird one. Its purpose is to turn a non-reflexive verb into a reflexive one, fixing the object to the subject. Thus eliminating the possibility of the hilarious but embarrassing misunderstanding in the joke above.
(It can also be used to create reciprocal verbs, as in "szeret -> szeretkezik" ("to love" -> "to make love", which is supposed to be a reciprocal activity. At least linguistically.)
P.s.: When I post the next similar thread, it will be behind a CW but I thought I should introduce this thing to everyone so you can mute me straight away if you hate it.
Also, forgot hashtags cos...anyway, the series will run under #MiniHungarianLanguageLesson and #Hungarian
Peter Ellis