Oldal 107 [107]
HUNGARIAN-ENGLISH LEXICAL CONTRASTS
languages, but it is only L2 that has a lexical item for it. E.g., English knuckle
denotes a part ofthe hand that has no single-word expression in Hungarian.
According to several bilingual dictionaries, knuckle means
csuklö, ujjperc, ujjperec, ujjizület, kezbütyök, tengelycsuklo, labszarhüs
csonttal
The word knuckle actually corresponds best to kezbütyök, but this word is
rarely used in Hungarian. If you translate the following sentence into Hungar¬
ian, it is unlikely that your translation will contain the word kezbütyök:
Give me 60 pushups on your knuckles.”
Culturally important concepts are, or at least tend to be lexicalised in a lan¬
guage. Eziistvasdrnap is culturally important in Hungary, so it is lexicalised
in Hungarian. In Britain it is less important and is not lexicalised in English.
The phrase Silver Sunday has a different meaning (‘the National Day for
Older People’).
Let us now examine some of the words in the article Britain’s Medallion
Men Win No Medals (Chapter 5) that might have caused difficulty in transla¬
tion. This text contains several words and phrases that have no exact equiva¬
lents in Hungarian, and can only be expressed through two or more words, or
paraphrases, or with some loss of meaning: pet hate, bigot, wishy-washy,
flamboyant.
Pet hate. The compound pet hate is defined as “a minor annoyance that a
person identifies as particularly annoying to them, to a greater degree than it
may be to others, e.g.: Smoking is my pet hate”.* The phrase can be explained
and translated into Hungarian but lacks a good Hungarian equivalent.
Bigot. The word bigot has an equivalent in Hungarian: bigott. In bilingual
dictionaries it is translated as vakbuzgó követő (párté/világnézeté); fanatikus,
szenteskedő/ kegyeskedő; vakbuzgó személy (vallási életben), bigott. Ina mono¬
lingual dictionary the definition of this word is a person who is intolerant of
any ideas other than his or her own, esp. on religion, politics, or race." How¬
ever, in Hungarian it refers only to people who are fanatically religious; for
those who are politically or racially bigoted we must have a different translation.
(See also section 7.5.4 on False Cognates.) Therefore, we may say that it has no
precise eguivalent in Hungarian.
35 https://hu.glosbe.com/en/hu/knuckle: Hatvan fekvötamasz öklön! Accessed 20.11.2020; DeepL
Translator *Adj 60 fekvötämaszt a bokädon! Accessed 15.01.2022.
46 https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/pet-hate. Last accessed 20.11.2020.
4” https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/bigot. Last accessed 20.11.2020.
s 105 +