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HUNGARIAN-ENGLISH LINGUISTIC CONTRASTS. A PRACTICAL APPROACH
Flamboyant. As for flamboyant, we find several different meanings listed
in English-Hungarian bilingual dictionaries: lang(nyelv)szerii; késdi got; szin¬
pompás; lobogó; túldíszített; rikító; hivalkodó. In a monolingual dictionary",
it is defined as ‘very noticeable, stylish, and exciting, as in Freddie Mercury
was a flamboyant star of the British hard rock scene.’ It can be translated into
Hungarian in several different ways, but lacks a good, exact equivalent. (Perhaps
the word extravagdns comes closest to it.)
Wishy-washy. Again, the word wishy-washy has several equivalents in bi¬
lingual dictionaries (faké, hig, izetlen, se ize se biize, szintelen, teddide-teddo¬
da, tutyi-mutyi, érdektelen, lapos, semmitmondó), but none of them express¬
es its exact meaning, which is defined in this way: If you say that someone is
wishy-washy, you are critical of them because their ideas are not firm or clear.
E.g., If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s an indecisive, wishy-washy customer.”
Culture-specific words. Word meaning is inseparable from encyclopaedic
knowledge (world knowledge, including cultural and subject matter knowledge).
Thus, the word breakfast denotes a meal eaten in the morning, but speakers
of English will also know what this meal typically consists of and quite a lot
of other things.
There is a large group of words that denote entities specific to a particular
culture and as a result have no equivalents in other languages. For instance,
there is no English word for Hungarian disznótor and disznótoros, kuruc, ku¬
rucos, labanc, and there is no Hungarian word for the event called Trooping
the Colour. Here are some more examples of culture-specific words:
> pub, Yorkshire pudding, ale, stout, backbencher, party whips, Downing
Street, The Speaker, public school, comprehensive school, grammar school;
; babgulyás, pálinka, Alföld, gémeskút, fokos, einstand, gittegylet, grund,
krajcár, magyar nóta, Mohácsi vész
It is important to note that if there is no word in a language for a word of
another language, it does not mean that it cannot be expressed. In this case
various communication and translation strategies can be employed: borrowing
(e.g., dartsozás), explaining (kurucok: anti-Habsburg insurgents in I8th cen¬
tury Hungary), literal translation (Irooping the Colour: zászlós díszszemle""),
etc. (See Chapter 11.)
48 https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/flamboyant. Last accessed 20.11.2020.
* https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/wishy-washy. Accessed 20.11.2020.
50 “A Trooping the Colour ceremóniája II. Károly király idejéig — vagyis a XVII. századig — nyú¬
lik vissza, és annak a régi katonai szokásnak az ünnepélyes felidézése, amellyel az egyes ala¬
kulatok zászlait és jelképeit, vagyis színeit (colour) rendszeresen végighordozták a katonák
(troops) előtt. Ennek két oka volt: a fennköltebb az, hogy a katonák jobban átérezzék azon
zászló fontosságát, mely az alakulat lelke, és amelyet a legnagyobb megbecsülés illet. Ezzel
érhető el, hogy a csatában a zászlót kövessék, megóvásáért önmagukat feláldozzák." https://
s 106 "