Közmondás – Háp! Háp! Háp!

I often find myself in situations where communication can be tricky because of language barriers, and I’ve become adept at being expressive and honing in on some universal ways to communicate concepts that easily cross cultures. I always learn the word for ‘thank you’ everywhere I go and I am able to quickly learn a lot of simple things so that I can tend to my basic needs without having to stop someone every couple of minutes to find out if they speak English. Whenever I get to Hungary, though, things become complicated because I know and understand a lot, but my vocabulary and grammar are just insufficient enough to make having a proper conversation almost impossible. Normally when I speak to a stranger in a foreign country we speak either English, French or Spanish or we establish that we hold no language in common and just do our best to be expressive and use hand gestures and visual cues. But, in Hungary, the look on some people’s faces as I put words together that don’t quite amount to a sentence is a look I don’t get anywhere else.  It is a sort of thank you for trying, but please stop trying kind of look.

A sorok között olvas

There is a stop I always need to make when I visit Hungary and that is to visit the old family house in Dorog where Péter and Ani live. I first met Péter and Ani back in 2003 on my second visit to Hungary and at the time was introduced to them by my grandmother who had re-established contact with my grandfather’s side of the family a few years earlier.[i] Having my grandmother around facilitated things because she could translate. When I visited again in 2016 both my mother and my grandmother were there with me, so with all the Hungarian flying fast and furious my brain didn’t actually have to work that hard because someone was there to make sure I could understand everything – and, more importantly, that I could be understood. But in 2018 I visited all on my own and this is when it became apparent that Péter and Ani’s English is even more rudimentary than my Hungarian. In fact, Péter would often switch to German hoping that the linguistic similarities between German and English would transfer over and it could take up to a quarter of an hour of me trying to explain to him that he is better off suffering through my trying to understand Hungarian than switching over to German of which I know absolutely nothing. It was a trial by fire trying to follow, and be followed, in a language that is one of the most difficult in the world to learn and which I’ve never been able to fully get a grasp of. There was a lot of blank stares and me repeating nem értem[ii] over and over again. That visit in 2018 lasted just one night and was a humbling experience.

Játszik veled, mint macska az egérrel

What a gift it is, though, to be able to travel over such distances and, through rigour and determination, translate thoughts and ideas that can be understood by those who do not share your words, your insights, or your worldview. Every story, in its telling, like a puzzle, needs to be constructed piece by piece until the whole is revealed. But piecing together every link of the puzzle of an image of the Országház, once complete, is only a representation of the Országház and not the Országhaz itself – it is the age-old question, can we know something precisely as another knows it? Communication in a half-understood language is not so much about succeeding in completing the puzzle as it is about understanding the limitations of words as they represent ideas, and loving every moment of the game.

What would be the point of visiting without being accompanied by someone who could translate? Well, the truth is that there is a lot of love in that little house in Dorog. I always come bearing gifts but I always leave having felt like I received more than I gave with hugs, kisses, and, of course, food. I also leave having learned more Hungarian than in any other situation and if in 10 or 20 years, after so many of these visits, I can maybe have a proper conversation in Hungarian then I will feel like we’re square. Armed with a new app that could, in a pinch, translate my English to Hungarian, I was ready to delve into the communication vortex that is that little house in Dorog.

A gombhoz varrtam a kabátot

Dorog is about 50 kilometres northwest of Budapest on the way to Esztergom by the Slovak border. It is a small one-road kind of town with a few shops, a catholic church, and a train station at the far end of town. The house itself has been in the family for years and has the look of one of those themed museums where you get a glimpse of how people lived once upon a time. There’s a lot of ornate old wooden furniture, Persian rugs, and a variety of old china and glassware on display. There’s a makeshift pínce[iii] in the basement that doubles as an old dry cellar where they still store potatoes and other root vegetables over the winter. On the shelves, in the pínce there are various bottles of homemade wines and pálinka[iv] as well as strange trinkets and toys that Péter has collected over the years. The kitchen, which is Ani’s domain, has nothing but a tiny stove that is as old as time, and any meal that Ani serves makes you wonder just how it all got done with so few resources. There’s a garden out back where Ani grows lettuces, tomatoes, berries, and peppers. There’s an apricot tree and an apple tree, and most recently Ani began growing pumpkins and squash which were growing to absurdly large sizes.

Amit főztél, edd is meg!

My vocabulary of Hungarian food is rather robust compared to other subjects and, as a result, a lot of the conversations I get to have with Péter and Ani revolve around food. On this particular lunch, Ani had prepared the most delicious hús leves (meat soup) with stewed meat, noodles and veggies. As I serve myself and take my first few sips, I make sure to break the silence with effusive gestures and repeat nagyon finom![v] over and over in the belief that Ani knowing that I have been well fed makes her happy. My nose is half in the bowl as I lap up spoonful after spoonful. The soup is hearty, sticks-to-the-ribs, kind of fare and the satisfaction of eating it penetrates deep into the soul – such is the effect of food prepared with love. At this point my beard is thick and liquids adhere to it with ease, but due to the gusto with which I’ve been attacking this bowl of deliciousness, a good portion of it has ended up dribbling down my moustache and onto my chin. This is when Ani pipes in. I look at her blankly attempting to deconstruct what was just said to me. Péter, at the other end of the table, chuckles with amusement. I feel like I should know what she’s talking about but it’s taking too long and it dawns on me that, apart from knowing that it has something to do with a noodle, I won’t be able to put it together. Nem értem, I reply sheepishly. I look over at Péter hoping that because, like me, he has the ability to communicate through being expressive, that he will be able to explain what Ani said in a way I can understand. He repeats what she said but I am still lost. Nem értem, I reply. It gets repeated again and I lock onto a word that sounds familiar. Nem értem, kacsa, I say. Kacsa, Kacsa! Ani yells, Háp! Háp! Háp!

Aki könnyen hisz, könnyen csalatkozik

Now I am more lost than ever. I look at Ani with a certain amount of concern and ask what she means by “Háp! Háp! Háp!”. Péter monopolizes the conversation with a long tirade that I suppose for a moment he thinks I will have a hope of understanding, but there is no chance. I grab my phone to see if I can’t piece this together by translating just one word at a time, but Péter motions to me like I should not be relying on technology to figure things out. I am fixated on understanding kacsa and Háp! Háp! Háp! believing that, if I can put that together, that I can solve the whole thing. Every time I go back and demonstrate that I don’t understand, Péter and Ani raise their voices believing that if it is said louder and more clearly that the meaning will suddenly dawn on me. As their voices grow louder I reply in kind with an even louder sense of not understanding and the cycle continues. Meanwhile, I am asking Ani to explain what she means by Háp! Háp! Háp! because I am convinced that it can not be words in Hungarian. She repeats it again Háp! Háp! Háp!. To anyone looking on, it would seem as though we were having a heated argument and the phrase Háp! Háp! Háp! begins to bellow through the walls like the sound of Poe’s beating heart below the floorboards. Péter has left the kitchen mid-meal in what I can only assume is out of frustration. I am near tears at feeling so stupid, but with him gone I now have the chance to rely on the translation device on my phone. Ani is still repeating Háp! Háp! Háp! but I look up the word kacsa and discover that it translates as “duck” and Háp! Háp! Háp! is nothing more than onomatopoeia (which I certainly don’t have the word for in Hungarian).

Lunch feels like it’s put on pause and Ani and I play a game of what do animals say in English and Hungarian. Who knew that cross-cultural onomatopoeia would be so varied? I say “dog/kutya”, she says vau vau, I say woof. I say “cat/macska” she says míau, I say meow – essentially the same. I say “pig/malac”, she says röf röf, I say oink oink. I say “frog/béka”, she says kvákk, I say ribbit. This went on for a while.

Minden jó, ha a vége jó

Eventually, Péter returns with several papers of Hungarian sayings and this is when I am introduced to the word közmondás which means “proverb”.

On the list of 750 közmondás there were proverbs that would be easily recognizable to any English speaker, for example:

Elefánt a porcelánboltban.
Like an elephant (although in English we might also use “bull”) in a china shop.

Nem kell a gyereket a fürdővízzel kiönteni.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater

Nem tudja a job kéz, mit csinál a bal.
The right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing.

and

Amit ma megtehetsz, ne halaszd holnapra.
Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

There were also sayings that only Hungarians would understand:

Még ha cigánygyerekek potyognak is az égből.
Even if gypsy children fall from the sky.

Elment Földvárra deskát árulni.
He left for Földvár to sell boards.

and

Három a Magyar igazság.
The Hungarian justice is three.

There were the occasional sayings that struck with curiosity as to how they could ever be regarded as Hungarian:

Sok eszkimó, kevés fóka.
Many Eskimos and few seals.

And also sayings that were rife for misunderstanding:

Jó a hosszú kolbász és a rövid prédikáció.
A long sausage and a short sermon are good.

There was nothing in these papers to solve my most immediate curiosity of Ani’s duck comment, only that it was a proverb – but not one of the 750. Péter hands me a small slip of paper with a curious English phrase on it. Its true meaning is unclear, but alas it, in some small way, concluded that one elusive mystery.

That night we sat in the parlour and drank spirits and played a game where I provided the first half of the proverb and Péter and Ani competed to see who could finish the saying. With a full belly and a head swimming in alcohol, my attempts to communicate in Hungarian are like peas thrown against the wall – Falra hányt borsó. That night I lay in bed and giggled to myself about the hours spent over such a trifling matter as gobs of hearty soup dripping from my chin. What if Ani had said something so plain like, “Careful, you dripped some on your shirt”? There might not have been much to fuss about; There might not have been a misunderstanding at all; We might have spared the neighbours of all that noise; I might still be ignorant of how to say ‘duck’ in Hungarian, or what sound they make in Hungarian, or what közmondás means. One thing is for sure, I am not going to master the Hungarian language on this day and maybe not in this lifetime – I am setting the bar real low at just being able to have a conversation. As concerns the Hungarian language annyit értem hozzá, mint tyúk az ábécéhez.[vi]

Felteszem az i-re a pontot.[vii]

[i] My grandfather had been estranged from his family during the Communist era in Hungary after emigrating to Canada. My grandfather and his brother Lajos (Péter’s father) never spoke again after my family left Hungary. My grandfather passed away soon after the fall of the regime and it took the better part of decade but my grandmother on her various annual trips back to Hungary eventually sewed together these old family threads.

[ii] Hungarian for “I don’t understand”

[iii] Wine cellar

[iv] Distilled spirit made from fruit

[v] Very delicious

[vi] I know as much about it as a hen knows about the alphabet.

[vii] I dot the ‘i’ – an expression meaning to complete something with exactitude.