Angol legyen vagy német?

Újabb lázálom ötlet az Oktatási Minisztériumból. Mint nyelveket szerető ember, és mint nyelvész is, érint ez a téma. Nem hagyhattam ki, hogy pár gondolatomat ne osszam meg.

Tegnap az oktatás minőségért rajongó miniszterünk, Hoffmann Rózsa egy újabb fergeteges ötlettel állt elő. Nevezetesen, hogy mi lenne, ha az angol helyett a német lenne a preferált nyelv a kis nebulók oktatásában, mondván "a német nyelv nehezebb az angolnál, és így jobban felkészítenék a diákokat további nyelvek megtanulására". Persze, az amúgy franciát (és oroszt) inkább előnyben részesítő Hoffmann simán beáldozná az angolt, sőt, hovatovább, önkényesen rangsorolná is tán a nyelveket. Bár ezt tagadják. Igaz ugyan, hogy egyes kimutatások szerint a magyar lakosság 74,8 százalékának semmilyen idegennyelv-ismerete sincs, nem is csodálkozom (bár ezt a számot túlzottan magasnak tartom).

Miért nem csodálkozom? Sok emberrel futottam már össze, akik közép vagy felső fokú angol nyelvvizsgával rendelkeztek ugyan, DE ha a nyelvet magát használni kellett volna, vagy makogtak, vagy feladták és márt kértek meg gondolatait azon nyelven való tolmácsolására. Értem én, és köztudott is, hogy kicsiny kis Közép-Európánkban a német (és vele együtt az orosz) fontos nyelv, ezek a piacok még mindig elérhetőek és közelebbiek számunkra, de badarság azt gondolni, hogy az angolra kevésbé lenne szükség. Meg hogy nehezebb lenne a német. Az, számomra, de tudom, mások számára épp a német a könnyebb.

Nem tudom, mások hogy vannak vele, nekem az angol mindig egy közvetítő nyelv, egy ugródeszka volt más, egzotikus nyelvek fel, és nem biztos, hogy németül elérhető lenne számomra ez a kapcsolat. Fel kell ismerni, miért akar valaki egy idegen nyelvet tanulni, megtanulni, elsajátítani. Megéri? Igen! Ebben a globalizált világban, ha az ember bármit is kezdeni akar magával, igenis hasznos megtanulni angolul. És nem csak a száraz nyelvtant. Nem tudom, hogy az idegennyelv-oktatás mennyit lépett előre az elmúlt évtizedekben, de külföldön már inkább a kommunikáció-alapú oktatás folyik, nem a nyelvtan kikérdezése. Az is fontos, de ennél fontosabb, hogy el tudjuk adni magunkat és tudjunk: KOMMUNIKÁLNI... Persze idővel a kommunikáció mellé a nyelvtan tökéletes tudása is fel kell hogy zárkózzon, de nem kéne ezt az angolhoz való lehetőséget rögtön az elején elzárni.

Személyes történetem, hogy én angolul kezdtem el tanulni, majd a középiskolában a németet "kényszerítették" rám (én az angolt választottam). Négy évig utáltam. Érettségi előtt valahogy elkaptam a ritmusát, a mai napig nem tudom eldönteni, hányadán is állok vele. Nekem a német nehezebb, mint az angol, bár azt sem beszélem 10000 %-osan. Mert van ilyen. De el tudom magam adni, megértenek, ha kell, töröm magam és jobban írok, stb. Minden a hozzáálláson nyugszik.

Este a barátnőm olvasta, ezen a két nyelven felül később milyen nyelveket ajánlanak még tanulni. Olvasta-olvasta, ott volt a kínai is, erre kérdeztem, nincs ott a kazak meg a török? Ha már úgyis nyitunk a Kelet felé... Erre ő: azeri! Nem volt a listán, de oda illene. Vagy a tisztességért akkor már az örmény...

Nem vagyok csodabogár, a nyelvtudásom is hagy kivetnivalót maga után, de tagadhatatlan, nagyon szeretem a nyelveket. Olyan helyen dolgozom, ahol legalább 70 nyelvet beszélnek (nem az ENSZ, ott több lenne... ). Első nyelvvizsgámat sem angolból tettem le, hanem finnből, azóta lett még egy angolom és egy svédem. Mind elsőre. Emellett tucatnyi nyelvet próbáltam már meg elsajátítani, és nem nagy világnyelvekről beszélek. Kétszer jártam már olyan nyelvterületen, ahol az adott nyelvet pár 10 vagy 100 ezer ember beszéli csak, és láttam, hogy örülnek, hogy ez az idegen itt előttük az ő anyanyelvükön szól hozzájuk. amíg a tanuló nem érti, nem érzi, milyen hatást válthat ki azzal, hogy egy idege kultúra "kódját" sajátítja el, addig nem érdemes arról győzködni a tanulókat, miért is fontos az angol vagy a német...

Mi kell a jó nyelvtanuláshoz? Ezerszer leírtam már: MOTIVÁCIÓ. Meg kitartás, lehetőség. Ha nem vagy érdekelt abban, hogy tudj, akkor maradj csak a 74,8 százalékban. Vagy értsd meg, mire lennél képes, ha ezt meg ezt a nyelvet elsajátítanád. Ja, és TE válassz, ne mások mondják meg neked, mit kell tanulnod. Harcolj, hogy tanulhass akár törökül vagy portugálul az iskolában (persze, csak ha másnak is van erre igénye, vagy menj olyan iskolába), ne ragadj le csak az angol és a német lehetőségeinél. Tanulj meg angolul,. hogy tanulhass másik 2-3-5 nyelvet. Az valóban igaz, hogy ha már több nyelvet tudsz, akkor könnyebben tanulsz egy újabbat.

Kicsit elkanyarodtam a fő témától. A kérdés nem az hogy VAGY, hanem inkább ÉS, meg még több választás. István király is megírta, az egynyelvű ország gyenge és esendő. Nem azt mondom, hogy a boltban is külföldiül kell vásárolni odahaza, de ha egy külföldi felbukkan, ne álljunk ott némán (UI: bár a csehek és a szlovákok biztos jobb mutatókkal rendelkeztek az idegennyelv-tudás felmérésében, ez mindössze annyiban igaz, hogy ő a másikuk nyelvét is megjelölték mint tudás, az utcán, a való életben, ők is ugyanolyan alacsony szinten ismernek már nyelveket, mint mi... Tapasztalat...)

Being a Finn

My version for this facebook meme "What other world think I do"... Being a Finn...

Fingerpori magyarul

Egy finn kollégám kölcsönadott nekünk egy Fingerpori gyűjteményt. Aki nem ismerné, ez egy finn képregény, Pertti Jarla tollából... Pár képkockát magyarítottam Nektek :)

Ezek a válogatások a vallással kapcsolatosok... elnézést, ha bárkinek is sértem a hitvilágát bármelyik képpel vagy szöveggel, az alábbiakban a szerző alkotásának szó szerinti fordítása található...

The most interesting minority languages in Europe

I am a linguist, and such a linguist who loves especially the minority languages. I don't know why these idioms caught me and "stole my heart", but I prefer them rather. I support them, if somebody asks me, which would be a perfect language to learn. Why? Just imagine someone who turns to you and tells you some word in your own small mother tongue (if you have a small mother tongue... just hypotetically), you would feel like he is from the same village or a close realive, don't you? In my life since today I've tried to learn these minority "codes": Saami, Frisian, Romansh, Udmurt, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, Meänkieli, Basque, so I have some point of view, how this situation looks like in Europe. I want to show four of them here, their situation and that, why I love them.

Between 2001 and 2006 I've studied Finno-Ugrian Linguistics at the univeristy, and we had to choose a small language besides the main Finnish language. I choose the Saami, and not because the others were boring or bad languages (actually an other one, Udmurt also interested me, so I had two small languages), but I decided to acquire that langauge even 2 years before I got to the university. In 1998 I got a Saami New Testament, it was written in northern Saami (it's important, because there are 9 Saami langauges). It stands close to the Finnish (but if I mention this to a Finnish speaker, they say, it's nothing like that), not so close to understand it, but it makes it easier to acquire (my favorite example is: mátkkoštan juohka beaivvi = matkustan joka päivä 'I'm travelling every day'). Isn't that close?!

And why I love them? First of all, they are relatives, in languages at least. And they have words, which seem to be closer to Hungarian (my mother tongue), than the relevat Finnish word (like avve = öv 'belt', or idja/ija = éj 'night').

(This post in still under edition,,, not ready yet)

Dual Measure of the Two Totalitarian Systems

In this writing maybe I will hurt some people's feelings, I don't want, but every line is true here. We have a great poblem in Central Europe, and sometimes as I see, also globally. Our countires suffered close and deeply by the National Socialist and then the Communist/Socialist regimes, and they are "over" now, it's the past. Or maybe ins't?

I know, that most people hates in these days the Nazis' system, although there are groups and political parties, who continue their heritage, and nor the Communist era had been closed totally, we have successor parties, who are Socialist in their names, or representative their work. Anyway, they should be the Past, but the sad thing is, they are still the Present. And the worst is, there is a dual measure between them, I mean, the Socialist era looks like something Purple-Romantic Memeories of an ancient good time, and on the other hand, the Nazi system is hundred or thousand times worse. Is that true?

I have to state here, I am against any totalitarian system, and I want to reject all of them. The Nazis killed some couple of millions people, mainly Jews, but also Polish people or Gypsies, etc. How many people had been killed by the Communists/Socialists? More than 100 million. So we see, both were wrong and evil, but the Communists were the really worst (as Reagen saw it well). And what do we see now in for example Prague or in Budapest? There are bars and restaurants, where they dedicate the whole place to remember the good times of a deadly period. How come?

Is that allowed? And on the other hand, if it's allowed, how could that happen, that if someone wants to open such bar dedicated to the Nazi system, everybody would be againt of it? What is that if not a dual measure. We have to cancel both, not only one of them. I know, most of my friends loves to visit such places here in Prague, like the Propaganda (now Iron Curtain) bar (me too), I was just thinking yesterday, when I was there, what could happen, if somebody would come and say, I want to open a bar named e.g. Reich or Obersturmbahnführer in the middle of the city. Tell me, what is the difference between the two regimes, which allows to the Communist-fan bars to exist? Because I don't see any difference.

Let ban both or let allow both. No dual measures!

Csehország gyászban

Ma azt mondta nekem egy ismerősöm, hogy a cseheket nehéz megközelíteni, elég zárkózottak. Ha úgy is van, a történelemben már többször láttuk, a jelentős fájdalmak idején kiállnak és olyat csinálnak, amit más nem.

Ma reggel elhunyt Csehország első elnöke, aki egyben író, dramaturg is volt: Václav Havel. 75 évet élt, régóta szenvedett betegségével. És láttam ma embereket, akiket letaglózott ez a hír.

Estefelé a Vencel-téren jártam. Ez a tér sok eseménynek volt már színtere és tanúja, most sem volt másképp: spontán felolvasóestet-megemlékezést kezdtek tartani ott Havel tiszteletére. Akkor ezt a kis összeállítást készítettem el:

Később estére a tér így nézett ki:

Kép: Lukáš Bíba, Hospodářské noviny

Scandinavian Heaven in the New World - Minnesota

One of my favorite state within the USA is Minnesota. It has more reason, like for example: it's the most Scandinavian state, or... even it looks so rural, the people are kind... or the name itself... Honestly, it has a meaning, and not only in a Native American language... In Swedish 'minne' means 'memory' and in Finnish 'sota' means 'war', so it's a kind of Scanidinavian 'memorial war'. And why exactly these nations and languages?...

But, as I said, it's the most Scandic state ever. And to show, how deep, here is a list of the governors of Minnesota, with the roots of the persons (if he has Scandinavian ancestry):

1. - 1858-1860 - Henry H. Sibley
2. - 1860-1863 - Alexander Ramsey
3. - 1863-1864 - Henry A. Swift
4. - 1864-1866 - Stephen Miller
5. - 1866-1870 William R. Marshall
6. - 1870-1874 - Horace Austin
7. - 1874-1876 - Cushman K. Davis
8. - 1876-1882 - John S. Pillsbury
9. - 1882-1887 - Lucius F. Hubbard
10. - 1887-1889 - Andrew R. McGill
11. - 1889-1893 - William R. Merriam
12. - 1893-1895 - Knute Nelson - NORWEGIAN (born as Knud Evanger in Norway)
13. - 1895-1899 - David M. Clough
14. - 1899-1901 - John Lind - SWEDISH (born in Sweden)
15. - 1901-1905 - Samuel R. Van Sant - Dutch
16. - 1905-1909 - John A. Johnson - SWEDISH
17. - 1909-1915 - Adolph Olson Eberhart - SWEDISH (born in Sweden)
18. - 1915 - Winfield S. Hammond
19. - 1915-1921 - Joseph A. A. Burnquist - SWEDISH
20. - 1921-1925 - Jacob Aall Ottesen Preus - NORWEGIAN
21. - 1925-1931 - Theodore Christianson - SWEDISH (?)
22. - 1931-1936 - Floyd B. Olson - NORWEGIAN-SWEDISH
23. - 1936-1937 - Hjalmar Petersen - DANISH (born in Denmark)
24. - 1937-1939 - Elmer A. Benson - NORWEGIAN
25. - 1939-1943 - Harold Stassen
26. - 1943-1947 - Edward J. Thye - NORWEGIAN
27. - 1947-1951 - Luther Youngdahl - SWEDISH
28. - 1951-1955 - C. Elmer Anderson - SWEDISH
29. - 1955-1961 - Orville Freeman - SWEDISH-NORWEGIAN
30. - 1961-1963 - Elmer L. Andersen - SWEDISH-NORWEGIAN
31. - 1963-1967 - Karl Rolvaag - NORWEGIAN
32. - 1967-1971 - Harold LeVander - SWEDISH
33. - 1971-1976 - Wendell Anderson - SWEDISH
34. - 1976-1979 - Rudy Perpich - Croatian
35. - 1979-1983 - Al Quie - NORWEGIAN
36. - 1983-1991 - Rudy Perpich (2x)
37. - 1991-1999 - Arne Carlson - SWEDISH
38. - 1999-2003 - Jesse Ventura - Slovak/Hungarian
39. - 2003-11 - Tim Pawlenty - Polish
40. - 2011- - Mark Dayton

From 39 governors (Rudy Perpich was two times) there were 6 pure Norwegians, 10 pure Swedes, 3 mixed Swedish-Norwegians, 1 Danish. Together it takes 20 persons, so more than 50 % of the Minnesota governors had Scandinavian roots.

In 2010 the population of Minnesota was 5,303,925, from that 32.1 % had Scandinavian ancestry, in details:

16.8 % - Norwegian

9,5 % - Swedish, Finnish, Danish and Icelandic

There are 4,642,526 Americans with Norwegian roots, 868,361 of them live in Minnesota (largest Norwegian state). In the States thdere live 4,347,703 people with Swedish ancestry, 586,507 of them live in Minnesota (largest Swedish state), we can find about 700,000 American Finns, well, their main state is rather Michigan, there are 1,516,126 Danes in the States, in Minnesota only 88,924 (3rd larges Danish state), there are only 42,716 Icelandic Americans, 3,165 live in Minnesota (3rd largest Icelandic state).

By the way, the seal of Minnesota says, it's the 'Start of the North' - in French.... I would not be surprised, if it would be written there rather in Swedish...

Learning languages

In an old post of mine, which was written in Hungarian, I mentioned my method for language learning. I call it Párvusz method (because of my art name). Now I don't want to go through all of those steps, I try to focus on why I am doing this, I mean, why I am learning languages and why I feel myself well this way (or why I am so crazy). And you will see, why the minority languages are so important to me, or that we don't have to give up, if a language dies out, because there is always a hope to revive it.

Honestly, I can't learn only one language, so usually I learn more paralelly. Why? Because, if they are related languages, it's easy to compare them. If they are not, then it's a challenge... I started with the English and some years later the German came into my life. After I saw, what kind of similarities are between them, I wanted to see, how it's working for my own mother tongue, that was the way to the Finnish. Which we - Hungarians - have to learn the same hard way as any other langauage, because - even it's a related language of ours - it had got so far from us, that it's hard to recognize, what was common is us. At the university I studied Finnish officially, and Finno-Ugrian linguistics (with Saami and Udmurt), so now I can tell anytime, why our language is from the same family. I tasted some other small languages, but I focused later on the mentioned tongues.

I don't know exactly, why it is so important to me to know more and more languages. Maybe, because it's always good to reach the people with their own mother tongue. Yes, that's true, that I have a principle: the shortest way to the people's heart leads through their mother tongue. I try to live according to that. Sometimes I am able to do that, and it happens, that not. When, for example, I hardly try to remember, why kind of words I know on a specific tongue. Anyway, it doesn't matter, if with that 3-4 words you make that person smile :) It's always good to know a little bit more. Not in an egoist way, but to be wiser. Of course, it was always a popular stuff in the secondary school, when I had to improve my Japanese or Chinese writing ability.

When I try to acquire a new language, I try to put myself into a "language nest". Some people are very lucky, because they physcally have a really called language nest (in New Zealand and in Finland). How I am doing that? There are stuff around me, which make me feel, I am there, where this language is spoken. On my wall you can find a lot of large flags for example. I have some books in that language, mainly Bibles (I have some rare ones, from Africa or the Pacific area - once I wanted to become a missionary, who translates Holy Scriptures...). Feeling the atmosphere makes the way easier to acquire a language. Or maybe only for me, I don't know.

Why still? Because the English is not the only langauge on the world. You can learn large and "commercially useful" languages, or small minority languages. Those are my specialities. Usually, when I am drawing comics, I do that only in minority languages, like Welsh, Romansh or Inari Saami. Here you can see one of my Romansh comics, mainly written in that language (this edition exactly showed the language diversity of Switzerland). From these mentioned comics only the Romansh and Saami is published, but I pln to draw newer comics in other minority languages as well, like Udmurt or maybe Frisian. To learn a small languages help that language survive. And you can show them, thay it's not necessary to forget a language which was spoken in the last centuries or thousand years for an other one. Each language has its own value. And none of them is useless. I just read about a young guy who started to learn a recently extinct langauge to tell, he is the only one who speaks it. It sounds a little bit selfish, but on the other hand it could inspire some of those, who lost that language and who knows, maybe they can revive it. We saw already such with Manx, Cornish or Ivrit.

Learning a language makes you colorful. It makes you more open. It makes you bi- or rather multilingual (with foreign word: poliglot), and you can understand more and more people. I know, learning a language could be hard sometimes, but believe me, it is worth. You don't feel yet, but after some "painful" years you will see, it was good to suffer for this. So, ladies and gentleman, choose a language and learn it!

Famous Afro-Hungarians

In this writing I would like to speak about those people, how have - by birth - African and Hungarian roots. Because Hungary is also a multicultural country, and in the 1960es and 1970es many African student came to Hungary and most of them stayed there and raised an African-Hungarian family. And some of the children of these families became famous, so I can show you them. I had to add here two other person too, who also came from Hungarian and African roots, but they were born or raised outside of Hungary, and the father of one of them is rather an Afro-American person, not straight from the Black Continent.

Most of these people - because of their exotic look - became famous in the enterteinmant industry, they are singers or actors, or work for TV. And two of them became footballer and one - it's not a question: basketball player. Let's start with the singers!

In the 1990es there was a disco band with summer hits, and the main singer was a girl called Fanny, or with full name: Fanny Funnah (roots from Ivory Coast). True, there were some rumors, that the group singed with playback, but it's not a question, Fanny was beautiful :) Later she became a TV personality for a while. Nowdays we also had "Pop Idols" and one of the best singers was Evelyne Kandech (roots from Sierra-Leone). We have a band, the name speaks to itself: Back II Black, and the main singer is Bebe a.k.a. Dániel Abebe (roots from Ethiopia). And - thanks for the info, my sister - we can't forget about Sena (Veronika Dagadu) from Ghana, who is also a great singer.

In the world of the acting we found two Afro-Hungarians, one of them is qite famous, but on the other side of the ocean. She is Jessica Szohr, who plays in Gossip Girl. She has - and it happens rarely - African roots from her maternal side (quaterly). The other actor is Artúr Kálid, whose roots are from Bissau-Guinea, but his life was very hard, he was almost adopted by a Saudi family (he got the Khaled surname from them), but then the Békési family took him. He is also a voice actor, giving his voice sometimes to Afro-American actors...

In the world of sports we have a Nigerian-Hungarian, who was born in his father's country (yes, his mother was Hungarian), and later they moved to Hungary. Thomas Sowunmi played for several clubs abroad and he was the first (and until now the only) Black player in the Hungarian national team. But if we see the basketball team, we have a very stable Afro-Hungarian player there (from Ivory Coast), Ádám Hanga, who is the first Hungarian player drafted ever in NBA (San Antonio Spurs, but still plays in Spain). We have a Hungarian-American football (or soccer) player, whose Hungarian citizenship was the way to England. Tim Howard is - by the way - the goalkeeper of the USA national team... Again, his mother was Hungarian, and the funny thing, her surname was Fekete, which means Black :)

The African girls are beautiful, so as in other countries, we also have Miss Afro beauty competition. And one of these beautiful Africans works for TV. One of them was a weather forecast lady, Judit Onyutha, whose roots are from Uganda. The other, who works for TV, is Sorel-Arthur Kembe, partly from Kongo. But he was also an Olympicon and actor...

Here are the pictures of these Afro-Hungarians (in that list as they were mentioned above):

Fanny Funnah                          Evelyne Kandech                         Dániel Abebe                         Veronika Dagadu

Jessica Szohr                            Artúr Kálid                                Thomas Sowunmi

Ádám Hanga                             Tim Howard                                Judit Onyutha

Sorel-Arthur Kembe

The most successful Hungarian software

If Finland, then Angry Birds (or something connected to Nokia), if Hungary... does anyone know, which is the most successful and known Hungarian software on the whole world? No-one? No, not the BASIC language, even that was also developed by (also) a Hungarian, but that's not a software. Excel? Well, that is a software, thou, well, Charles Simonyi worked on that, as on Word as well, but there were other progrmmers too. The only Hungarian software, which has the base still in Hungary, is called...

Yes. It's the famous ArchiCAD. Are you maybe an architect? Then sure you know it, wherever you work and live. Not so many people knows that the developing of this software started in 1982 (when I was 1 year old...). Since that 15 version has been released. According to some data, nowadays 150.000 architects use it in the building design industry (of the almost half million architects, so there is still place to gain up...). It as the first computer-aided-design (=CAD) product, which was able to create both 2D drawings and parametric 3D geometry on a PC, and of course it was made first for Apple (Steve Jobs always knew, what is good...). Nowadays you can run it in Microsoft and in Mac too. As Apple had started also in a garage, this software started to live in a garage-small room somewhere in Hungary.

ArchiCAD was developed by one of the most successful Hungarian company, Graphsoft. Since 1987 (so 2 years before the Hungarian "system change") the company became the largest software exporter, only the ArchiCAD is sold in more than 80 countries on 5 continent, in 22 languages. Even the main office is in the Hungarian capital, it has other offices in Munich, Bristol, Madrid, Newton, Tokyo,

Link: Office of the Graphisoft in Budapest.

The Hungarians were always good in architecture, some of them were quite crazy to become a good programmer, so it's not a miracle that we mixed these two areas to build something new for those, who really build something. Due to the highly educated mathematician and programmers there was a possibility in the 1970ies and early 1980es years to start to develop such programs, like ArchiCAD.

By the way, we don't have to go far from this inventory to see an other Hungarian product. Connected to this software a new patent is called Leonar3do invented my Dániel Rátai, it's a 3D-monitor with a 3D "mouse".