Magyar News, 2000. szeptember-2001. augusztus (11. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

2001-05-01 / 9. szám

Why are the Hungarians smart?

The medical field has new results which that might prove that the Hungarians were on the right path developing their language. Naturally every Hungarian knows that their languge is the best. Taking the medical research just a wee-bit further we could asure ourselve that we were right. So what is it about?

An interesting article was published in the journal SCIENCE March 16, 2001 issue. The title of the article is: Dyslexia: Same Brains, Different Languages. So we are getting there.

First let us find out what they are talking about.

“Dyslexia is a reading disability that can be traced to a physical abnormlality in the brain. Not all people with dyslexia face the same level of difficulty in learning to read, however. A lot depends on what language you're reading. Italian is a lot easier than English. It turns out —in Italian, there are fewer ways to spell a sound than in English, or French for that matter. Scientists writing in the journal SCIENCE say that may be why fewer people in Italy are diagnosed with dyslexia ”.

Today with all the high-tech equipment and systems it is well known what part of the brain does the work for some activities. For reading it is in the temporal lobe. People who had a stroke in that area will lose their ability to read and spell though otherwise they could speak fluently. Strange as it may sound but that is the way it works. The researchers did studies in different countries and found that the disease was the same, but there was a component that made the difference. This is the language.

This is written in the Scienc magazine:

“English consists of just 40 sounds, but these phonemes can be spelled, by one count, in 1120 different ways. French spelling is almost as maddening. Italian speakers, in contrast, must map 25 different speech sounds to just 33 combinations of letters. Not surprisingly, Italian schoolchildren read faster and more accurately than do those in Britain. And it's no surprise that people have a harder time overcoming reading disorders if their language, like English or French, has a very complex, arbitrary system for spelling. "English comes with a built-in deficit," says education researcher Ken Spencer of the University of Hull in the United Kingdom.

Diagnosing a learning disability is notoriously subjective. Lack of access to good education and other social factors probably account for most reading disorders, says psychologist Richard Olson of the University of Colorado, Boulder. To avoid some of these issues, the researchers tested university students - people who have served plenty of time in classrooms and don't lack intelligence or willpower. The English and French dyslexic students have compensated for their disorder and are “very successful people, ” says study co-author Ute Frith of University College London, even though they need more time when taking exams and make frequent spelling mistakes

It is something to have 1100 ways of spelling the sounds. I’m not a linguist but I will try to illustrate what it is.

Let us try to spell to. It is simple, it is -t-o. Or could be two, or too. Let us have an other one. Beat, beet, or like in Pete. What a luxury. Then compare great, or finishing eat as ate. Let us try some consonants. Everybody knows that the little furry animal in the house is the cat. If you want to be nice to it you say kitty. But if you live in a settlement with big buildings where you pay your bills you might call it a city. Economic and echo have nothing to do with eachother. Now run to your bookcase and scan through (true) your dictionary, but please don’t call me.

Now I will like to show you a page from Géza Balázs’s book THE STORY OF HUNGARIAN, published by Corvina:

“In Hungarian a separate letter is used to designate each sound. The only exceptions are the consonants j and ly which produce the identical j sound and are distinguished only in spelling. (Ly is an old j sound which is used only rarely in certain words and which causes considerable difficulties to Hungarian children, when they first learn to spell. Jó [good], and lyuk [hole] have the same sound today, and yet are spelled differently). There is no logical reason why the j sound in one word should be spelled j and in another ly. The two identical sounds remain in the Hungarian alphabet for purely traditional reasons.

The Hungarian vowels are:

a-á, e-é, i-í, o-ó, ö-ö, u-ú, ü-ü.

It can be seen that each vowel is paired. Those without an accent or with dots are short. Those with accents or double accents are long. It is important to distinguish between the short and the long vowels, since the length of the vowel may affect the meaning of the word: vad (wild), -vád (accusation), keres (seek) kérés (request), tör (break) -tőr (dagger).

The single Hungarian consonants are:

b,c,d,f, g, h,j, k, 1, m, n, p, r, s,t,v,z.

These sounds exist in the Indo-European languages as well and only the sound value of s, v and z has to be learned. The groups consisting of two letters are a peculiarly Hungarian manifestation but represent a single sound. These are as follows: cs, dz, dzs, gy, ly, ny, sz, ty, and zs.

These letter combination are usually confusing for the foreigner, who considers the double letters as though they were two sounds and tries to pronounce them accordingly. They used as the second letter in the double letter combinations does not represent a separate vowel'’.

In the English one could compare it to shoe or church, or machine (!?).

“The Hungarian language thus possesses 7+7=14 vowels, 17 simple and 9 paired consonants, i.e., a total of 40 letters. Dz, dzs and ty appear in very few words and ly does not represent a separate sound. This reduces the total number of letters somewhat. There are letters which are common in other languages but occur only very rarely in Hungarian and are used primarily in foreign words: e.g.: CH (München, technika), Q (quattrocento), W (Washington, watt), X (xerox, xilifon), and Y (yard) ".

In Hungary the people even know how to pronounce “Volks Wagen”, it would sound Folks Vahgen, as the Germans say it.

When one adds up everything, they come to the conclusion that the Hungarians have a head start with their language. We have outstanding literature. Our lyrics are one of the best suitable for singing. Our language helps scientists and inventors to do the graetest. We have many Nobel Prize Laureats, our inventors of the basic technologies of the world were all helped by the uncomplicated Hungarian language. You say what you see, and there is no mistake. We can thank Almos, Árpád, all the others and to the teachers and the educational system for keeping our Hungarian language good

Joseph F. Balogh

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