Icelandic language.

   It may be surprising ,but the little island in the northern Atlantic called Iceland ,has a seperate language. This language is not widely spoken. About 350,000 people speak it. This makes it a very rare language. This language is in the germanic branch of languages, and inside it is a scandinavian language. The seperation of the island makes this language unique. It was seperated from the events of Europe, so very little foreign words were built in the language and it stayed so unchanged, that icelandic speakers can read 1000 year old texts without much problem. Even the special characters survived like þ, ð, æ, ý. But the letter Z died out from the language.
 
   Language purity movements happened in Iceland in the 18th and 19th century. This was for the reasons to get rid of the foreign words from the language and to renew it. This was quite successful as far as I have seen. Most of the words differ from other relatives. Words like tölva (computer), rafmagn (electricity), sími (telephone) make great example. But it has a lot of similarities. For example: hár (hair), bók (book),  það (that).

   I started to learn this magnificent language, but it's really hard. The grammar is like german, but I think it is more logical. For example you can guess out the gender from the end of the word.  The weird thing is that they use the personal pronouns differently. There are different words for the english word "they". This can be þeir (for males), þær (for females) and þau (for neutral or females-males mixed). And they use the he ,she ,it for object too. If you refer to lamp in a sentence then it is like this: Hann er ... (so they use he to refer to the object).

   But for me the hardness of this language comes from the lack of books and dictionaries. It's really hard to find a useable one. So I cannot know for sure what a word means. But except for this little problem this is my 2nd favourite language after hungarian. The pronunciaton for me is beautiful and hard. The letter "r" plays a bigger role in the speech. This gives extra life to sentences. The only problem I have with the pronunciation is the double L. It's really hard to pronounce and build it in a sentence. But I feel like this language should be more recognised and widely known.

Dani

My week

                I have to say that this week was hard. On Tuesday I had to sleep at my uncle's house because on Wednesday we had a lesson at 7. My aunt was pregnant and she was in the last weeks. She told me if she was going to give birth I mustn't be nervous and  I had to sleep after they went to the hospital because I was going to have school next day. I laughed because I knew that she won't give birth to my cousin that night and  I won't sleep. At 9 or 10 p.m. we fell asleep. At midnight I heard a scream from my aunt: "My love, I'm going to give birth to your child. My water broke." I thought I was dreaming but no I wasn't.
                After 30 minutes they left but I couldn't sleep like my aunt said I had to. I remember I fell asleep at 4 but my uncle came home for something at 4:30 so it wasn't a long sleep. I was tired and that was why I wasn't at school on Wednesday.
                At 15:30 my lovely cousin, Olívia was born and she is so tiny (2490g and 50 cm). Me and my family can't wait to have a look at her. At 4 his dad brought her out of the surgery and she was smiling. I held her then and it made me relax because I was so exited to nurse her.
               Mum and me stayed at the hospital 'til 9 p.m. It was a long day but it worth. On Saturday they came home from the hospital and we nursed the tiny baby all day. She was so quite, she didn't cry while I was changing her nappy.

Betti

A little bit of Hungarian

This post introduces you into my obsession of Hungarian Literature,Grammar and everything which is related to our language. 

One question:

-Why do we have to love and know our language well?

-This is the answer: it's one of the most unique and most beautiful language of the world even with its slangs and obscene expressions. The grammar is hard and also hard to study it (mainly for a foreigner) but it's totally worth it! 

We have more words for just one little thing,so we can express ourselves in so many ways. And these words have melody when you say them.

1st problem: Unfortunately, many people started to forget old words and expressions which were used by our grandparents.But they belong to our Hungarian identification,so we should hear,note then pass them on to the next generation.

2nd problem: It is inevitable to use slang. These words mainly come from English and we use them because ot their simplicity. In my opinion we should think before we say something. With these,our language will fade away and then disappear. I hope none of you wants this!

3rd problem: incorrect usage. Sometimes I correct people who doesn't say well these: -ba,-be,-ban,-ben (and the sad thing is that they hate me because of this ) :( . But it is a serious mistake. The right usage of these isn't this: Voltam Olaszba' or 'nem volt a boltba' kenyér . please... it sounds like crap,doesn't it?

Try to avoid these mistakes!

The next is : Literature

I am always impressed by Hungarian poems and can't stop reading them.These are just magical,don't you think? Almost all of them can make me think,cry or laugh.Our poets and writers can play with words in a very mystical way.

One of my favourite poets is József Attila. I think his spiritual world is amazing,you can lose yourself during reading his works.

Here is a little magical preview from him :

So this is my message for everyone who reads this : never stop to speak,read and study this beautiful language! It deserves to pronounce its words clearly and understandably and speak it at a high-level!And of course: read as many books as you can! 

Try to speak well! :)

And an important thought from Kölcsey Ferenc: 

Meleg szeretettel függj a hon nyelvén! mert haza, nemzet és nyelv, három egymástól válhatatlan dolog; s ki ez utolsóért nem buzog, a két elsőért áldozatokra kész lenni nehezen fog. Tiszteld s tanuld más mívelt népek nyelvét is, s főkép ama kettőt, melyen Plutarch a nemzetek két legnagyobbikának hőseit rajzolá s Tacitus a római zsarnok tetteit a történet évkönyveibe való színekkel nyomá be; de soha ne feledd, miképen idegen nyelveket tudni szép, a hazait pedig lehetségig mívelni kötelesség. […] 

Panka