Quote:
Originally Posted by Polyglot27
I remember that when I was a teenager and discovered that my mother was secretly reading my diary I decided to write it in German using Cyrillic.
For unusual alphabets, have you seen the Shaw alphabet for writing English? Penguin actually published a bi-alphabet (?) edition of his play "Androcles and the Lion" in 1962.
My connection with Hungary and Hungarians began in the summer of 1982 when I met a group of 8 Hungarian students in front of the Pompidou Centre. I knew that East Europeans in those days could not take much money with them out of the country when they travel so I decided to help them where I could and make their holiday as pleasant as possible. They invited me to visit them the following summer and I went to Budapest. I was completely overwhelmed by their hospitality and fell in love with Budapest.
Of the art students, two have become professional artists. One of them is now internationally famous and lives outside Paris. The medical student is now a doctor.
I remember complaining how difficult Hungarian was and they told me that it was just as difficult for them to learn another European language, precisely because the structure was so different. My Hungarian friends had each learned a different foreign language in school and the funny result was that I very often had to say the same thing three times, in English, German and French at the same table to three different people.
I also have great admiration for all the Hungarian scientists and mathematicians. John von Neumann, Imre Lakatos, Paul Erdos, George Polya, Edward Teller and others come to mind.
Polya was one of von Neumann's teachers and he said that von Neumann was "the only student of mine I was ever intimidated by. He was so quick. There was a seminar for advanced students in Zurich that I was teaching and von Neumann was in the class. I came to a certain theorem, and I said it is not proved and it may be difficult. Von Neumann didn't say anything but after five minutes he raised his hand. When I called on him he went to the blackboard and proceeded to write down the proof. After that I was afraid of von Neumann."
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Very interesting.
Glad to hear you have fond memories, and hopefully you still visit now and then!
It is nice to hear praise for Hungarian minds... so many of the brilliant scientists, mathematicians, et al that Hungary has produced (i.e.: via the education system, if nothing else) seem to me to be without nationality (or are downright claimed by their adoptive country as its own, period) in the international consciousness.
I am aware of Shavian--my only woe with it is that I (like most native speakers of English) cannot confidently recognize/separate/delineate all the sounds of English, despite being able to readily and accurately produce them... though perhaps learning to read the play you mention
in Shavian might just improve my phoneme-recognition capacity. Do you think?
- Ahi