The Secret Language
Although one in five people in the U.S. speak a second language at home, my family seems to think we’re the only people on the planet that are multi-lingual, so they call Hungarian “The Secret Language”. Although my mother and I usually have conversations in English, she starts speaking in Hungarian when she wants to tell me something that she doesn’t want anyone else to hear (including the government, who she is convinced has tapped our phone lines).
I will never forget the day when we went to a full-day festival and stopped by the local administration building to grab a schedule of events. We hadn’t even entered the building before we were halted by a woman blocking the doorway, obviously too busy talking on her cell phone to pay attention to where she was walking. Nagymama doesn’t like waiting for anyone, so she looked at me and loudly proclaimed, “Néz,es a kövér disznó! Az arca pont ug nez ki mend eg ló.” Rough English translation? “Look at this fat swine walking here. Her face looks just like a horse.”
Nagymama must have forgotten that The Secret Language” does not work when you are at the annual indoor-outdoor festival of New Brunswick that features dancing, food, and most importantly…Hungarians. Yes, dear Nagymama said this right in front of the Hungarian Heritage Center, and judging by the look on the woman’s face, she definitely had some Hungarian Heritage in her.
hmmm my grandfather does the same thing to me… cept no one else speaks hungarian in my family.. so he’s pretty much just yelling loudly to everyone who cant understand him lol
When I was little my parents and grandparents always talked in Romanian, so that I couldn’t understand it. What they didn’t know was that I have an ability to learn languages pretty fast. So secretly I listened to their conversation and I was so proud of myself when I told them that I understand everything I say. Since they couldn’t speak English very well they stopped talking in foreign languages.
My parents are “Unilingual”. So, I learned to spell at 3.
yeah i agree. if you are that old you can pretty much say whatever you want. I mean no one is going to punch an old lady hah
LOL… don’t get in Nagymama’s way!!
I hear ya about the secret language. We were not taught Hungarian but we did understand a few key Hungarian phrases.
(I hope that I’m spelling this right.) Nem szabad - we were told that it means “You mustn’t do that!” Boy did we hear that a LOT as kids!!! So it made me laugh to hear it a few months ago from one of my co-workers. I was working on a Saturday and he had brought his 3-year old son into the office. The kid came to my desk and immediately started playing with my collection of dragon figures, which told me that he had done it before. (It also explained how they seemed to move over the weekends.) The next thing I heard was “NEM SZABAD!!!” I forgot that his wife was from Hungary. It made me chuckle to hear it in the same manner that I had learned it
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