26 Comments
Citromsárga is yellow. Also simple sárga means yellow. It is the same thing, citromsárga is kind of used in opposition with narancssárga, which means orange (the color, narancs in it self means the orange fruit), but on itself sárga always means the color yellow (so citromsárga).
Yes, but there is no such word in English as lemonyellow. The word 'citromsárga' should always be translated just as yellow.
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But there is "lemon yellow" with a space - and it is not that uncommon.
Could I never say narancs to mean the color? I'm positive that I have, but now I'm trying to remember if I've ever heard a native speaker use it that way. I do feel pretty sure that I have almost never heard the word narancssárga in conversation with a native before, but maybe the color just never came up...
Hmm, I think in colloquial speach you might just say "narancs" for the color, but only if it is really obvious you are talking about a color,.
This is much more clear than the colour terms I learnt (and are in my old Hungarian dictionary)!! It was just sarga and narancssarga.
Anyone know which indo european languages have influenced hungarian vocabulary the most? I'm seeing tonnes of romance languange influences here. Naranja in spanish = orange, is just one example but I have come across many others that seem to range from french to spanish to english. I dont know much german but i supspect it has donated some vocab to the language as well.
Also not sure if Latin itself would have influenced it more during the roman empire or if the influence was dominant after Latin distilled itself into the various romance languages.
The Hungarian narancs derives from Italian narancia (modern arancia), in turn from Arabic / Persian نارنج (nāranj / nârenj), also the source for Spanish naranja. The Arabic borrowed the term from Persian, which got it ultimately from Sanskrit नारङ्ग (nāraṅga), which likely borrowed it from a southern Indian language of the Dravidian family.
Nouns for specific things like fruit that are likely geographically bound and also easily portable tend to be borrowed together with the things they label. This is one good example.
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Hungarian got quite a bit from (Austrian) German, for instance paradicsom ("Paradeiser", tomato), karfiol (cauliflower), hokedli (stool), zsemle ("Semmel", bread roll), srég ("schräg", askew).
Also a lot of Slavic influence has taken place, of course. (And if I knew any Slavic language, I'd give proper examples, too.)
I am Russian and I see a lot familiar words in Hungarian (of course, some of them came to both Hungarian and Russian from other languages).
Food, for example: rozs - рожь (rozh) káposzta - капуста (kapusta) répa - репа (repa) cseresznye - черешня (chereshnya) szilva - слива (sliva)
My favorite example is Karáchony - Карачун (old Slavic spirit; winter soltice; "death" in old Russian, used in some od books)
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I don't speak one bit slavic, but "pisztoly" came from Czech píšt'ala. And meant just pipe/tube originally. pištěti, pipe (smoking), should be the origin of that. I guess it is not hard to see what it means in English or German or Italian or French or Spanish or Portuguese.
There is also another very international word "dívány". Origin in persian dīvān دیوان. The word developed the sofa meaning then in Ottoman Turkish, then moved to France and from there went back eastwards. Not very common anymore (at least in Austria), but was/is known. I believe Hungarians prefer today kanapé, which is again French.
I am Ukrainian, and I see much Ukrainian in Hungarian. Vacsora = вечеря (vecheria), zsír = жир (zhyr), borona = борона (borona), szerda = середа (sereda), сukorka = цукерка (tsukerka, in most dialects tsukOrka), cseresznye = черешня (chereshnia), csonak = човник (chovnyk), jaszol = ясла (yasla), and many others.
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At least cukor came from further east:
Italian zucchero.
Arab sukkar.
Greek sákcharon.
Latin saccharum.
Old Indian śárkarā.
Pali sakkharā-
Hindi sakkar
I would assume Indians were the first to grind it, so they were the first who needed a name.
And via Austrian German Zukker (nowadays identical to German Zucker) and the diminutive Zuckerl (Bonbon in German, which is based on French and Latin) it came to Hungary; cukor and cukorka, according to wiktionary.
To add to the other replies, Turkish has also left a bunch of vocab in Hungarian.
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There is in Polish "pomarańcza" (fruit) and "pomarańczowy" (colour), so it sounds similar. Some words sound similar, but I don't know if they are Slavic and came to Hungary or opposite.
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Those are different fruits though.
English bitter orange, Hungarian keserű narancs, German Pomeranze or Bitterorange.
Which are not really orange, narancs or Orange.
Bitter orange:
Arab: nārandsch.
Persian nārendsch and nāreng.
Sanskrit nāranga!
Tamil nāram.
Latin: pomum aurantium. (golden apple)
Scientific name: Citrus × aurantium.
The "regular" orange is based on that Arab/ Indian origin too although meaning a different fruit!
Arab burtuqāl !!
portuguese laranja. Catalan taronja.
French Italian arancia.
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Latin was the official language in Hungary for a long time. Hungarian itself has only been the official language since 1848 - even though it was spoken by 99% of the population.
I understand that citromsárga can also mean yellow but I've never heard anyone use it when I was in Hungary... It was always just sárga.
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Citromsárga is pretty much only used if you need to distinguish it from the other sárga variant, narancssárga.
"Azt a furcsa autót látod?"
"A narancssárgát?"
"Nem, azt a citromsárgát ott."
