I’m just writing this to fill the 1.5 hours left in the flight after my two movies ended to vent, if you will.
The Hungarian language is a beautiful language. It’s a language all on its own without much relation to any other language out there known to a similar group of 14.5 million people. After listening to the language for some time, one eventually starts to discern certain words. But that’s not the point of this part of the story. The point is, that it is harmonic and delightful to listen to the way these sounds come out of the mouth of mature humans, of which more than 14.5 million people, mature and otherwise, understand. It truly is amazing the way the grown human palate can produce such vocabulary with a grammar richer in structure and with an alphabet more robust than my own English, with the rises, falls, and pitches constructing the linguistic intonations.
Do not mistake this homily as a diatribe against the Hungarian language or culture. I may be colourful with this expounding, but I do truly enjoy listening to the language being spoken. When I lived in Croatia, Hungary’s southern neighbour, before I made an effort to learn the Croatian language, I’d listen to Hungarian radio stations. The reason for this is simple. Radio stations are the same the world over–a little bit of music and a whole bunch of talk. If you’re given the choice to listen to two radio stations, each talking endlessly about very important matters and trivial issues, in a different language that has no relationship to any other language that you know, and you must listen through the talking to get to the music, which one would you choose? Irregardless of which you’d choose, I chose the language that was more pleasant on the ear.
This all changes when old ladies enter the picture, or shall we say “sound stage”. They enter stage left behind me on a 9 hour transatlantic flight in coach flying from Budapest to New York. Old ladies talking is just fine. Really. People talking is just fine, too. Look at us. We all talk. Ladies, young and old, have been talking for time eternal. Some of the smartest people have been some of them old ladies talking to other old ladies. Honestly. Some of my favourite relatives are old ladies. And, they talk. That’s just fine. Heck, I’ve known men, old and young, who talk just as much if not more than your average old talking lady.
The real point is that old ladies talking is great and all, but when they’re speaking Hungarian the entire time, hacking and sneezing up a lung or two, sitting behind me on a 9 hour flight across the atlantic, and constantly pushing and pulling my seat and using it as an assistive device to enable them in and out of their seats each time they have to go to the potty, stretch their legs, or get something out of their luggage in the overhead compartment during the movie and stand in between me and the movie screen of a movie that I’ve never had the chance to watch but always wanted to watch and now that I’m on this nine hour flight over the atlantic, gosh, it’d sure be nice to watch, it gets a bit bothersome.
Honestly, it could’ve been any language and anyone.
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