The Hungarian Quarterly 1. (1936)
1936 / 1. szám - Watson Kirkconnell: Hungary's Linguistic Isolation
HUNGARY'S LINGUISTIC ISOLATION 95 the West. German and French supplemented Latin in Hungarian education in flooding the Magyar mind with the best ideas of the European tradition. Although Hungary might, in her literature weave by night and day A magic web with colours gay, yet it was no mere Shalottian shadow*picture of reality seen only in a mirror, but rather the natural expression of a rich, many*sided, vigorous national life, and of an experience in no sense really isolated from the main currents of international thought. Most of the great Hungarian writers have been “good Europeans" as well as good Hungarians. Kazinczy and the Kisfaludys were deeply influenced by German; Bessenyei and Csokonai were devoted to English Neo-Classical verse; Vörösmarty, Petőfi, and Arany collaborated in the translation of Shakespeare; while nearly every Hungarian poet of the later nineteenth century brought back ore for Hungary from the literary mines of England, France, Italy or Germany. In our own day, Michael Babits has been typical both in his sensitive awareness of the general trends of world literature and in his superb translations from Dante, Shakespeare, Wilde, Goethe, Baudelaire, and Verlaine. It does not appear that linguistic isolation has in any way stunted the cultural life and achievements of the Magyars. Neither has the language itself proved an inadequate instrument for thought and expression. In its grammatical func* tions it is precise, logical, and capable of rendering the finest nuances of meaning. Successive generations of great writers have vastly enriched its store of words and idioms. To this may be added great intrinsic beauty of sound, and even the subtle grace of a so-called Law of Vowel Harmony, whereby all vowels are grouped into categories (heavy, medium, and light), and the vowels of the agglutinated syllables are drawn from the same category as the vowels of the stem. E. g. : Házfanvban, “in my house" ; k^erruben, “in my garden." Regarding his native tongue, Francis Kazinczy could write a century ago in hexameters of pardonable pride :