{"id":813,"date":"2019-01-01T13:28:18","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T13:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/?p=813"},"modified":"2019-01-01T13:28:18","modified_gmt":"2019-01-01T13:28:18","slug":"vis-verborum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/2019\/01\/01\/vis-verborum\/","title":{"rendered":"Vis Verborum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/zoldella.blog.hu\/2014\/01\/06\/vegan_pogacsa\"><img width='300' height='244' border='0' hspace='5' align='right' src='\/~totl\/skywritings\/uploads\/veganpogi2.jpg' alt='' \/><\/a>The remarkable feature of language is that you can say anything that can be said in any language in any other language. Only not necessarily in the same number of words.<\/p>\n<p>No translation is &#8220;exact,&#8221; but it can always be made closer and closer &#8212; with more words.<\/p>\n<p>But no verbal expression of a thought is exact either. Verbalization is approximation too. (Do I make myself clear?)<\/p>\n<p>Where Hungarian uses word order and inflections, English uses passives and emphasis markers.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Sajnos a pog\u00e1cs\u00e1t Pista ette meg. &#8212; <em>Alas, as to the biscuit, it was by Pista that it was eaten.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8232;Sajnos a pog\u00e1cs\u00e1t Pista megette.  &#8212; <em>Alas, as to the biscuit, Pista has eaten it. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Sajnos Pista ette meg a pog\u00e1cs\u00e1t. &#8212; <em>Alas it was Pista who ate the biscuit.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8232;Sajnos Pista a pog\u00e1cs\u00e1t ette meg. &#8212; <em>Alas it was the biscuit that Pista ate.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8232;Sajnos megette Pista a pog\u00e1cs\u00e1t.  &#8212; <em>Alas what Pista did with the biscuit was eat it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A pog\u00e1cs\u00e1t sajnos Pista ette meg. &#8212; <em>As to the biscuit, it was alas Pista who ate it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8232;A pog\u00e1cs\u00e1t sajnos Pista megette.  &#8212; <em>As to the biscuit, Pista alas ate it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8232;Pista sajnos a pog\u00e1cs\u00e1t ette meg. &#8212; <em>Alas it was the biscuit that Pista ate. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And the Hungarian originals, like all sentences, are themselves polysemous: other construals than the above ones are possible for the very same words \u2014 but they too are translatable\u2026<\/p>\n<p>But I think 5! is an overestimate for the number of possible permutations and combinations. Some of them make no sense even in Hungarian\u2026<\/p>\n<p>I wish it were possible to discuss Hungary and Hungarian in this benign way once again, instead of having to focus on the way Orban, Fidik, and generic (sic, not genetic) Hungarian culture is making Hungary regress on the mean and ever meaner\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The remarkable feature of language is that you can say anything that can be said in any language in any other language. Only not necessarily in the same number of words. No translation is &#8220;exact,&#8221; but it can always be made closer and closer &#8212; with more words. But no verbal expression of a thought &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/2019\/01\/01\/vis-verborum\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Vis Verborum&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3074,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3074"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":814,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions\/814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}