> >This kind of leads me to wonder if "jhereg" perhaps means something
> >outside of Brust's books. Anyone know?
> >
>The Hungarian for "child" is "gyerek" ("gy" is sounded something like
>"dy", according to the intro to "Brokedown Palace")
>
>So I find myself wondering if SKZB changed the pronunciation of the
>word slightly ("dy" -> "zh", "k" -> "g") to "jhereg".
>
_______________________________________________________________________
Okay, just thought I'd share my thoughts on this.
oh, oh, oh, I love when I get to ask my grandfather a
question, which is rare. I had the opportunity to speak with
my him, about, em, other things, and he speaks Hungarian,
(though I'm not sure if he's still fluent and if you ask him
he'd say it's NOT Hungarian, it Magyar, he's something like 75
or 78, and is not in a position where he is speaking the
language on a daily basis or anything like that. He, more or
less he grew up there and flew back every few years until he
was like 60 or something. However, I love when I get to ask him questions
that bring back memories of his youth, and I love it
even more when I get to bug him with some dumb question about
Hungry or his youth, which is extremely rare since I exhausted
most of his patience with these sorts of questions when I was
younger. But, none the less, I asked and here's what he said about "Jhereg".
As far as he knows it's not a word in Hungarian, well it
certianly didn't take a brain-surgeon to figure that
one out, and secondly, he would stress the first vowel,
Jh-e-reg, (though he pronounced it like nothing I would have
ever thought, J basically =Y, and there were other variations
that I still don't agree with.) Like that wasn't already
figured out too. Thirdly, he said that the only thing close
he could think of would be Fereg, accent on the first vowel,
which means "something close to worm or creepy crawley
slimey thing". To me this seems to fit pretty close to what
the other houses think about the Jhereg, does it not? Lastly,
he said that "-ereg-" (prefix?/suffix?) he associates with
things that creep and crawl and the actual action of creeping
and crawling, though other words use the "-ereg-" it is just
what he would think of ("first thing that would come to mind")
if it was all he had to go from.
So, without going into more detail, that was my language lesson
for the day from dear-old-gramps. It sure does bring back
memories of him telling "ewwey-gooey was a worm..." in Hungarian
when I was em, four(?), younger(?), heh, oh yeah and memories
of the "gripsnitch", though no one probably remembers or knows
a damn thing about what I'm talking about, I just thought I'd
share it with you all.
Oh, yeah, if anyone knows this all to be wrong, I mean the
language thing, not the brain of Steven Brust, (as I am sure
that would take several minds collaborating for a century
before getting anywhere, and then not even far), let me know,
I could always use an opportunity to talk to my grandpa, and
get him to talk about things he forgot long ago.
_________________________________________________________________
Choose an Internet access plan right for you -- try MSN!
http://resourcecenter.msn.com/access/plans/default.asp