Hungarian Language Lesson... Feminists Take Note

While we were walking around Pecs (rhymes with fetch) I noticed a street sign with a small hand written addendum. You must look closely or enlarge the picture to see it clearly. It is important to know that these street signs are very common in Hungary. They are mounted on the sides of buildings, probably cast iron, and don't just give you the name of the street but also give you the house or building numbers within the particular block, in this case 2 to 4. The McDonald's located on the first floor of city hall is #2 Kiraly Utca. They are consistently mounted about 10 feet above the street on all corners and sides of every intersection. It is also of some note to mention that almost every street, park and playground in Hungary is named Kirali, the Hungarian word for King. So to look up and see this particular street sign "Kirali Utca" was no big deal but to see the small "no" written so carefully beside it caused question.

When asked, Andrea became excited, photographed the sign and explained.

Adding the "no," pronounced "nuu," to the end of Kirali creates the word queen, in essence, not the King. There is no word in the Hungarian language for queen. I'm not sure what Freddie Mercury thought of this, it had to be confusing, it may have contributed to his suicide. So the addition of the "no" was a form of protest of some sort, not sure what.

One of our favorite old television shows from the 1990's was "Dinosaurs." A Jim Henson production about an everyday family of dinosaurs that I have always thought that "Family Guy" was a clone of. The baby called the father dinosaur "not the Mama." One of the writers had to be a Hungarian woman.

So here is today's language lesson, compliments of Andrea, she also gets the photo credit.