Hungarian Swear Words

How do Hungarians Swear?

Amongst the many special characteristics of Hungarian people, one of the most interesting is the act of swearing. For them the most difficult part of learning a foreign language might be that they cannot express themselves accurately when they want to use bad language. Swearing for Hungarians is a wide spread, well developed and frequently used opportunity to reflect their opinion and their feelings.

Of course they have many words that refer to intercourse, just like in English. They have at least two expressions for the same thing: bassza meg or csessze meg (fuck it). Hungarians often mention prostitutes in a very derogatory way, or they refer to each other’s mother as a prostitute, which is a quite insulting attitude. For example, the adjective kurvára (like a bitch/for a bitch) means the same as ‘very much’, or they say kurva anyád (son of a bitch), but it actually stands for ‘your mother is a prostitute’. It is probably even worse, because the subject is not the concerned person, but his or her mother. They also usually call their mates female and male genital organs, if they are angry at them, or in some groups it only counts as some sort of a joke, or a light rebuke. Te fasz (you are a dick) or seggfej (asshole) are the most common expressions in this category. Sometimes they call each other gay, if they are angry, or again, sometimes when they are mocking; even if the other is openly heterosexual. Some Hungarians call each other buzi (gay), with several possible adjective variations like kis buzi (little gay), or hülye buzi (stupid gay). It is difficult to believe that sometimes it is not supposed to be offensive; they only joke about it when the other is obviously not homosexual.

Not only sexual references, but a fairly different layer also appears in Hungarian cursing: Christianity itself. A less serious form is mentioning God and Jesus, which might be disturbing for some Christian people, but the non-Christian Hungarians do not really want to hurt others with these expressions. They usually say Úristen (oh, my God) in every situation when they are surprised, shocked or worried, or Jézusom (Jesus), when they are shocked or disdainful about something. In some areas and some groups, people are not satisfied with the previously mentioned swear words, and they found out a very productive method of cursing: mixing all the mentioned words in different ways and putting them after each other. They could say a kurva Isten bassza meg (the bitch God may fuck it), or buzi seggfej (gay asshole); these are already very disturbing and assaultive, but it is possible to enhance it even more.

People might wonder on what occasions can Hungarians use so many bad words. Actually, they do not really need any occasion for that. They might swear if they hurt themselves, when they are angry, when something does not turn out as they planned, or simply when they are bored. Hungarians also use swear words in everyday language if they get used to it. There are people who get quite annoyed by hearing a large amount of swearing, and there are some who are not frustrated, but they do not use them frequently. Hungarians are sometimes happy to say that people who use swear words are more honest; others say that if someone uses them less, they take it more seriously when he or she is cursing.

To conclude, there is a very wide variety of swear words in the Hungarian language. It is nearly impossible to list them all, not only in English, but also in Hungarian. They use them in several cases and it might be difficult to agree about its ethical attributions.