Any Hungarian-speaking enclaves in Budapest?
Posted by Tight_File2220@reddit | budapest | View on Reddit | 24 comments
Just got back from visiting Budapest for the first time and honestly I had a really good time there. The city is amazing visually, public transport was great, food was good, people were nice when I had to ask something, etc. Definitely one of my favorite cities I’ve visited in Europe so far.
But there was one thing that genuinely confused me a bit during the trip. Before coming I was actually kind of excited to hear Hungarian in real life because it’s such a unique language and doesn’t sound like anything around it. But somehow during almost the entire week I was there I barely heard it at all.
In the center I expected mostly tourists obviously, but even when I went out into more residential-looking areas (like by the stadium), on trams, supermarkets, random neighborhoods, cafes, shopping centers like Primark etc, I mostly kept hearing German, English and clearly Slavic languages (maybe Slovak or Ukrainian?). At one point I started actively paying attention because it felt weird that I was in Hungary but almost never hearing Hungarian around me.
So now I’m genuinely curious: are there districts/neighborhoods in Budapest where people still mainly speak Hungarian?
Right now my auditory memory of Budapest is like 35% German, 40% English and 20% aggressive Slavic consonants + maybe some French or Romanian. Heard Hungarian maybe twice a day.
DataNerdling@reddit
this has to be rage bait
Last_Ad_4692@reddit
Downtown resident here - sadly, I rarely get to hear my own language. Always a surprise if I do so.
aespa-in-kwangya@reddit
I think the other languages just stick out to you more. I'm a native and I'm hearing 90-95% Hungarian unless I'm in touristy spots. And I'd notice for sure because me and my partner speak English to each other.
Tight_File2220@reddit (OP)
I traveled to Sashalom because I wanted to buy some Diet Coke and it felt like little Vienna with communist architecture.
KnightTheOne@reddit
Why would you go to Sashalom for a Coke? That's literally the outskirts, they sell Diet everywhere :D Might be called Coca-Cola Light, but it's the same thing.
Tight_File2220@reddit (OP)
They only had the original (sugary) one literally everywhere in the city center.
KnightTheOne@reddit
Interesting that you didn't find any zeros. Diet Coke is called Light, that's indeed a bit rare, but Coke Zero is everywhere.
utsuriga@reddit
No, diet Coke and Coke light are not the same thing at all, one has no sugar and the other has less sugar, but still sugar.
But yes, they're selling diet Coke pretty much everywhere so I don't get why OP had to go to Sashalom for it...
KnightTheOne@reddit
Diet Coke and Coke Light are the same, just under different name. Diet Coke = Cola Light ≠ Coke Zero. Coke Zero is actually zero sugar, Light and Coke are the same, less sugary product, the difference between them isn't the product itself, but the marketing strategies affiliated with them.
TurbulentRead7388@reddit
Right? Goung to Sashalom for a diet coke sounds like 1985 when ppl traveled to Vienna to buy Kinder Surprise and Fanta.
swift-autoformatter@reddit
Maybe Hungarian doesn't sound that much different for your ears at the end?
I - born and raised Hungarian living abroad for 10+ years - quite often misjudge other Eastern European talk being Hungarian when I hear it from afar in a noisy setting. There might be some similarities in the rhythm maybe.
Tight_File2220@reddit (OP)
No, Slavic languages normally don't have sounds like ő, ű etc. They are different.
Interesting_Prune513@reddit
Two things:
Lots of tourists in the city center. I mean its very surprising that you didn't hear Hungarian, but yes there are a lot of chinese, english, german tourists.
Lots of Ukrainians and Russians have come to Hungary fleeing from the war. 5 years ago I very rarely heard Russian on the trams, now, all the time. Slowly but surely increasing over the past 5 years steadily. Its actually very sad :( When I finished school we learned that Ukraine population is 43 million. Now it is I think roughly 32 million, nearly ^1/4 th of the population died or fled...
Tight_File2220@reddit (OP)
It is sad, but I wouldn't think there are enough Eastern Europeans to replace Hungarians in the capital city...
utsuriga@reddit
A friend of mine who speaks Russian has spoken to a bunch of Russian speakers he met in Újlipót, a few were Ukrainians, but usually they were actual Russians... and Putinists, they just came here during the mobilization to avoid being drafted. (Not saying all of them are like this, of course.)
Senior-Internal2692@reddit
I would say you're simply trolling.
I frequently visit Budapest and even in the city centre (inside the Nagykörút circle) 80-90 per cent of people speak HUNGARIAN. Do you actually know what Hungarian sounds like?
Tight_File2220@reddit (OP)
Exactly like Nagykörút. Almost never heard it.
KnightTheOne@reddit
It is an attention bias where you hear what you "know". I believe for you it is easier to spot slavic languages, English and German than Hungarian (as you are not used to hearing Hungarians). Hence you heard more of those, even if generally it is spoken by much less people in Hungary ( than actual Hungarian language). Just your mind playing tricks on you. I have had a similar experience where I got used to hearing English on the streets (I live temporarily in the UK), but whenever I travelled to Hungary for a holiday I'd hear English around me all the time even though it is clearly not as widespread as Hungarian.
Kobakocka@reddit
There are a lot of tourists in the inner 5-6-7th districts, but apart from that you should hear mostly Hungarian speakers.
So i think your listening method may have some bias.
utsuriga@reddit
I mean, this is Hungary and Budapest is not exactly New York or London. The overwhelming majority of people here do, in fact, speak Hungarian (many of them speak Hungarian only). Sure, there are a lot of expats and tourists, depending on certain districts there's a lot of people speaking Russian and Chinese, and for some reason I've been hearing a lot of Polish as well, although those people sem to be tourists. Lots of Turkish people as well. But there's a lot more Hungarians, it's just that most of us are either at work or at home at the time most tourists are out and about.
Aranka_Szeretlek@reddit
Thats weird! I only occasionally hear non-Hungarians in the city, even in the center (excluding museums and whatever, obviously)
utsuriga@reddit
I live in Újlipótváros and for a few years now I hear a lot more foreign words than Hungarian... there's a ton of tourists and expats.
ConvictedHobo@reddit
What a weird situation.
Are you sure that you haven't heard it more often, and mistook it for some Slavic language? There's a bunch of loanwords, so they can sound similar
another_sleeve@reddit
Well obviously because of the war, we have a lot of Ukrainians.
There's quite many expats, some 30% of district 6th population are foreigners and it's not a working class district at all.
Tourism is also getting more spread out, both in space, as tourists book cheaper hotels or airbnbs in outer districts as downtown is non-stop pubcrawls while being expensive. And due to the economic climate we have more and more people visiting off-season as well. Over the winter, I was dodging Italians and Spaniards left and right.
It might have been a timing thing too: most Hungarians during the day are at work or are alone in their commute so aren't as chatty as the tourists are. Might have been due to some sporting event or concert which attracts a fair amount of foreigners as well, etc.
It's a well-connected fairly big city after all.