Hunglish.orgWhat is all the fuss with "ki" in the Hungarian language, it pops up everywhere yet means any number of things. Learning Hungarian may not be very easy after all.
Written by Scott Savoie
In my abridged Hungarian dictionary, the list of words starting "ki” starts on page 323 and ends on page 352.
That’s too many.
Many of these words are extremely important. The most important is "ki” itself, which of course means "who” in Hungarian.
Tacked on to the beginning of the word, it usually means "out", as in "kint” (outdoors), "kijarat” (exit), and "kicsomagol” (unpack), but not always: See "kifogas” (disapproval), "kisci” (small), and "kivansci” (curious).
This letter combination also gets added onto the back of key words such as "mindenki” (everyone), and "ki” can even be repeated, as in "Ki-ki alopon ebédel” ("Everyone pays his own way”).
One could easily draw the conclussion that one of the originators of of the language had a form of Tourette’s syndrome. Perhaps even he (or she) couldn’t stop blurting out "key” every now and again.
Then again, Hungarian does have something similar with the "meg” and "el” combinations, so the founders of the language may also have stuttered or had the hiccups.
I never noticed it before because English is my native tongee, but English makes quite extensive use of the verbs "go,” "make,” "do” and "be.” And we do use our prepositions in bewildering ways.
Perhaps people are all a bunch of screetching, chirping monkeys struggling to be understood, but rarely actually doing so.