FÉL

The noun FÉL means half. There are a couple of words that originate from it. First of all, lets see what the F consonant can change into:

F > B, P, V

If something is in half, it is not the whole thing anymore. That is the concept of the following off-springs of FÉL.

VáLik to become, to be turned into
>A thing or a person is detached from the whole and becomes something else.

VáLaszolto answer > this verb is equivalent to FeLelto respond.
>There is a general opinion about any subject and when you answer, it is the half you contribute to the whole.

BaLtahatchet, axe
>An axe separates things from the whole.

VéL to think
>Your thoughts are half of the whole or
they might not coincide with the whole, so you separate yourself with your thinking from the rest of the world.

VáLaszt – to choose
>If you choose something, you separated it from the rest.

Then there is the verb FÉL meaning to fear, to be afraid. According to the ancient Hungarian thinking, love drives this world, so there should not be anything that makes you a half person and starts consuming you from the inside. When that happens, you are detached from the whole, you dont see the essence of certain things and you start developing irrational fear from anything.

These examples might seem far-fetched to you, but that is the concept behind them. There are a lot more words like these above. I hope FÉL helps you recognize other words like válik, válaszol, felel, etc.

Hungarian Speech – Articulation, Strand of Speech, Intonation, Accent on Stem

This is the pdf. file you can download: HungarianSpeech

I wrote this entry in a pdf. file because WordPress did not allow me to create texts the way I wanted to. If there is any trouble with downloading, please notify me in the comment section.

Next time I’ll write about ‘Ambivalence in Meaning’ and a phenomenon that cannot really be written down with any scientific method, but it is an integral part of Hungarian speech.

I’ll also try to upload some sound files in addition to the pdf. file. After all, you should hear what those intonations sound like.