The other day I discovered that the Hungarian word szia [sijɑ], which is used as a informal hello and goodbye, like ciao in Italian and ahoj in Czech and Slovak, possibly comes from the English expression ‘see you’ / ‘see ya’, at least that’s what a Hungarian friend believes. I hadn’t noticed the similarity between the two phrases before, and if I had, I would have assumed that it was a coincidence.
Another possible origin for this word is the Austria greeting/parting word servus, which is written szervusz in Hungarian, and which somehow became szia. This is the etymology given by Zaicz Gábor in the Etimológiai szótár (Etymology Dictionary) according to this discussion.
Does anybody know more about the origins of this word?
I don’t know anything about the origins of szia but I love to use it when I’m saying goodbye to English speakers, as it’s a bit of stealth-Hungarian that they don’t usually realise has slipped into the conversation.
My other favourite Hungarian greeting is hallo. Like szia, this can be used at either end of a conversation; in this case, it’s certainly a borrowing from English. Although, before I visited Hungary, I had read about the custom, I was still somewhat surprised the first time I was chatting to a Hungarian and he finished by saying hello to me as he took his leave!
Both the old and the new edition of the Magyar Értelmező kéziszótár agrees with the second etimology you give, namely that “szia” comes from the greeting “szevasz” which comes from “szervusz”.
I cannot be completely sure, I also think this is the real etimology. “Szia” was used as a greeting already in the seventies (it appears in books), likely even earlier, and “szervusz” is similarly old. At that time, Hungarian didn’t get as many English borrowings as now, because of the iron curtain.
I _knew_ I saw this etimology mentioned somewhere, but I was looking in the wrong book. Szilágyi Ferenc, *Fejtsünk szót*, (Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó, 1993) a popular science book about etimology, claims on page 75 that “szia” is obviously derived from “szevasz” which is from “szervusz”. This doesn’t count as an independent confirmation of course, but it at least shows that a professional does find this etimology not obviously bogus.
I would transcribe it as /siɒ/ instead, though I do admit that there may be a hint of /j/ there sometimes. It’s really up to the speaker. In standard Hungarian there are no diphthongs and consecutive vowels are often linked by a hint of a /j/ in speech to make it clear that they belong to separate syllables. (Otherwise the standard is the exception, local dialects do typically have diphthongs. Just a bit of fact that language books won’t tell you.) Also note the /ɑ/ vs /ɒ/.
Szia may indeed sound very similar to the English (American?) see ya!, but as others have said, it definitely doesn’t come from see ya.
I don’t know about the Hungarian word, but I came to think of the Swedish informal greeting tja [ɕa] which looks as if it could be related to Italian ciao, but in fact is derived from tjänare meaning ‘servant’, i.e. similar to szervusz.
Maybe szia came from szervusz as most think. But the hallo/hello, imported later from english to use as both hi and bye (which has even spawned the infinitive hellozni) suggests that a similar influence may have trickled in from “see ya”. Something like that must lie behind csá from ciao, which in turn came from “I am your humble servant/slave servus/sclavus”.
I reject the szervusz origin based on my own experience, corroborated (so far) with that of one of my sisters, and my ailing mother.
Without diving into the entimology textbooks that are referenced in this threads, I have heard rumour that \”see ya\” is rejected as an origin for szia because szia was known to exist in cold-war Hungary long before any significant anglicization of the Hungarian language. Here is my contrary story:
1) My parents emigrated to Canada in the early and mid 1950\’s. I don\’t recall hearing the word szia in the context of an all-hungarian conversation from them (or the Hungarian community around me) while growing up in Canada. This suggests to me, that szia either did not exist in the Hungarian vocabulary prior to 1956, or was so fledgling as to not have spread very much in Hungary (for the record, my mother had spend some time in Budapest in the early 1950\’s; she was in her 20\’s then).
2) My family visited Hungary (our relatives were in villages bordering on Austria) in the summer of 1968, when I turned 8 years old. My Hungarian was weakish, possibly A2-level. When a group of kids my age (not my cousins) excitedly came up to me to \”show off\” the word szia, I was confused at first, perhaps partly because of my lack of command of the language. But I knew that they were saying that I should know this word from English. It didn\’t connect for me, at first. Only after we parted, with some disappointment all around, did it occur to me that \”See you later\”, often abbreviated to \”See you\”, and then by the younger generations to \”see ya\” must have been what they were talking about. Unfortunately, I don\’t recall confirming that thought either with those particular kids, or with my cousins (who I don\’t particularly recall using the greeting at that time). No adults around me, at that time and place, were using that word. I may not have bothered confirming my conclusion with others at that time, because until just last week, I eventually had to shrug it off as a silly kid thing, not too important in the grand scheme. And too, those kids had it wrong when using it on meeting, rather than when leaving, so drop that.
3) What a shock I had, when I started looking at some \”learn Hungarian\” videos last week, to learn that so many are now so regularly greeting each other with \”szia\”, and \”sziatok\”. What has this country Hungary come to, that this expression of the young, that wasn\’t even correctly applied, is now being used by educated adults? This was jarring, at first. A saving grace: this term is already becoming for me a nostalgic reminder of youth, and perhaps just what I need when trying to re-learn/improve my Hungarian at my age. It is also time for me to put smug correctness aside, and do some embracing.
4) On asking my 95-year old Hungarian mother on what she knows of the origin of \”szia\”, her response was \”That\’s an English word\”.
5) On asking my sister of her recollection of the summer of 1968 and that word, she (just about to turn 7 at that time) recalls similarly, that some kids at that locale in Hungary were, surprisingly, using it .
One might argue that the mind of an 8-year old is not to be trusted with important etimology. But I say, on that trip, with all that was new to that young sponge mind, there are some small things that have stuck in my memory much better than more important things I experienced as a \”full-brained\” adult. It seems I forget lots of things, but not that encounter, because I was bewildered, I struggled, I tried hard to understand because I very much wanted to, they wanted me to, and I took the struggle away with me after the encounter, dropping it only after an aha moment. Even small aha moments are memorable to young minds. I have other such aha\’s from that glorious summer, clear as day even now.
When I also ask my sister about the presence of szia in Canada, she smartly answered \”well no, you can\’t tell if they were saying \’see ya\’ in English, or \’szia\’ in Hungarian\”. Of course, I can\’t know for sure which language they were using, back then.
We don\’t need the textbooks. Just seek out native Hungarian speakers that are around 70, and ask. Quick, before alzheimer\’s sets in. It may be hard to get a sharp recollection like my own when something is slowly and gradually encountered (rather than with the explosion of a group of kids all speaking at once, in your face, demanding confirmation). But I have to believe, that some of those that were kids, or maybe young teens, in 1960\’s Hungary would know. Wait, why don\’t I ask my cousins in Hungary? What a great excuse to reconnect (it\’s been decades). Yes, I will.