This is really confusing to me. I was under the impression that the special thing about the Finno-Ugric language was that unlike all other European languages it did not have an Indo-Germanic root. I.e. didn’t originate in India…am I off here?
Oh Jesus, these people.
6 Likes
I’m jealous of how slate provides built in snark. It’s like, “why am even here? as a bbser, what extra value can I possibly provide?”
3 Likes
To be fair, it’s probably hard NOT to have built in snark about this topic.
I’m pretty confident that we can provide an extra layer of valuable snark here at the BBS, though. We are masters of snarkitude!
7 Likes
Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
… are bollocks. They’re heavily skewed toward universities from the Anglosphere.
1 Like
That’s true. But: 1) the theory may not be true. 2) Sino-Tibetan languages are not Indo-European.
(This is kinda off-topic, though.)
They’re wrong.
Bye!
11 Likes
Again, please stay on topic. @orenwolf put a lot of energy into keeping this thread on track.
Well, we can do both. Gorka is a really Bad Guy, and I think it is important to keep reiterating everything we can to keep him from becoming a Bad Guy who is with us for the next 30 years. The influence of his ignorant Islamophobia is secondary, as Trump and his people already held those views when they recruited him.
The value he brings to the arguments of the hatemongers is precisely his apparent expertise, which they can point to and say “Terrorism experts say…”. The way you discredit “experts” is by refuting the basis of that expertise; then they just become another nut supporting a bad position.
7 Likes
If an engineer signs off on the safety of something, and it turns out that they really aren’t an engineer, we don’t usually skip ahead to the “never mind their qualifications, were their ideas correct?” round.
10 Likes
Although she bid him Goodbye, I suspect he is still lurking.
1 Like
Can’t have us wimmin speaking out of turn, now, can we! 
6 Likes
Ok, done. I was clear on what more meta-discussion and rules lawyering would do here. @Willis_Eschenbach is on vacation.
any further offtopic posts will result in this topic being permanently closed.
7 Likes
Good grief. Where to begin with this?
First of all, I can’t believe we’re arguing about the Hungarian language on the BBS. And second, as a professional Hungarian-English translator I feel pretty confident that you really do not know what you’re talking about.
“In Hungarian the U without an accent is silent, so Ugorka sounds like Gorka!”
This is flat-out not true. The letter U is always pronounced in Hungarian, accented or not. Are you telling me that words like “ugyan” should be pronounced “gyan,” and “unoka” should be pronounced “noka”? It’s completely ridiculous.
Kalàcs, Sòlet
Your accent marks are going the wrong way! So it should be kalács, sólet. This is a telltale mistake Hungarians would never make.
Gurke might not be “high Hungarian” it is a word widely recognised by Hungarian speakers.
There is no such thing as “high Hungarian”! Hungarian is not the same as e.g. German where there is Hochdeutsch. There is simply Hungarian, and I am quite sure “gurka” is not well known by any Hungarian speakers. I thought perhaps it could be a word in the Transylvanian Szekler dialect, but this comprehensive online directory of Szekler words does not list “gurka” or “gorka” at all.
All you need to do is turn on google.hu, put in gurka, and see what the image search throws up.
Yes, do that. Now mouse over the pictures that come up, and you’ll see that almost all of them show links to Swedish sites! There are no links to Hungarian sites that claim a “gurka” is a cucumber! Arrgh what the hell am I doing screw this time to get a beer
7 Likes
As someone with several graduate degrees from established, credentialed universities in engineering, people who fake their credentials really piss me off. I worked damned hard to get those degrees, and published 8 papers in engineering and medical journals based just on my graduate research. Nowadays it seems like anyone with enough cash can buy a diploma that doesn’t mean what it’s supposed to mean; i.e., that you’ve done the kind of original work a diploma of that stature says you did.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. A degree is supposed to mean that you’ve had good ideas and you’ve implemented them somehow, and that the product has been at least tentatively accepted by the relevant community.
8 Likes
Well, this is overly harsh and a little unfair, I’d say. Corvinus is generally thought of by Hungarians as the best liberal arts university in Hungary, and it definitely attracts the top academic talent in the country. I work with a lot of Corvinus graduates and I usually find them pretty damn impressive.
That said, I think there is certainly some truth in what you’ve written, and to be honest what the UNC prof wrote didn’t surprise me in the least knowing the shenanigans that take place in Hungarian higher education.
[quote=“buddybradley, post:126, topic:99880”]
Corvinus is generally thought of by Hungarians as the best liberal arts university in Hungary[/quote]
They have practically no programs in the liberal arts. Are you sure you’re not confusing it with the excellent Eötvös Loránd University, also in Budapest?
Some of Corvinus’ degrees:
communication and media studies, international studies, political science, sociology, tourism, applied economics, human resources, public service, financial mathematics, economics and public policy, international economics, economic analysis, sales and marketing, finance and accounting. Those aren’t liberal arts programs?
I realize Corvinus may not have the range of courses offered at ELTE, but I would also say that on balance there is a higher prestige to being a Corvinus student than being a student at ELTE. I know that’s a subjective statement that I can’t really back up with hard data, but it’s a view that at the very least is supported by the media.
No. they’re not. They’re practically the antithesis of liberal arts programmes.
That’s just bizarre, sorry. ELTE is a venerable research university that has had as alumni and faculty some of the strongest intellects in the world, including multiple Nobel Prize winners.
2 Likes
No need to be sorry about it. Look, I don’t know how to compare universities properly, but I can say this: if you do not think Corvinus is considered to be a prestigious school that can attract top-caliber talent (at least domestically) then you are quite mistaken. And that’s all I have to say about this.
