Oláhország

[ausermilar]

Hello,

Recently I've heard this expression in two arguments about a guy that did something bad to "us" in "Oláhország": in both arguments, the men were rather old, rather irritated and used a lot of curses.

In any case, my question is whether "Oláhország" can be used (in 2023) in a rather peaceful and polite context or it's better to put the word in the drawer together with "oláh", "szőröstalpú" and so on when we talk in Hungarian about the Eastern neighbours.

Thanks.

 

[arlett]

Interesting. Oláhország is extremely uncommon in my opinion, and I dare say most people wouldn’t know what it means - you may encounter the word in a 200-year-old fairy tale or in historical documents. Also, it only meant a smaller part of Romania (see below):

This region is now called Moldva (in Hungarian), Moldavia (in English) or Moldova (I think) in Romanian, not to be confused with the country.
Oláh is slightly more common (yet also obsolete), which originally means Romanian or “of Romania”, though it has strong (and negative) connotations of gypsies (oláh cigány), in my opinion, so neither of those are really suitable for your active vocabulary. Szőröstalpú is also highly offensive and obsolete, younger people may not understand to whom it refers.

 

[AndrasBP]

Oláhország is extremely uncommon in my opinion, and I dare say most people wouldn’t know what it means - you may encounter the word in a 200-year-old fairy tale or in historical documents. Also, it only meant a smaller part of Romania (see below)

Well, our famous poet Attila József used it in 1922, but probably out of spite:

"Szép kincses Kolozsvár, Mátyás büszkesége
Nem lehet, nem, soha! Oláhország éke!"

 

[Zsanna]

Oláhország is extremely uncommon in my opinion

Yes, but... Even if I wouldn't use it (because it is rude/though it also could be used jokingly but even that - again- wouldn't fit my taste), I would not have any problem with understanding it (even though I'm two generations younger than József Attila).
So I think it is also the question of age, apart from good taste/decency.

 

[ausermilar]

Interesting. Oláhország is extremely uncommon in my opinion, and I dare say most people wouldn’t know what it means - you may encounter the word in a 200-year-old fairy tale or in historical documents. Also, it only meant a smaller part of Romania (see below):
View attachment 81914
This region is now called Moldva (in Hungarian), Moldavia (in English) or Moldova (I think) in Romanian, not to be confused with the country.
Oláh is slightly more common (yet also obsolete), which originally means Romanian or “of Romania”, though it has strong (and negative) connotations of gypsies (oláh cigány), in my opinion, so neither of those are really suitable for your active vocabulary. Szőröstalpú is also highly offensive and obsolete, younger people may not understand to whom it refers.

Thanks. I suppose that those two guys just wanted to say "the land of olahok" (instead of saying the official name) and "invented" the word, as we could say "Hamburgerland" if we want to speak rudely/amusingly about the States: the original meaning is too far away from their cultural background, I guess!