Cell Block Tango

General Questions
#1

There’s a number in the musical Chicago called The Cell Block Tango. Six women are telling the stories of how and why they killed their husbands/lovers. One character, Hunyak tells her story in another language. I’d try to translate it, but I don’t even know what language it is. What she says (according to the liner notes) is:

Mit keresek, en itt? Azt mondjok, hogy a hires lakem lefogta a ferjemet en meg lecsaptam a fejet. De nem igaz, en artatlan vagyok. Nem tudom mert mondja Uncle Sam hogy en tettem. Probaltam a rendorsegen megmagyaranzi de nem ertettek meg…

Does anyone know what language this is or how I could find out? I’ve been curious about this for a good long time.

#2

Strange, I always thought it was Italian, but that’s obviously not.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
– Henry David Thoreau

#3

Hungarian.

#4

I put it into a translator (Hungarian to English) and this is how it translated:

It’s not very clear, and the parts in italics didn’t translate at all, but I guess that’s what I get for using an online translator.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
– Henry David Thoreau

#5

OK, I found a few more words. I can sort of make out the gist of it. Of course, I still can’t figure out how she killed her husband, which is what I really wanted to know in the first place. But that’s the way it goes, I guess.

What searches, en here? That term, that the famous lakem clinches my husband en plus precipitate the his head. But it’s untrue, I innocent am. I don’t know mert term Uncle Sam that en it made it. Probaltam the rendorsegen megmagyaranzi but not ertettek plus…

Now if that doesn’t clear it up, I don’t know what does. Incidentally, jens, how did you know it was Hungarian?

#6

It looked Hungarian to me, but then it might have been Turkish. I have seen a bit of both languages, but know only a few words of each, not enough to distinguish. So I did a web search on a bunch of the words from the message, and every hit was from *.hu. That clinched it.

#7

Slugtastic:

And, of course, Hunyak looks and sounds a lot like the derogatory term for Hungarians that is (often but not always) spelled Hunyock.

Tom~

#8

I just want to know what “precipitating his head” means. It sounds really, really painful.

#9

Just saw Chicago tonight. She is Hungarian, she was charged with the ax murder of her husband.