''Magyar szótár'' (A Dictionary of the Hungarian Language) is a

Hungarian language Hungarian () is an Uralic language spoken in Hungary and parts of several neighbouring countries. It is the official language of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Outside Hungary, it is also spoken by Hungarian ...

reference work A reference work is a work, such as a paper, book or periodical (or their electronic equivalents), to which one can refer for information. The information is intended to be found quickly when needed. Such works are usually ''referred'' to ...

in two volumes, by Hungarian translator Tibor Bartos published in 2002 by Corvina kiadó, Budapest, Hungary. It is a cross of a dictionary of synonyms and a

thesaurus A thesaurus (plural ''thesauri'' or ''thesauruses'') or synonym dictionary is a reference work for finding synonyms and sometimes antonyms of words. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea: Synonym dictionar ...

. Rather than relying on methods of computational linguistics, the vocabulary has been compiled manually as a by-product of translation work done by the author over his lifelong career as a translator of literary works. Volume One is the dictionary itself, while Volume Two is an alphabetical index of words contained therein. The subtitle explains the nature of the work as: “A repertory of words and phrases explaining each other, Book 1 and 2.” Though he does not use the word ''recursion'', the whole project is a study on recursion in the Hungarian language.

Bartos’ credo

"Words are not synonyms on their own. What happens is, that we, speaking the same language, “match make them” every day... You never look for a word by locating it as a vector diagram in a system theory... The latest edition of Encyclopædia Britannica does not even waste space for synonyms... The ambition to locate the appropriate word for the correct use of language is sought no more..." Perhaps that was written in anticipation of the criticism published before his dictionary was actually published, on behalf of the professional lexicographers and taxonomists, such as Rudolf Ungvári, an authority in preparing thesauri in Hungarian, protesting the advent of "an outsider” in lexicography or taxonomy. But by the token of his original degree in ethnography or cultural anthropology Tibor Bartos, not to mention his tremendous amount of superb translation of literary works, is undoubtedly an authentic person to turn to when having problems with putting the right Hungarian words together in composition, translation or originating other ideas in writing to meet different stylistic criteria. It is another issue though that the representation of his knowledge is not in par with the output of NLP technology available today.

Biography

Tibor Bartos was born in Újpest, Hungary, on August 1, 1933. He graduated from Idegen Nyelvek Főiskolája and was working between 1954 and 1965 as an editor of Európa Könyvkiadó. He translated works by Albee, Arde, Barthelme, Becket, Behan, Bierce, Capote, Cary, Chesterton, Delillo, Dickens, Dos Passos, George Eliot, Ellison, Franklin, Fussel, Hagen, Hardy, John Irving, Kerouac, Kesey, D. Lessig, Oscar Lewis, London, Macdonald, MacLeish, Malz, Matthiessen, H. Miller, Moyes, O'Henry, Pinter, Pirsi, Poe, Roddenberry, Rosengarten, Stoker, Styron, Swinburne, Thackeray, Thurber, Updike, Vivian, Warren, Wesker, Tom Wolfe and Wongar. His awards include Wessely László díj (1981) and Év Könyve (1985). He died on 26 March 2010, after long illness.

Book One

# Szótár-magyarázó (Rationale) # Fogalomkörei (The broad concepts or categories grouped under numbers) # Hogyan forgassuk (Guide to browsing) # Tár (List of words and phrases)

Book Two

# Betűrendes eligazítás (Alphabetic index)

Bartos’ credo

Biography

Contents

Book One

Book Two

See also