Whenever I am in Hungary on a visit I have often asked myself about the origin of the greeting "szervusz" which is of course being rapidly being replaced by the ubiquitous "Szia".
Being the nervous type I have refrained from asking anyone about whether the first greeting was borrowed from Austria during the Austro-Hungarian monarchy (or the Hapsburg period) because it is also used there a lot. Of course I also wondered whether it had a more ancient meaning - perhaps from an even earlier time.
Well - without having to embarrass myself in my ignorance here are some answers:
The Hungarian "szervusz" is the same as the Austrian and South German Servus, and it really should read : "Servus Humillimus" the Latin for "I am your most humble servant".
Once you have this information it is impossible not to see at a glance that the expression was also in use in English and other languages for quite some time - albeit only in its translated form.
As for "Szia" would anyone care to make a small wager that it is a unique Hungarian derivation of an English expression that we use every day and which no doubt has been transmuted through TV and other media and corrupted by usage from its original "See you later" to "See you" to See ya" to "Szia" in the Hungarian phonetic script?
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