Author: Will Collins Washington Examiner

On a visit to Budapest in the 1930s, an unimpressed H.L. Mencken remarked that the former imperial capital had the feeling of “an empty ballroom.” Having been shorn of half its territory after World War I, Budapest’s grandeur was an awkward fit for a country of 8 million people caught between the rising totalitarian powers…

“When it comes to pronouns, we don’t even have any!” said Tibor Várady, owner of Espresso Embassy, a popular cafe and specialty coffee shop in downtown Budapest. Várady’s comment is a joking reference to his native Hungarian, a famously difficult language that has no equivalents for the English pronouns “he” and “she,” and the atmosphere…