This is the Hungarian expression that Americans love the most – VIDEO

The commonly used expression ‘itsy-bitsy’ is actually of Hungarian origin. Szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu reports that it comes from the Hungarian phrase ‘icipici’.

During its long history, the Hungarian language has borrowed or lent a lot of expressions, phrases, or words. There are many words with Yiddish, Alanic, Turkish, German or Slavic roots. Even though Hungarian people are well aware of the existence of the words borrowed from other languages, not many know that other languages have some words with Hungarian origins as well.

Recently, there was a growing interest in the expression ‘itsy-bitsy’, which is mainly used in American English. It seems that the popular phrase was borrowed from Hungarian. This is not the first time that Hungarian words have popped up in other languages: the English word ‘coach’ (referring to the bus), the German ‘Kutsche’, the Spanish ‘coche’ or the Flemish ‘goetse’ all come from the Hungarian word, ‘kocsi’. Several linguistic data supports the theory that the English ‘itsy-bitsy’ comes from the Hungarian ‘icipici’.