Comments on: ‘Servus’: ‘Hello’ from the Old Days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

By: Pavlo

Pavlo — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 10:10:51 +0000

I’m from Transcarpathia, and Servus is a commonly used greeting in my region and in my family. It’s just a normal greeting for us, and we never considered it as showing off. We also use Hungarian sziá, as well as Ukrainian pryvit, and chao a lot.
By the way, Servus pane Warhol is a song with lyrics by the famous Transcarpathian poet Petro Midyanka.

Grandpas in our region also use my favorite Hungarian greeting, “Kezét csókolom,” or just “Csókolom,” which literally means, “I kiss your hand.” It’s a shame that we almost abandoned this greeting nowadays.

By: Bohdan Lechman

Bohdan Lechman — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 20:27:01 +0000

Сервус! My father and his friends greeted each other with this word throughout my childhood in the Ukrainian Diaspora. How surprised I was to come across it in an “Asterix and Obelix” comic book while we lived in Europe in the 1970s! It was used by a Roman Centurion to greet the chief of the Gaulish village. Now in my early 60’s, I’ve taught some of my Ukrainian friends from other diasporas (e.g. former Yugoslavia) the word in the hope that it can be revived.

By: Val

Val — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 16:36:46 +0000

Regarding comments about Hungarian versions. Szevasz was a common variant, still heard today, a somewhat less formal version more popular with young people in the 50’s. In the late 60’s the English hello and see ya became popular, (szia , hello), but humorously they were knowingly transposed to the chagrin of English speaking friends. No amount of correcting would change this, eliciting only a laugh.

By: Thomas Wolf

Thomas Wolf — Fri, 24 Mar 2023 21:28:03 +0000

Dear Zoltán,
if you heard the variation in an Austrian movie, it was probably “Seavas”, which is simply our Viennese/eastern Austrian dialect pronunciation of “Servus” (German ‘s’ = Hungarian ‘sz’).

When I visited together with my wife the city of Satu Mare/Szatmárnémeti some years ago, we met a journalist from Cluj/Kolozsvár/Klausenburg. Although she does not speak Hungarian, she greeted her friends with the Hungarian “Szervusz” and was completely amazed when she learnt that we use “Servus” in Austria, too. 🙂
Servus from Vienna!

By: Vincze Zoltán

Vincze Zoltán — Sat, 18 Feb 2023 08:37:00 +0000

Very good article, thank You, dziekuję bardzo.
I would add an information. There is in Hungarian a word that derives from the Austrian pronunciation of „servus” I discovered about 2 years ago in an Austrian movie: it is „szevasz”. It appeared,I believe, before the short „szia”, which might be a modern, 20th century variation.