Nem élnek meglevő lehetőségeikkel
They’re Missing out on Existing Opportunities

Author(s): Miklós Kontra
Subject(s): Language acquisition, Ethnic Minorities Studies
Published by: Fórum Kisebbségkutató Intézet
Keywords: lack of explicit Hungarian language planning and language policy; language rights; Hungarian L1 education; Hungarian minorities in the Carpathian Basin
Summary/Abstract: The author claims that the language-related social problems of Hungarians in Hungary and the adjacent countries will continue as long as Hungarians fail to put in place an explicit, systematic and scientifically based Hungarian language planning and language policy. He presents six cases which demonstrate that Hungarians are squandering opportunities to mitigate their linguistic plight. (1) Sándor N. Szilágyi’s excellent Language Bill (based on universal language rights rather than minority rights) was not supported by Romania-Hungarian politicians. (2) H. T. Katona showed in 2016 that one reason why Hungarians in Mureş County, Romania, do not make use of their right to use Hungarian is that they are unaware of some of their rights. (3) For many decades, Hungarian-American children have been unable to study Hungarian from appropriate textbooks and dictionaries because such books are not commercially available, even if they exist. (4) The economic plight of Hungarians in north-eastern Croatia and the resulting decrease in the numbers of Hungarian schoolchildren could be mitigated by investment from Hungary, but Hungarian investors avoid the indigenous Hungarians in Croatia. (5) In Southern Slovakia, tens of thousands of Hungarian high schoolers have been using pedagogically and culturally inadequate textbooks, poorly adapted versions of those used in Hungary. (6) In Transcarpathia, Ukraine mother-tongue-medium public education for Hungarians was successfully revamped in the 2010s, but since 2018 onwards the progressive textbooks and documents have been replaced by plagiarized versions of out-of-date and detrimental textbooks still used in Hungary. The author maintains that it is in the main Hungarian politicians who are responsible for such squandered opportunities, but teachers, linguists, lawyers and the media could and should also help alleviate these language-related problems.

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