Language Research

Updated (April 2007)

INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL IN BUDAPEST

The 14th Budapest International Book Festival was held in April 2007 to present several hundreds of writers from 25 different countries and more than 40,000 different publications to the public.

The National Library of Foreign Literature had a stand of its own at the festival and presented a small exhibition entitled "National Minorities in Hungary". It showed publications from the thirteen national and ethnic minorities living in Hungary.

Ms Annamaria Papp, the head of the Department of Minorities and Documentation of the Library, said the aim of their work was to encourage linguistic minorities to preserve their mother tongue and their culture as well as to create new works of art and documents in their native language. Their intention was also to make the majority society aware of the values of minority languages and cultures.

"World languages are anyway present at the Book Festival. Our exhibition wants to present the literary and specialized works that have been written in minority languages. Besides publications at our disposal we have also asked the national minority self-governments and minority civil organizations to send in their newest publications to exhibit", she said.

Moreover, the exhibition made it possible for the visitors to personally meet minority writers and scientists.

Source: Eurolang News, April 18, 2007 by Judit Solymosi

www.eurolang.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2865&Itemid=1&lang=en

Top of page

Updated (June 2007)

"NATIONAL MINORITIES IN HUNGARY ARE IN DANGER OF DISAPPEARING," SAYS OUTGOING OMBUDSMAN FOR MINORITIES

The outgoing Hungarian Minorities' Ombudsman, Dr. Jeno Kaltenbach, has recently given several interviews in which he stated his disappointment with some minority policies in Hungary. He said, for instance, that the amended minority law was a "fraud sanctioned by the state", and that so-called action programs are "illusory".

"The Minorities Act, amended in 2005, did not bring any improvement in respect to minority self-governments election system. The governments should be elected exclusively by people belonging to the respective minority. Nevertheless, if somebody goes to the chief administrator of the Mayor's Office and asks for inclusion in the minority voters' register, the latter has no means of knowing whether the application is true or false. He or she is obliged to include the person even if he or she knows that the applicant has nothing to do with the given community." Mr. Kaltenbach explained that this could be qualified as a fraud sanctioned by the state.

On the other hand, he has also seen some very positive developments over the past twelve years. He has mentioned the Minorities Act ensuring cultural autonomy, the amendments to the Act on Public Education concerning the ban of segregation, or the adoption of the Equal Treatment Act.

However, he sees that the situation of national minorities is so precarious that it has reached a critical point, and the danger of their disappearance is apparent.

Source: Eurolang News, June 16, 2007 by Judit Solymosi http://www.eurolang.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2900&Itemid=1&lang=en

Top of page