Language Research

Slovakia existed as part of Hungary from the beginning of the 10th century until 1918, when it united with the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia, in addition to a small part of Silesia, to form Czechoslovakia. In 1939, shortly before the start of World War II, Slovakia declared its independence under pressure from German dictator Adolph Hitler. In 1945 it was reunited with the rest of Czechoslovakia. From 1948 until 1989 Czechoslovakia was ruled by a Soviet-style Communist regime The Slovaks and the Czechs agreed to separate peacefully on January 1, 1993. Slovakia has experienced more difficulty than the Czech Republic in developing a modern market economy.

The Slovak language is the official language and belongs to the West Slavic sub-group of the Indo-European language family, though it uses Roman rather than Cyrillic script. It differs only slightly from Czech, and fluency in both languages is common. Hungarian, Polish, German, Ukrainian, Romany and Russian are also spoken as minority languages.

ROMA

Despite the existence of basic statistical facts, there are quite understandable objections in respect to the reliability of the latest demographic data on the Roma minority. This ethnic group could, for the first time since World War II, express their ethnic affiliation on the 1991 Statistical Census. Surprisingly, only 75,802 (1.44 %) citizens of the Slovak Republic identified themselves as Roma. It is clear that many Roma declared themselves mostly as Slovak or Hungarian in this Census. Census officials (using local knowledge or visible signs) unofficially collected data on Roma minority during Statistical Censuses under previous regimes. While in 1970 about 160,000 Roma (3.5% of total population) lived in Slovakia, in 1980 it was almost 200,000 (4% of total population). The latest more precise data on the Roma population was based on a registry of state administration from 1989, when Roma population had reached 253,943 persons (4.8% of total population).

The most often mentioned expert estimations (1998) on the Roma population are between 330,000-350,000 (about 7-7.5% of total population). The highest estimations of Romany population size in Slovakia declare a half million Roma living in the Slovak Republic. It is generally accepted that they have a high birth rate, low death rate, and almost 40% of the population in pre-productive age (1995). The Roma minority is dispersed throughout the country.

CZECHS

With the separation of Czechoslovakia, Czechs have become the newest minority in Slovakia. While they may not experience the same depth of prejudice as some other groups, significant misconceptions can stimulate intolerance and discrimination. “Èeský spolok” (Czech Association) has worked with rural Czech organizations to increase their ability to ensure their perspectives are represented in the media.

HUNGARIANS

Ethnic Hungarians live in the unbroken southern strip of Slovakia adjacent to Hungary, stretching from Bratislava/Pozsony to the Ukrainian border. Living in 523 municipalities, the number of Hungarians exceeds 10% of the population. Among these, Hungarians make up over 80% of the population in 272 localities, and over 50% in 150 localities. Among the southern Slovakia districts, ethnic Hungarians constitute the majority in Dunaszerdahely/Dunajská Streda (87.23%) and Komárom/Komárno (72.25%) (Data from February 1996).

The Czechoslovak Constitution, adopted in 1956, for the first time made a brief mention of the Hungarian minority, and the 1960 Constitution promised to ensure education and cultural integrity in their native language for all minorities. At the same time, however, the territorial administrative division was changed, which further reduced the number of districts where the Hungarian population constituted the majority.

The new Czechoslovak Constitution, adopted on October 27, 1968, declared the establishment of the Czechoslovak Federation, consisting of the two Czech and Slovak member states. Constitutional Law 144/1968 regulating the situation of the nationalities, for the first time promised them representation in the various elected bodies in proportion to their numerical size.

The Constitution of the Slovak Republic was adopted on September 1, 1992.

The ethnic Hungarian community sharply criticized the shortcomings of the draft constitution.

The new Slovak government formed on October 30, 1998, made significant changes in its program with regard to the situation of minorities.

• No citizen of the Slovak Republic will suffer any disadvantage because it belongs to a given national minority or ethnic group. The government will observe the obligations of the Slovak Republic deriving from signed and ratified international documents.
• The government will guarantee the upgrading of the educational level of citizens belonging to national minorities to the level of the nation as a whole, and solve the problem of teachers' training for school teaching in the minority language, and the training of theologians and persons working in the fields of culture and people's education and using a minority language, at an appropriate institutional level in the framework of existing institutions.
• It will renew the traditional issuance of bilingual school reports and the keeping of bilingual pedagogical documentation.
• It will create conditions for radio and television broadcasting in the languages of national minorities.
• The government will ensure the many-sided conditions for the equal development of the culture of national minorities and ethnic groups, and adopt new principles for their support.
• The government has assumed the task of drafting and adopting a law on the use of national minority and ethnic group languages, and of restoring the legal person status (subjectivity) of their cultural institutions.
• The government will ensure the ratification of the European Charter on Local Self-Government, as well as the appropriate decentralization going with it.
• The Government of the Slovak Republic considers national and ethnic diversity as a historic given and an enriching element, and condemns all manifestations of ethnic and racial hatred. The drafting of the long-awaited minority language law was finally started in early 1999.

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Updated (March 2006)

HUNGARIAN LANGUAGE IN THE TERRITORY OF SLOVAKIA

The Hungarian language is a member of the Finno-Ugric language family. About one third of the Hungarian-speaking population lives outside Hungary as a national minority. Hungarians living in Slovakia are the second-biggest Hungarian ethnic group in Central Europe (following the group of Hungarians living in Transylvania, Romania).

Certain phenomena of the Slovak-Hungarian language variety differ from Standard Hungarian probably due to different social and political conditions of people, which influence also the use of language. However, the main reason for these differences emerges from the bilingual environment in which Hungarians in Slovakia live. The interference can be observed at all linguistic levels; Slovak Hungarians largely use colloquial and dialect linguistic features, which do not exist in the standard language. Since the Slovak variety of Hungarian is not employed in all areas of language use, certain registers are missing: especially language varieties for specific purposes. Compared to the standard forms, the Hungarian language spoken in Slovakia may seem to be more archaic as neologisms created in the home country enter the Slovak-Hungarian word stock more slowly if they get there at all. On the other hand, it should be stressed that the majority of language elements and registers are identical to the varieties used in Hungary, and easily understood by all speakers of Hungarian in the homeland and abroad.

In Slovakia, many ethnic Hungarian families speak Hungarian as their family language and second language acquisition mostly takes place in schools. While a great part of the Hungarian minority speaks the Slovak language at high levels of proficiency, some people claim that they do not speak Slovak at all. Those are usually children or old people living in villages with the Hungarian majority. In this respect, expectations held by the majority group towards the minority group regarding the ability to speak the majority language at perfect levels may cause problems. From the side of the Slovak majority, even in ethnically mixed territories, there is only very little interest among the majority to learn the language of the minorities.

Source: Mercator Education, Regional Dossiers, The Hungarian Language in Education in Slovakia, http://www1.fa.knaw.nl/mercator/regionale_dossiers/regional_dossier_hungarian_in_slovakia.htm

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