Language Instruction and National Minorities in Hungary

Abstract

Thanks to the Paris peace treaties, Hungary is one of the nation-states that is relatively homogeneous ethnically. It is an exception in a region in which most of the states have suffered from internal ethnic and national tensions and even wars. On the other hand, there are many Hungarians who live beyond Hungary's borders (five million according to Hungarian estimates). Hungary's relation with its neighbors (with the exception of Austria and Ukraine) is burdened by the problem of the Hungarian minorities. An essential difference between Hungary and its neighbors is that the Hungarian minorities in the neighboring countries are not only numerous, but also live in contiguous regions: in Serbia, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine. The national minorities in Hungary, on the other hand, are not only relatively few in number, they also live in many separate small areas. One effect of this is that an ethnic group that statistically seems to be unitary speaks several divergent dialects although they have learned the same mother language. (For example, a group of Slovenians speaks an old Slavic language, Wendish; the Hungarian Germans comprise people from Swabia and Saxony who each speak their own old dialects; the Romany have three language groups: Hungarian, Romany, and an old Romanian language.)