Minority groups in Hungary (was: Rotokas (was: California Cheeseburger))

On 20 Jun 2004 John Cowan <cowan@...> wrote:

> >   I have real experiences in language contacts (1) I am bilingual, a
> > member of a minority ethnic group in Hungary;
>
> I'd be interested to know about which minority group, and what its
> circumstances are, if you don't mind discussing it.
  I am a Slovak. My ancestors settled here on the Great Hungarian
Plains 250 years ago. Hungary was liberated from Turkish occupation
that time. Due to the near continuous skirmishing of the one and a half
century of the occupation, the central part of Hungary lost its
inhabitants. Mainly German and Slovak settlers were planted to these
depopulated areas.

  After the World War I -- among others -- the northern parts were
separated as the present-day Slovakia (as a part of Czechoslovakia),
thus we were isolated from our ethnic body. After the World War II
there was a dirty population exchange between Czechoslovakia and
Hungary. During this the vast majority of Slovak intellectuals living
in Hungary transmigrated to Czechoslovakia. This was followed by the
communist "ethnic politics". All these factors resulted that nowadays
only 12,000 people consider themselves as Slovak and 20,000 Hungarian
citizen speaks Slovak as a native tongue (census data of 1990). Due to
the small population and dissolution of the compact rural communities,
were are about to be assimilated within a few generation.

  Our language is a local mixture of 18th century Slovak dialects under
a strong influence of the Hungarian vocabulary. That is I am a
trilingual: I had to learn my home dialect, the Slovak stardard and the
Hungarian standard. Probably this was the reason why I was (and why I
am) interested in linguistics.

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