Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)

Interethnic spaces

A village on the ethnic periphery 121

Language use “Within the House” refers to the use of this or that language in private, i.e. in the household. “Public” language use refers to use in streets, shops, church, municipal offices and so on. Language use in the workplace was not considered since information on this was difficult to obtain.

During the analyses I regarded a family as fully Hungarian or fully Slovak if the family demonstrated a Hungarian or a Slovak picture regarding all three categories: first language, language use and choice of language of instruction. If a deviation appeared in any of these categories, I qualified the family as a “Mixed family”. The only exception was the choice of university, since in the examined period there were no Hungarian universities in (Czecho)Slovakia.

As it appears from the questionnaire, we did not ask about the nationality (ethnicity) of the persons. It would not have been correct as we based our research on indirect data, i.e. on the opinions of the committee.9 We wanted to know solely that information which was evident for an external observer or which was generally known in the village. Compilation of the data forms took place in December 2000; the additional questioning and specifying took place in the first days of January.

The answers were recorded on printed sheets and then analysed on a computer.

In our survey we examined 427 building plots (house numbers).10 We found 330 houses in the village; the number of inhabited houses, i.e. the number of households, was 278. We recorded the data of 878 persons.

Analysis of the questionnaires occurred in January-March, 2001.

Table 2: Number of population and inhabited houses in the village

Year

2000

(official

data)

2000

Dec.

(survey)

Population

883

878

Number of

inhabited

houses

285

278