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

148 László Szarka

In the past, we recognised three types of language borders: the Hungarian language border in Slovakia belonged throughout the centuries to the sharp language border type, as its Mátyusföld8 section still demonstrates.

In some places we could also find striped language border types, when in a not too broad north-southern stripe villages with Hungarian majority and villages with Slovak majority lay one next to the other (e.g. on short sections of Tekov/Sars, Nógrád and Gömör). Since the 1960s onward, the third type, the blurred language border type, became increasingly typical of the region. Extensive parts gradually turned to regions inhabited with population of mixed languages, partly due to the local population becoming bilingual, and partly due to the new incomers, i.e. inhabitants moving into the region from other parts of Slovakia, counterbalancing the local ethnic situation. Particularly in the Nógrád-Gömör river valleys, the language border makes several sharp turns following the geographical shapes of the valleys.

The most important spatial characteristic of Hungarian- Slovak interethnic relations is the formation of the language border. This occurred in the time following the arrival of the Hungarians in the Carpathian basin and the Mongol (Tatar) invasion. In spite of the fact that the language border went through numerous changes in the past, the ethnic structure of towns in Upper-Hungary has been shaped independently from this language border. The permanent character of the language border was, however, indicated by the ethnic divisional line which ran at times to the north and at other times to the south of the line made by the towns Bratislava-Senec- Nitra-Levice-Rimavská Sobota-Rožňava-Košice-Veľké Kapušany-Ungvár. As a popular saying says: “You find the language border where the Miatyánk finishes and the Otče náš starts."9

Before proceeding to the next argument, I would like to cite the definition of Štefan Šutaj on the Slovak-Hungarian state and language border10:

“The present state borders (...) are not the result of ethnic processes, but rather the result of political decisions