Petőcz Kálmán (szerk.): National Populism and Slovak - Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006-2009 (Somorja, 2009)

Zsuzsanna Mészáros-Lampl: Magyars and Slovaks in Southern Slovakia - Exercising Language Rights

ZUZANA MÉSZÁROSOVÁ'LAMPLOVÁ:

MAqyARs ancI SlovAks m Southern SIovaI<ía - ExERCisiNq ĽANquAqE Riqkrs

“Let Thy hand guide us, protect our morals, bread and speech. ” (Single Catholic Songbook, psalm No. 299)

Repeatedly presented statements by political and cultural leaders about alleged threats to language rights and national identity of the Slovaks inhabiting ethnically mixed territories of southern Slovakia may — and often do — create an impression that ethnic Hungarians living on these territories oppress the Slovaks in every way possible and thus actually force them to assimilate. Are these statements based on truth? What are the Slovaks’ opportunities to use their native language in southern Slovakia? Is their right to use mother tongue merely declared but denied or is the actually exercised? Is there language assimilation? The present chapter will try to answer these questions. It is not based on various assumptions, hypotheses, myths or rumours but rather on the views of people who are most concerned by the issue, i.e. inhabitants of ethnically mixed territories.

These people formed the principal target group of a sociological survey carried out jointly by the Forum Institute for Minority Research in Samorin and the Cultural Observatory of the National Educational Centre in Bratislava. The survey took place in 2007 on a sample of 821 respondents comprising almost evenly Slovaks (47%) and ethnic Hungarians (53%). The sample was representative in terms of respondents’ nationality, sex, age structure, education status, and municipality size. Besides these data, the present study also used certain findings from a qualitative survey that was carried out on the same territory in 2008-2009, applying the methodology of focus groups.1

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