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

Magyars and Slovaks in Southern Slovakia...

dents is currently dominated by Slovak language (please see Graph 3). The same is true for mixed marriages, with the sole exception of mutual communication between ethnic Hungarian parents and their children as half of these parents speak Hungarian to their children.

Graph 3

Dominant family communication language of Slovaks in mixed marriages nowadays

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Between respondent and partner

Between respondent and children

Between partner and children

Among children

ü Slovak H Rather Slovak

□ Rather Hungarian

□ Hungarian

What was the outcome of similar examination in the case of ethnic Hungarians? We have already pointed out that 97% of ethnic Hungarians hail from families that communicated exclusively or prevailingly in Hungarian; however, only four in five of them (80%) enrolled in primary schools where the language of instruction was Hungarian while 20% of them enrolled in Slovak primary schools. One in four children of all Hungarian respondents (25%) attend primary schools where the language of instruction is Slovak; however, only about half of these children (13%) hail from mixed Slovak-Hungarian marriages. So, it is plain to see that the dominance of Hungarian as the language of family communication among ethnic Hungarian respondents is currently not as strong as in the case of Slovak respondents. In mixed marriages, language of communication largely depends on individual family members: Hungarian language dominates in communication between ethnic Hungarian parents and their children and in mutual communication between children. On the other hand, Slovak language is preferred in mutual communication between parents and especially in communication between Slovak parents and their children (please see Graph 4).

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