1990. ÉVI NÉPSZÁMLÁLÁS Nemzetiség, anyanyelv I. kötet Nemzetiség szerinti adatok (1993)

BEVEZETŐ - INTRODUCTION (Bevezető angol nyelven)

INTRODUCTION These are population censuses held once every ten years which include the full-scope collection of data on the composition by mother tongue and nationality of the population in Hungary. The topic "mother tongue" has figured in the questionnaires since 1880, while that of "nationality", since 1941 (except 1970). However, these two topics were rather poorly represented in the cross-tabulations of official census publications. Recently a growing interest has emerged with regard to the knowledge and study of the situation of national and ethnic minorities living in Hungary. This led to the recent publishing of several statistical data collections on the situation of nationalities, reproducing formerly published census informations, on the one hand, and containing partly or completely new combined tabulations, on the other. The first one on this topic after the 1990 census was a booklet containing the preliminary data on nationalities, mother tongue and knowledge of other languages of the population of localities considered as inhabited by national minorities. Afterwards, the results of the supplementary survey on nationalities carried out after the 1980 census, were reprinted. Two further volumes contain nationality and mother tongue data by counties of all censuses according both to the administrative territorial division of their respective time and that of 1990. Another volume was published concerning informations on locality-level according to the 1990 administrative division, on the 1990 and (formerly not published) 1980 mother tongue and nationality data. Presently a set of detailed cross-tabulations of Hungarians, Slovaks, Rumanians, Croats, Serbs, Slovenes or Sorbians, Germans and Gipsies (by mother tongue or nationality), according to their demographic and occupational characteristics at the 1990 population census, is being published in two volumes. This type of data collection, supported also by the National Fund for Scientific Research, has no antecedent in the history of Hungarian census publications. The first volume contains also the relevant tabulations of the population as a whole allowing not only the comparison of the national and mother tongue groups between themselves but also that with the total population. Besides, this same first volume contain tabulations by nationalities while the second one contain those by mother tongues, completed by an explanation of the most important concepts used in both volumes. While interpreting the data published in these volumes, one has to take into account that those are based on self-reporting. Population census regulations always called upon the population to give real information and, simultaneously, the instruction for enumerators stressed the importance of putting down any answer - mainly those on nationality and mother tongue without influencing the respondents. In both volumes Croats include also the "Sokacs and Buniev3cs" while Slovenes are put together with Sorbians in the tables according to nationality as well as to mother tongue. 4