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

128 Károly Tóth

The phenomenon of ageing will be an evident sign of natural assimilation at the moment when the ethnic structure of the next generation will demonstrate significant changes to the advantage of the Slovak-speaking population. And this is our case.

Graph 3: Proportion between first language and choice of education language in the case of Hungarians and Slovaks (%)

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 - 0

0 75

0 61

H Hungarian □ Slovak

Choice of language of instruction

While the proportion between the two groups using Hungarian or Slovak as their first language is 75 to 25, the proportion regarding the choice of language of instruction shows a significant difference: 61 to 39. In other words, a part of the Hungarian group opts for the Slovak schools when choosing the language of instruction for their children.

Language use

When examining the use of language, our aim was to understand in what ways language use in a domestic environment (in the family and household) differs from language use in public (on the street, in shops, in official affairs etc.). The questionnaire sheet enabled the grouping of received data on the basis of age so as to make the comparison of the resulting numbers possible. Table 5 shows what the domestic and the public language use is like in the individual age groups and in the entire population.

RrsI language