Hungary/ 4.2 Specific policy issues and recent debates  

4.2.5 Language issues and policies

The ethnic cleansing during and immediately after World War II, the century-old deficit in mother tongue teaching of minorities, followed by the callousness of the communist decades, the disappearance of closed communities and the growing uniformity caused by mass communication have all contributed to the process of linguistic assimilation.

In an effort to counterbalance these factors, the national public television broadcasts 4 regular weekly programmes in 7 minority languages and combined programmes for 6 more cultures - these all carry Hungarian subtitles. The average length of all these is 16 hours per month. As a unique media service, the Hungarian Radio's 4th channel (MR4) broadcasts 12 hours (from 8a.m. to 8 p.m.) in the same 13 minority languages each day: two hours in Croatian, German, Romanian, Serbian and Slovak, and half an hour for the rest. There is a special programme for Roma of 57 minutes every week day.

The practice of bilingual street-signs is increasing in villages of mixed ethnicity.

The main source for public support for minority cultural activities was the Public Foundation for Minorities until the end of 2011, when the Foundation was abolished. From 2012 related tasks are being delegated to the Wekerle Fund (Wekerle Sándor AlapkezelÅ‘) with the Government Decree 1056/2011.(III.22). At this large centre that administers various public calls the management of grants will technically become more professional, and it is to be seen how this will serve the needs of the communities in concern.

Table 4:     Budget of the Public Foundation for Minorities, in HUF and EUR, 2009/2010

Source:     Public Foundation for Minorities http://www.mnekk.hu

Only a minority of Roma people speak a Gypsy dialect, with literacy in those languages in its infancy.

There is no general language law regarding the Hungarian language. After intensive debate in Parliament and in the press, Act XCVI/2001 prescribed the use of Hungarian in commercial advertisements, slogans, signs, instructions etc. next to the foreign versions; yet its impact is insignificant and the advances of foreign linguistic influences are not a central issue at present (although it is the competence of a foreign state, the language law passed in 2009 in Slovakia was the subject of intense attention and debates in Hungary, fed by concern for the language rights of ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia.)

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