Szilárd Sebok
Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia

The debate on Hungarian language use outside Hungary

Keywords: Hungarian language, Hungarian language outside Hungary, standardisation, language planning

The aim of the paper is to give an overview about a debate on Hungarian language use outside Hungary which was mainly focused on the issue of pluricentric character of Hungarian language. This debate started in the early 90s with the question whether the Hungarian speakers in the neighbouring countries should follow necessarily the norms of standard Hungarian in Hungary. This proposal was attacked by language cultivators who underlined the importance of maintaining one homogenous standard variety of Hungarian in Hungary as well as in the minority groups of Hungarians living in neighbouring countries.

The argumentation of language cultivators was based on the conviction that the acceptance of the state varieties of Hungarian language is not reasonable, because it supports the differences between state varieties of Hungarian. However, the linguists with “sociolinguistic attitude” highlighted the negative consequences of this strategy of constant correction of usage: it implies that the Hungarian language varieties outside Hungary are worse than other varieties.

The real effect of the implication is that bilingual speakers refuse to use their “bad” variety of language, i.e. their mother tongue and prefer the use of their second language. That is why some linguists argued for the codification of the non-dominant varieties of Hungarian language beyond the borders of Hungary.

As István Lanstyák claimed these groups need a standard variety which is based on their real usage and do not need a variety which is just a declared ideal of correctness. The debate officially ended after five years, but the mentioned two views did not find common ground on this issue.

Nevertheless, in the debate have appeared many important issues which are still relevant – e.g. language planning issues; the role of language cultivation; the issue of the centres of Hungarian languages. One of the concrete results is that the new edition of the Concise Dictionary of Hungarian – in contrast with the precious edition – includes also words and phrases used in Hungarian in Transylvania (Romania), Sub-Carpathia (Ukraine) and (South-)Slovakia. That is why the analysis of different viewpoints in this debate about the centres of Hungarian could be useful.