The Voivodinian regional version of Hungarian as a non-dominant variety

Annamária BENE

University of Novi Sad

(bene@uns.ac.rs)

Keywords: Hungarian, ethnic Hungarians, Serbia

The notion of a plurocentric language captures the linguistic differences between varieties at a more general and abstract level than attested in dialect – language relationship or diglossic situation. It not only includes a different characterization of linguistic norms and attitudes towards a plurocentric variety, but also incorporates a wide range of socio-historical issues involved in language change and development.

The source of differences between major and minor varieties of a plurocentric language may go back to intra- or extralinguistic causes. In case of Hungarian the source is extralinguistic: as a consequence of historico-political developments set off by The Treaty of Trianon new borders were drawn within a single language community. As a consequence Hungarians in Voivodina, i.e. in the northern province of Serbia were cut off from the more standard variety of Hungarian: gradually the Hungarian language spoken by them evolved into the so-called Voivodinian version of Hungarian. It is a non-dominant and minor variety of Hungarian that exhibits some Serbian influence, and even though its lexicon is slightly mixed, its register and styles are not limited, and its prestige is quite high amongst Voivodinian native speakers, therefore it is considered to be a fully functional variation of Hungarian.