I guess they will need their Hungarian-Slovak Phrasebooks, so that they can say, "My hovercraft is full of eels", in Slovak.
Posted on 09/02/2009 2:49:48 PM PDT by lizol
Slovakia: No Hungarian spoken in public
Published: Sept. 2, 2009 at 12:18 AM
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia demonstrated Tuesday against a new law allowing only the use of Slovak language in public institutions, Hungarian officials said.
Slovakia maintains the law comports with European standards, but Hungarian protesters say it violates international law, the BBC reported.
The penalty for the regular public misuse of the Slovak language is a fine of up to $7,000, which is close to the average yearly salary in Slovakia, the news service reported.
A meeting between the prime ministers of Slovakia and Hungary is scheduled for next week to try to smooth the rocky relationship between the two countries.
Ethnic Hungarians make up approximately 10 percent of the Slovakian population, the report said.
"The law makes no sense... (it) only creates tension between people who have lived peacefully side by side," said Peter Pazmany of the Hungarian Coalition Party in Slovakia, an ethnic opposition group.
At least they understand the importance of Borders, Language and Culture.
This strikes me as unnecessarily petty.
Nice, but there has always been a tacit understanding, at least since the end of WWII, that Slovakia would allow for the rights of the Hungarian minority (who had borders redrawn through no fault of their own) to speak their own language, have their own schools, etc. This is the same as the Germans in the South Tyrol in Italy. These folks have been in these regions for quite a long time. They are not “illegal immigrants” and Slovak Culture is not based on the “assimilationist” model.
Nice, but there has always been a tacit understanding, at least since the end of WWII, that Slovakia (and its predecessor, Czechslovakia) would allow for the rights of the Hungarian minority (who had borders redrawn through no fault of their own) to speak their own language, have their own schools, etc. This is the same as the Germans in the South Tyrol in Italy. These folks have been in these regions for quite a long time. They are not “illegal immigrants” and Slovak Culture is not based on the “assimilationist” model.
End of story.
Yet an average flat in a so-so area of Bratislava goes for around $250,000.
Can you say housing bubble that has yet to pop (same for most of eastern europe)?
Probably true. Heck, within another hundred years, English will remain the most spoken/understood language in the world, followed by “Chinglish.”
“At least they understand the importance of Borders, Language and Culture.”
How so? A lot of those Hungarian families have probably been there for centuries, they used to be the same country you know.
This makes as much sense as saying an indian can’t speak Navajo in a public facility.
You will see a dramatic infiltration of written English with Chinese-like ideographs simply because they are so incredibly useful!
Us “Native Americans” have gone through a lot of BS. The good thing is: We keep our culture. The bad thing is: “Someone is always trying to change things.”
But don’t get me started.
Few people understand Slovakia and it’s history. Slovakia suffered under Hungarian rule when Slovak was NOT allowed to be spoken in Slovakian schools. If Hungarians have been living in Slovakia for generations, why haven’t they assimilated by speaking Slovak? The answer is obvious....
Hungarians have lived in Slovakia for centuries and refuse to speak Slovak? How imperial of them.
Like the Balkans it’s another mess left from the breakup of the Austria-Hungary empire after the end of WWI.
Clue, there aren't! All same thing.
I guess they will need their Hungarian-Slovak Phrasebooks, so that they can say, "My hovercraft is full of eels", in Slovak.
Not necessarily: it is probably foreign capital for the most part.
The problem is the same as it was with the Sudetenland to the west: Austria-Hungary was excessively punished at the close of WWI, and their borders were redrawn to leave millions of Germans and Magyars marooned in hostile new statelets. This helped grease the skids for WWII, and now it seems the Slovaks have learned nothing from the past and are creating ethnic tension with their southern neighbor again.
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