A bill accepted recently in Parliament grants Roma the right to use two of their languages in official matters and education, reports index.hu. Hungary joined the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 1992, allowing six minority languages to be used in education and in official matters, but Roma languages were not included on this list. Slovakian, Croatian, Serbian, German, Romanian and Slovenian languages are now joined by Bea and Romani, the two languages spoken by the majority of Hungarian Roma.
Besides education, administration and justice, the two languages will be used in cultural, health care and social institutions, and a digital radio and television station would also operate in Romani. The development of elementary schoolbooks in the two Roma languages can begin in autumn, followed by the curricula, the accreditation of faculties and further training of language teachers. According to state secretary Ferenc Gémesi, a quick training course would allow the presence of professionals speaking Romani or Bea in administration, justice, healthcare and social institutions.
As a result of the ruling, all government offices will be required to have a member of staff speaking the minority languages within five years. The changes are expected to only cost the state an additional Ft 50 million (€200,000) per year, according to state news service MTI.
Is this a step forward?
Recent language policy decisions in the UK and US have moved away from multiple official languages, although the EU is pursuing a different policy, giving raise to the ridiculous situation in the UK that an Urdu monoglot is expected to learn English whereas a Hungarian monoglot is not.
The arguments against Spanish in the US and immigrant mother tongues in the UK is that they discourage assimilation.
Are there any monglot Bea or Romani communities in Hungary? I assume that every gypsy is bilingual, as are Gaelic or Welsh speakers in the UK. But those languages are associated with distinct territories.
This policy could only benefit the Roma if it gives them more pride in their ethnic identity. At present the Roma population is estimated at 500,000 but only 200,000 declare themselves Roma.
The policy worked well for Hungarians in the C19th, but it wasn’t good for the Hapsburg Empire or racial harmony in the Carpathian Basin.
As the nation is currently hurting financially, is this the time to be entertaining yet more commitments for translating reams of questionably useful bureacratic documentation into additional languages spoken by people who more than likely also speak Hungarian?
Seems like HU just doesn’t want to learn to act frugally.