Hungary
Key Findings overall
Hungary is known as a monolingual country; however, the reality is different. It is impossible to give an exact answer to the question of whether plurilingualism in the classroom and multilingualism in society at large are acknowledged in Hungary as there are several educational forms and different types of schools. Even within the same type of schools, there are huge differences in terms of the efficiency of education. There are three main and two additional types of educational programmes for minorities: the three main types are mother-tongue, bilingual, language teaching, with the additional types being academic improvement education for Gypsy minorities and supplementary minority education.
There are public schools which specialise in supporting foreign language teaching and bilingual education. In these institutions support for and education of languages other than the national language usually takes place at a high level, whereas general education is characterised by a lower level in this respect.
Most Roma and Deaf people in Hungary share a number of common features. Coupled with a long tradition of being evaluated in terms of the degree of recognition of their language (Romani and Sign Language respectively), these features include a lower or higher degree of social separation, which is linked to a low employment rate, poor social situation, few labour market opportunities, and deep poverty. All of these are closely related to the low level of education and the high drop-out rate from public education of a significant part of the Roma and Deaf youth.
The lack of immigrant languages in education, business and public administration is mainly due to the relatively low number of immigrants. Most are ethnic Hungarians speaking Hungarian as their mother tongue, coming from neighbouring countries. The proportion of foreign students in public education is also low1.
Although the legal framework of support for minority languages and foreign language education is well-established, much remains to be done in the field of practical implementation of multilingualism2. Statistics provided by the Special Eurobarometer 243 in 2006 indicate that only 42% of the population can actually carry out a conversation in at least one foreign language as opposed to the EU average of 56%3.
1 Illés Katalin – Medgyesi Anna (2009): Migráns gyermekek oktatása. Menedék – Migránsokat Segítő egyesület. Az Európai Unió Európai Integráció Alapjának támogatásával megvalósuló program kiadványa. http://www.menedek.hu/files/20090831konyv_belso.pdf
2 Edit H. Kontra – Csilla Bartha (2010): Foreign language education in Hungary: Concerns and controversies. In: Sociolinguistica 24/2010. pp. 61-84. at p. 68.
3 European Commission (2006): Europeans and their languages 2005.
ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_243_en.pdf
Promising initiatives and pilots
There are many promising initiatives and innovative developments in the provision of the Deaf and Hungarian Sign Language as well as Romani and Boyash languages in Hungary. These include: the implementation of the new Sign Language Law; two new programmes at Eötvös Loránd University - HSL BA and Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Deaf Learners; The Kedves Ház (Nice House) in Nyírtelek; the ‘Pedellus programme’ in Ózd; the Dr. Ámbédkar School project in Sajókaza; and the Gandhi Public Foundation and High School in Pécs1. In the field of foreign language education, the World–Language Project must be mentioned, which operated from 2003 to 2007 and took the form of several sub-programmes2.
Although linguistic assimilation has been taking place within minority communities, one can experience positive attitudes towards multilingual skills, where younger generations are highly motivated in learning different foreign languages. The Russian language also has a growing market value, which is a strong evidence for the fact that Hungary succeeded in overcoming the ideological bias towards past practices of foreign language education.
1 Bartha Csilla – Hámori Ágnes (2011): Cigány közösségek, nyelvi sokszínűség és az oktatás nyelvi kihívásai – magyarországi helyzetkép. In: Európai Tükör, XI. évfolyam, 3. szám, pp. 107-131.
http://www.kormany.hu/download/7/1b/20000/europai_tukor_2011_03.pdf
2 Fischer Márta – Öveges Enikő (2008): A Világ–Nyelv pályázati csomag háttere és megvalósítása (2003-2006). Áttekintő tanulmány. http://www.okm.gov.hu/letolt/vilagnyelv/vny_fischer_oveges_090115.pdf
