Experts in their fields from Hungary and neighbouring countries gave presentations on questions of language and literature, on language learning among Hungarian minorities abroad and on the history of the Roma in Burgenland after WWII.
Anna Kolláth of the University of Maribor, Slovenia, told the conference that dual language laws in her country had resulted in positive discrimination for the some 7,000 ethnic Hungarians living there. But she noted that there were still problems, for example, although the state requires dual language instruction from pre-school to college in the area where the Hungarian minority is present, Hungarian speakers are still moved into classes with Slovenian speakers for the last year of secondary school.
István Csernicskó, a teacher at a college in an area of Ukraine with a big Hungarian minority, said Hungarian speakers who took final examinations in Ukrainian received very different marks than when they took the exams in Hungarian.
László Molnár Csikós gave a talk on the unique situation of the Hungarian language in the Voivodina region of Serbia. Szilvia Szoták gave a presentation on speech in the Burgenland region.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
