Seite 83 [83]
SOCIOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH ON HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES
communities from the perspective of Hungarian language maintenance
efforts. In his monograph, Fishman’* examined the Hungarian-American
community’s organizational efforts aimed at maintaining the Hungarian
language and traditions from the beginning (the 1870s) to the 1960s with
special emphasis on the traditional Hungarian-American ethnic organizations
such as Hungarian Catholic Churches, schools, the media, and special
Hungarian events. He claims that Hungarian-American communities — alike
other central and eastern European immigrant groups — have been caught
in the supposedly contradictory dilemma of either maintaining their ethnic
traditions and language or trying to be fully integrated in mainstream society.
The success of the Hungarian-American community’s maintenance efforts was
exacerbated by the American society’s stigma attached to these immigrants
because of their rural background and later because of Hungary’s political
affiliation with Germany. Fishman claims that with the emergence of the
first second-generations, Hungarian maintenance efforts already weakened,
however, these second-generation members could still read, write, and speak in
Hungarian. The position of the Hungarian language was further undermined
by the post-World War II period and by the third generation of Hungarian¬
Americans; Hungarian language loss had been complete, even though this
generation did not feel the stigma attached to previous Hungarian generations.
Parallel to this, the use of Hungarian in the traditional ethnic Hungarian
organizations had also been on the decline. Fishman points out that the most
successful Hungarian organization in cherishing Hungarian traditions and
language has been the Hungarian Scout Organization. The significance of
Fishman’s monograph is that it was the first comprehensive study analyzing
the process of Hungarian maintenance efforts both from a historical and a
sociolinguistic perspective.
Later research concentrated on particular communities, especially on the
‘old-timer’ Hungarian-American communities founded by the early waves of
Hungarian-American immigrants. Papp published her research findings on
Hungarian-Americans and their communities in Cleveland, Ohio’”. Examining
this particular community from the perspective of Hungarian language
use, she has also pointed out that although second-generation speakers of
Hungarian were perfectly bilingual; the concept of Hungarian for them had
already changed. However, it was World War II that significantly weakened
Hungarian language use among second-generation speakers. According to her,
50,000 Hungarian-Americans served in the US army during World War II,
the majority of whom after the war did not return to their original Hungarian
4 Fishman, Hungarian Language Maintenance in the US
195 Susan M. Papp, Hungarian Americans and Their Communities of Cleveland, Cleveland,
Cleveland State, 1981
+81 +