Oldal 90 [90]
CHAPTER 5 BACKGROUND INFORMATION
HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES:
LANGUAGE USE PATTERNS
Similar to other ethnic immigrant communities, the Hungarian-American
immigrant communities are also subject to language shift, that is, to the
gradual expansion of the use of English as opposed to Hungarian. The most
striking decline in the use of Hungarian can be observed in such domains as
work, as within the family as well as within ethnic Hungarian institutions. This
gradual process eventually leads to the complete language loss of Hungarian
typically completed by the third generation of Hungarian-Americans””. When
examining the process of language shift in Hungarian-American communities,
a chronological order, proceeding toward the most recent period will be
applied.
In the early Hungarian-American communities (New Brunswick, New
Jersey; McKeesport, Pennsylvania; and Bridgeport, Connecticut), people
were living in close-knit communities together with Hungarian fellow
workers close to steel mills and mines, where they worked as unskilled or
semi-skilled workers. For example, in Cleveland, and Delray, most of the
Hungarian immigrants spoke Hungarian with their fellow workers?”®. As they
were employed as unskilled or semi-skilled workers in large steel mills and
mines working in Hungarian clusters, together with their fellow Hungarians,
they did not learn a lot of English and used mainly Hungarian at work and
in the family, as well*”®. Consequently, in terms of their Hungarian language
shift and maintenance patterns, these early settlers were more, consciously or
unconsciously, motivated to maintain their Hungarian culture and Hungarian
language.
Prevalent language shift in the Hungarian-American communities started
with the emergence of the first Hungarian-American second generation. This
generation was born as American citizens, or they grew up in the USA, and
the majority of them were (near) native English speakers.
Although family life as well as the activities of the most important Hungarian
communal organizations (fraternal insurance associations) and churches
were conducted in Hungarian, and second-generation Hungarian-Americans
went to Hungarian schools and could write and speak in Hungarian”, the
227 Csilla Bartha, Nyelvhasználat, nyelvmegtartäs, nyelvcsere amerikai közösségekben, in: Nóra
Kovacs — László Szarka, (eds.), Tér és terep, Tanulmányok az etnicitás kérdésköréből, Buda¬
pest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 2002, 121
228 Papp, Hungarian Americans and Their Communities of Cleveland, 229; Bartha, Social and
linguistic characteristics of immigrant language shift, 413
22° Bartha, Social and linguistic characteristics of immigrant language shift, Acta Linguistica
Hungarica, 413
230 Fishman, Hungarian Language Maintenance in the US, 10; Papp, Hungarian Americans and
Their Communities of Cleveland, 133
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