Oldal 91 [91]
OCR
HUNGARIAN-ÁMERICAN IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES use of Hungarian significantly declined in the second generation outside the boundaries of the family*!. First-generation community leaders realized that the exclusive use of Hungarian would prompt fewer second generation speakers to take part and an interest in Hungarian communal life, so threatened by the potential loss of Hungarian culture in the successive generations, they tried to meet the new linguistic and social needs of the second generation. That is why the traditional Hungarian community organization, the Verhovay Fraternal Insurance Association, established its first English speaking branch in Cleveland, Ohio in 1934???, World War II and the immediate post-war period further weakened the position of the Hungarian language among second-generation HungarianAmericans but strengthened their American loyalty and identity”** accelerating the process of language shift. The decline of the Hungarian language, in the macro-social domains such as work, administration, etc., and in the peer communities such as school continued. Even though second-generation speakers learned Hungarian at home, they had a limited Hungarian competence, particularly, in terms of their Hungarian vocabulary which was confined to the household and other everyday activities. This tendency was infused by a redefined function of Hungarian within the family. Second-generation speakers start to use Hungarian less often at home, and almost exclusively English in their peer communities. The ‘reciprocal’ type of communication, that is, children responding in English to their parents’ Hungarian***, becomes prevalent especially when second-generation speakers start school and become more exposed to peer pressure. We have seen that it is the second generation where the use of Hungarian significantly changes. In the Hungarian-American communities, we can see an accelerating process of shifting from Hungarian to English. The main and almost exclusive domain where Hungarian is used is within the family, and mostly with the parents, though children respond in English to their parents’ Hungarian. Today, 88.3% of the people professed to be of Hungarian-American ancestry (US Census Bureau 2000) use only English at home. As Papp has pointed out based on his comprehensive sociological research conducted among presentday Hungarian-Americans, “the younger generations are increasingly unlikely #1 Fishman, Hungarian Language Maintenance in the US, 10 232 Puskas, Ties that Bind, Ties that Divide, 243 233 Fishman, Hungarian Language Maintenance in the US, 12; Papp, Hungarian Americans and Their Communities of Cleveland, 135; Puskas, Ties that Bind, Ties that Divide, 254 334 Kontra, Fejezetek a South Bend-i magyar nyelvhaszndlatbol, 27 + 89 «
