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THE HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITIES IN NORTH CAROLINA Table 17: Media-related language use in GI vs. G2 groups What language do you use when ...? Hungarian | English Mixed reading books (G1) 2.2 2.5 N/A reading books (G2) 1 3 N/A reading internet sites (Gl) 1.9 2.7 0.2 reading internet sites (G2) 1.2 2.8 0.2 exchanging emails with Hungarians in the US (G1) 2.8 1 0.3 exchanging emails with Hungarians in the US (G2) 1.8 1.8 0.7 writing notes (shopping lists, to do lists) 21 19 1 (G1) writing notes (shopping lists, to do lists) 09 2.6 02 (G2) talking on the phone with Hungarians in the US (G1) 3.4 0.6 0.7 talking on the phone with Hungarians in the US (G2) 2.6 1.6 0.9 writing birthday cards (G1) 2.2 2 0.5 writing birthday cards (G2) 1 2.6 0.5 The second generation is markedly younger than the first generation. The majority of second-generation subjects (47%) are younger than 20 years, while the majority of first-generation subjects (40%) are aged between 21 and 40. The concept of mother tongue is also different for G1 and G2 speakers. Only 29% of G2 subjects claim Hungarian as their mother tongue as opposed to the overwhelming majority (97%) of G1 speakers. Parallel to other bilingual immigrant communities?°, the perceived competence of the heritage language, that is, Hungarian, also significantly declines among G2 speakers. While the majority of Gl speakers claim (62%) to have stronger Hungarian competence than English, no G2 speaker has stated so. Claimed ethnic identity is also 256 Jim Hlavac, Second-generation Speech: Lexicon, Code-switching, and Morpho-syntax of Croatian-English Bilinguals, Peter Lang, Bern, 2003; Kutlay Yagmur — Mehmet Ali Akinci, Language use, choice, maintenance, and ethnolinguistic vitality of Turkish speakers in France: intergenerational differences, International Journal of the Sociology of Language 164 (2003), 107-128; Penelope Gardner-Chloros — Lisa McEntee-Atalianis — Katerina Finnis, Language attitudes and use in transplanted setting: Greek Cypriots in London, International Journal of Multilingualism 2 (2) (2005), 52-80; Morad AlSahafi — Gary Barkhuizen, Language use in an immigrant context: The case of Arabic in Auckland, New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics, 12 (1) (2006), 51-69; * 107 +
