Conduction period: May 2014 – February 2015
Goals of the research
Romania signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 1995 and ratified it in 2008. The obligations assumed entered into force on May 1st, 2008. Accordingly, Romania undertook requirements and obligations concerning Hungarian language in seven fields: 1) education, 2) justice, 3) public administration and public services, 4) media, 5) cultural activities and institutions, 6) economic and social life, 7) cross-border relationships.
The goal of the research was to verify the undertakings in the field of public administration and consisted of three parts:
- The research analyzed how the linguistic commitments were integrated into Romanian legislation, what kind of language does Romania provides to Hungarian speakers in public administration, and to which extend these regulations have been implemented.
- An official data request was submitted to each local council, which focused on the implementation mandatory language use requirements. In addition, the online communication of these institutions was analyzed.
- After collecting the data, the results were compared to the results of a similar research, conducted by the Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities, conducted in 2008.
Results of the research in a nutshell
Around 40 percents (130 from the 324) local councils responded positively to our request. The situation of Hungarian language use in public administration is compiled in the following table. For a better overview we compared our results to the ones of the research from 2008 conducted by the Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities.
Publications, presentations and press releases until now on this topic
Publications:
- Toró, Tibor: Egy helyben topogva? Kisebbségi nyelvi jogok alakulása Romániában 2008 és 2015 között. MAGYAR KISEBBSÉG: NEMZETPOLITIKAI SZEMLE 21: 2, 18-53. , 36 p. (2016)
- Toró, Tibor: Detached implementation: Discourse and practice in minority language use in Romania. Language Policy 19, 5–29 (2020)
Press releases: