Language conflicts in Slovakia between 1990 and 1995

What is it about?

After the Velvet Revolution of 1989 there were hopes that the interethnic conflicts would decrease in Slovakia. However, the adoption of the Law on the Official Language of the Slovak Republic in October 1990 curtailed the linguistic rights of the 600,000 indigenous Hungarians and other minorities. By reviewing two recent Hungarian books published in Slovakia, this article shows some of the social, political, and linguistic aspects of the conflicts regarding official language use, bilingual city-limit signs, and non-Slovak personal names in Slovakia between 1990 and 1995.Languagee

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Why is it important?

This review article makes accessible to English readers some of the points of Slovak--Hungarian language conflicts in the 1990s.