Hungarian Language Contact Outside Hungary

In Communist times, it was impossible to do sociolinguistic work on Hungarian in contact with other languages. In the short period of time since the collapse of the Soviet bloc, Hungarian sociolinguists have certainly done their very best to catch up. This volume brings together the fruits of their work, some of which was hitherto only available in Hungarian. The reader will find a wealth of information on many bilingual communities involving Hungarian as a minority language. The communities covered in the book are located in countries neighboring Hungary (Austria, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Ukraine) as well as overseas (in Australia and the United States). Several of the chapters discuss material derived from the Sociolinguistics of Hungarian Outside Hungary project. Throughout the book, the emphasis is on how the language use of Hungarian minority speakers has been influenced by the majority or contact language, both on a sociolinguistic macro-level as well as on the micro-level. In the search for explanations, particular attention is given to typological aspects of language change under the conditions of language contact.

Juliet Langman, University of Texas at San Antonio, in Estudios de Sociolinguística Vol. 7(1), 2006:
Hungarian Language Contact Outside Hungary, edited by Anna Fenyvesi presents readers with an impressive array of comparable language contact data with a single focus - Hungarian in contact with multiple languages - in the context of Hungarian as a minority language. The primary strength of this volume rests in the wealth of comparable linguistic as wel as social and demographic data across a range of contact situations.