Language Research

Until the end of 1996, the so-called minority problem of Hungarians in Romania was more or less the creation of politicians and radical ethnic leaders. Both groups could refer to all kinds of injustice and discrimination in the past, committed over a period of several decades. Such acts led to feelings of superiority, acts of revenge, etc.

Since 1991, Romania's national minorities have been calling for the adoption of a minority law. The political representation of the Hungarian national community, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (DAHR) submitted the text of a concrete draft in 1993 (Draft Law on National Minorities and Autonomous Communities). The government at that time failed to deal with the proposal. This despite the fact that upon Romania's 1993 admission as a member to the Council of Europe, the Council's Parliamentary Assembly had stipulated such an obligation, which Romania also promised to fulfill.

Since 1990, Romania's fourteen officially recognized Churches have been asking for the drafting of a law on church affairs which would guarantee the right to run a network of religious native-language schools. The lack of such a network is especially disadvantageous from the perspective of the Hungarian population.

The results of the 1996 elections created a new situation for the Hungarian community in Romania. The relationship between Romania and Hungary has improved. The Hungarian General Consulate in Cluj was reopened. The Romanian Parliament ratified the agreement on the mutual recognition of university degrees. A joint inter-governmental committee was established, and several bilateral documents on cooperation at the ministry level were signed.

The participation of the Hungarian minority's political organization, the DAHR, in the government coalition offers new, previously untested opportunities. By coming into a position of political power, the Alliance can participate in the management of the country and attempt to achieve its goals with greater chances of success. The acceptance of the responsibility of coalition governance represents in several respects progress for the Hungarians.

After Victor Ciorbea's resignation in March 1998, the coalition partners were more reluctant to talk about the issue. Still, the DAHR remains a member of the ruling coalition.

A government decree on Hungarian-language minority education permits students in state-funded primary and secondary schools to be taught in their native language. The only exception to this decree is the mandatory teaching of secondary school courses on the history and geography of Romania. The new education law adopted on July 1 of 1999, after three years of delay, only partly satisfies the educational needs of Transylvania's ethnic Hungarians. The law ensures vocational education at all levels and the entrance examinations in the Hungarian language. It makes it possible to study the Romanian language in the framework of a special program in primary schools and with the use of special textbooks in grades five to eight. In regions with small settlements and scattered minorities, the law allows native-language classes below the established minimums. It grants churches not only the right to train the teachers they need but also the right to provide secular education as well, albeit in the form of private institutions.

The law also allows the establishment of Hungarian-language groups, sections, colleges and faculties in higher education. On the other hand, the law is restrictive with regard to the establishment of higher education institutions with instruction in the native language. Thus it does not allow the setting up of a Hungarian-language state-funded university but allows only for a multicultural university whose language of instruction is regulated by a separate law.

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Updated (January 2002)

According to the experts from the Council of Europe Romania needs to take further steps to insure the improvement of the situation of it's national minorities, including the Roma minority. The report of the Advisory Committee of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, adopted last year, criticizes the unsatisfactory status of the Romas in education system as well as the persistence of police brutality cases.

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Updated (September 2003)

CONTINUING PROBLEMS WITH MINORITY LANGUAGE USE IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Use of minority languages in public administration is an unresolved issue in Romania. According to the law, a language of an ethnic minority must be used in public administration in addition to Romanian if at least 20 percent of the municipality's population are members of this minority. Some Mayor's Offices have been delaying the implementation of this law as they expected the data from the last census.

The final official data from the 2002 Census were released in July 2003. Both ethnic minority communities and municipalities were looking forward to seeing the figures in order to use them as a serious argument in local public administration.

Before 1997 bilingual public signs and the use of minority languages in council offices were only incidental. They were characteristic mainly of the localities with more than 50 percent of minority population, especially in almost purely Hungarian towns and villages in eastern Transylvania.

Government Emergency Decree No. 206/2001 guaranteed local councilors the right to speak their mother tongue at the council meetings and to hire employees who speak the language of the local minority in those localities where such minority constitutes at least 20 percent of the population. Bilingual public signs were supposed to be placed on public offices, on the roads and in railway stations. This Decree; however, was only partly applied, because it contained no sanctions against those, who did not put it into practice.

Law No. 215/2001 on Public Administration confirmed the former decree, while; this time included also the necessary sanctions. Dozens of bilingual road signs in Hungarian, German, Serbian and Roma have been put up since.

Some municipalities; however, still defy the law with a tacit agreement of higher authorities. Mayors of villages claim that they lack money for new bilingual signs and for hiring the employees speaking the language of the local minority.

The outcome of the 2002 Census was anticipated mainly in those areas where it was uncertain whether the local minority would reach a twenty-percent threshold. According to the 1992 Census, in the towns like Kolozsvár/Cluj, Élesd/Ale°d and Kürtös/Curtici, the Hungarian-speaking citizens were entitled to benefit from the law, as they constituted from 21 to 23 percent of the population.

In ILesd, a town in Bihar/Bihor county (western Transylvania), where the proportion of the Hungarian minority fell from 22 percent in 1992 to 19 percent in 2002, the local council decided to keep the bilingual signs, even if it was not compulsory any more.

A similar situation created the high tension in Kolozsvár, Romania's second most important city, and a center of Transylvania. Since 1992 Mr. Funar has repeatedly declared that no bilingual signs would be seen in Kolozsvár while he was a mayor. He immediately rejected any request coming to his office if it bore a bilingual stamp.

In spite of the fact that the city had 22.8 percent of ethnic Hungarian population according to the 1992 Census, Mr. Funar failed to apply both the Emergency Decree and the Law on Local Administration. Between March 7, 2002 and July 2003, he could have been fined for it, but no higher authority enforced this.

On March 7, 2002, the local council decided to erect new road signs with the Romanian (Cluj-Napoca), Hungarian (Kolozsvár) and German (Klausenburg) name of the city on them, irrespective of the minority proportion. The mayor's office failed to carry out this decision even though the mayor risked a fine or an imprisonment up to five years.

Due to a different methodology of collecting data, emigration, ethnic assimilation and a negative birth rate, the results of the 2002 Census showed that Kolozsvár has only 18.96 percent of ethnic Hungarians. Funar announced in a press release that this put an end to the debate on minority language use in the city.

The bilingual public signs were put up in 98 percent of the localities with a twenty-percent threshold of Hungarian population, but there are regions like Cluj, Sibiu or Maramure° counties, where up to thirty percent of the localities entitled to it still lack bilingual signage.

Source: Eurolang New, Kolozsvár/Cluj, September 26, 2003, by Áron Balló, http://217.136.252.147/webpub/eurolang/pajenn.asp?ID=4401

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Updated (April 2006)

NEW FIGURES SHOW THAT ETHNICITY IS THE CHIEF BASE FOR DISCRIMINATION IN ROMANIA

Most registered complaints on discrimination have an ethnic basis according to recently revealed government figures in Romania. The president of the National Anti-Discrimination Agency (CNAD) said at a press conference in Cluj/Kolozsvár that his agency had received almost 400 complaints mainly on ethnic and social discrimination in 2005.

He said that, among other complaints, thirty-nine referred to discrimination made on a clear ethnic basis and another eighty-five were connected to some kind of ethnic discrimination including language ones.

Out of those received, the CNAD did not find any discrimination in the complaint made by the Bolyai Initiative Committee (CIB) on the fact that the Central University Library in Cluj/Kolozsvár had no bilingual signs on its buildings. However, they recommended the library to place Hungarian signs in addition to Romanian ones to be in tune with the multilingual nature of the institution.

Moreover, this committee set also a complaint against the methodology of teaching the Romanian language at the same level to both Romanians and ethnic minorities. The request from different minority groups in the country, supported by the CIB, was to be allowed to study the Romanian language from special textbooks made for non-native speakers so that they could learn more effectively.

Source: Eurolang News, March 31,2006 by Aron Ballo www.eurolang.net

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