Sociolinguistic practices of the Hungarian community in the Greater Toronto Area
Sociolinguistic practices of the Hungarian community in the Greater Toronto Area

Author(s): Timea Molnár
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Scientia Kiadó
Keywords: Toronto; sociolinguistic practices; Hungarian community in Canada
Summary/Abstract: The present study focuses on the Canadian Hungarian community in the Greater Toronto Area providing a macro sociolinguistic analysis of their language use. First, in order to describe the language contact situation, a brief outline of the historical and demographic data is presented as well as an account of the institutions that play an important role in the preservation of Hungarian as a heritage language in Canada. Second, a more in-depth analysis of the Hungarian community is given based on a sociolinguistic questionnaire developed for the study of Hungarian spoken in the various countries in the Carpathian Basin. The subjects come from Ontario, the province with the largest Hungarian population, and cover three generations, thus providing an opportunity for a cross-generational analysis. The paper focuses on six topics: (1) national identity, (2) mother tongue, (3) locus of acquisition of Hungarian, (4) choice of language based on interlocutors, (5) choice of language in the private spheres, and (6) choice of language in the public spheres. The results show that in spite of the community members’ desire to maintain the heritage language, a shift towards the majority language can be observed through loss of domains of heritage language use among second- and third-generation speakers.

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