István Kemény
Switching Languages
[...]
The 1993/94 national survey
A large-scale process of linguistic assimilation took place between 1971 and 1993. Of those surveyed (who were at least 15 and no longer at school), 89.5 per cent declared themselves Hungarian speakers, 5.5 per cent Beashi speakers and 4.4 per cent Romany speakers. Many of those who had improved their Hungarian could, however, still speak Romany or Romanian. At the close of 1993, 11.3 per cent of adult Gypsies could still speak Beashi and 11.1 per cent Romany. Thus, at that point in time, there were 22,000 in the country whose first language was Romany and another 55,000 speaking it on occasion. The figures for Beashi were 28,000 and 56,000 respectively.
The Beashi and the Vlach Gypsies are bilingual and display the diglossia phenomenon. In their particular case one language is used within the family and in any other entrez nous situation, the other is used for more formal, more official communication. The latter is generally used in teaching, in public offices, or on the job, that is when communicating with those of a different language. However, it is also used within the community when they are talking about school, the authorities, or the place of employment.
Switching from Beashi or Romany to Hungarian as the first language was a process within the diglossia phenomenon.
Such changes are not unusual in Hungary. Thus, between the 1960 and the 1996 census, the number of those who gave Romanian as their first language declined from 15,787 to 8,730, Slovak from 30,690 to 12,745. In an earlier period, in the fifty years between 1880 and 1930, the number of Slovaks living within the present borders of Hungary declined from 213,849 to 104,819.
Linguistic assimilation occured earlier too, also amongst the Roma, but starting with the second half of the sixties, the process speeded up.
Forced industrialisation first produced full empoyment and, later, a labour shortage. As a consequence the number of the Roma in steady jobs grew by leaps and bounds. By 1971, 75 per cent of Beashi men worked in mines, in foundries, factories, road construction or in the building industry, in other words somewhere where communication was in Hungarian. All the week they stayed in workers' hostels or similar accomodation, where Hungarian was spoken and they spoke Hungarian.
Steady jobs and incomes for the Roma facilitated the liquidation of the decisive majority of Roma colonies between 1965 and 1985. At the time of the 1971 survey, 74 per cent of the Vlach Gypsies and 48 per cent of the Beashi lived in colonies that were isolated ghettoes in peasant villages. By the time of the 1993 survey these proportions had declined to 4.9 per cent for the Vlach and 1.1 per cent for the Beashi.
Leaving the colony put an end to membership of the traditional community, it questioned ancient customs, robbing them of their meaning, quotidian contact with the Hungarian majority became the rule, and speaking Hungarian throughout the day and every day became unavoidable. It was in those years that pediatric and childcare services were established and contact between Roma families and child care officers, pediatricians and general practitioners became regular.
Schools and kindergardens had the greatest influence. Early in the sixties some of the Vlach Gypsy and Beashi children stayed away from school altogether, and school attendance really only became compulsory for everybody at the end of the sixties and early in the seventies. At the time of the 1971 survey, a quarter of all Gypsy children completed their basic education in general school.
In this whole period the language of instruction in schools and kindergardens was Hungarian. Furthermore, the children were forbidden to speak either Romany or Beashi. The first experience a Vlach Gypsy or Beashi child associated with school was not understanding what was said to him. His ongoing and basic experience was that he suffered because of his own first language: he would have got on much better if he had been able to speak Hungarian as well as all the other children did when he started school. The obvious conclusion drawn by adult Roma was that their children must be spared such suffering and that therefore they ought to start speaking Hungarian to them as soon as possible.
Switching to Hungarian within the home was not necessarily a decision taken deliberately. The children spoke Hungarian at school in or out of class. They also spoke Hungarian outside school. At home they used Hungarian when relating what had happened at school, just as their parents used Hungarian when speaking about work or any business transacted on Hungarian terms. Making a living, survival, leisure, taking part in everyday village life all gradually, and almost unperceived, put their stamp on language use.
Gábor Fleck and Tünde Virág, in their paper on the Beashi of Gilvánfa, identified three language strategies. The "reconciled" displayed relatively slow but continuous intergenerational language mortality, while the "strategic changers" were characterised by deliberate intragenerational language change. The "function creators", on the other hand, instrumentalised the Beashi language and tradition, as creators of political prestige and a source of income. Young people at Gilvánfalva attended courses aimed at a revival of the Beashi language and the creation of Beashi literacy. Attendance at such courses was a temporary source of income, and thus important for them, but they hardly, if ever, used Beashi outside the classroom. Factors making for language change proved stronger and more lasting than those which put a brake on them.
But let us return to the nature and consequences of language mortality. The children find themselves caught up in institutionalised education at the early age of three. Kindergardens, like schools, require the use of Hungarian. Out of school, children spend most of their time in the streets with their school and kindergarden friends, and not at home with their families. In that environment the use of Hungarian is just about exclusive. Since Hungarian is learnt within the cohort, the knowledge of the language is bound to be gappy. Thus Hungarian is not learnt at school, but from the cohort, and not properly, or sufficiently well.
It is also common knowledge that, as regards the completion of the general school course, what matters in the case of Roma children is language. 22.9 per cent of Romungro children do not complete nor do 41.6 per cent of Beashi and 48.2 per cent of the Romany. The principal reason for the poor performance of the Beashi and Vlach Gypsy children is that at the age of six or seven many hardly speak Hungarian. As well known, what gives rise to anxiety amongst the majority of Roma children is that long-term unemployment is the predictable fate of those who do not complete the general school course.
The answer to such problems could be-and should be-a three-year bilingual kindergarden, where Beashi or Romany are not despised (let alone barred) but exist on an equal footing, if necessary even enjoying priority, where the children learn Hungarian properly, having a good command of it by the time they start school. What is needed is a sufficient number of kindergarden teachers who have some familiarity with Beashi and/or Romany and who are properly trained to turn such kindergardens into child-friendly places. Such kindergardens can only be established if Beashi or Vlach Gypsies parents want them. The matter is relatively simple in hamlets where all the children are Beashi or Vlach and somewhat more difficult in villages with a mixed population. Some sort of segregation appears rational where the children speak two or three different languages at home, given two conditions: that the parents agree, and that the kindergardens prove successful, that is that the segregated kindergardens themselves create the conditions allowing segregation to cease after three years.
The language of schools is the language of the middle-classes, children from working-class and peasant homes are therefore under a handicap when they start school. This goes for the Roma too, only more so, even if Hungarian is their first language. But school examines the child on progress in culture as a whole, teaches only half of it, leaving the rest to the family. Furthermore, this more essential part of culture is not found in textbooks and could therefore, most appropriately, be called concealed culture, and more of this concealed culture is passed on to their children by members of the professions than by working-class parents. Given all this, we may add that a Roma child receives least of all of this concealed culture.
Basil Bernstein first formulated a theory on the language use of different social classes. A brief summary of his views appeared in Hungarian in 1971, in 1972 Mária Pap and Csaba Pléh reported on their own quantitative research on the connection between speech and social status. Allow me to note that, as the first in Hungary, at an international sociological conference held in September 1969, I drew attention to the way in which handicaps at school were related to the language habits of a social class.
The report on the 1971 research pro-ject also mentioned other features in the bringing up of Roma children. "There is more intimacy in the Roma parent-child relationship and less aggression than is the case in the average Hungarian family. That, however, is in no way to the advantage of a Roma child at school, only the disadvantages of growing up in a Roma home are effective there." Roma children are much freer at home. That, in a Hungarian school today, is read as being less disciplined. It should be added that in a Roma home children are generally treated as more grown up and more equal. This equality is clearly unacceptable in Hungarian schools today.
In 1971 it was also clear that the speech of Roma children differed from that of middle-class children and of schools in more than structure: it not only lacked all the more abstract concepts, their lexical range was different, lacking the names of a multitude of concrete objects, no wonder since they were not familiar with the objects themselves.
In the seventies and eighties Zita Réger published a number of papers drawing attention to the fact that the pre-school language socialisation of Roma children lacked an important aspect that kick-started literacy for others: they had no books of fairy tales, no lavishly illustrated cardboard folders for small children: in other words, no books.
Kindergardens and schools exist in Hungary which are well able to cope with linguistic challenges, those with which bilingual Roma children are confronted, as well as those the Romungro have to cope with. It would be good if such kindergardens and schools and the curricula they use could be pinpointed and if these curricula could be made available and recommended to kindergardens and schools with Roma pupils.
The flip side of the coin is no better known. Some of the Roma children spend three years in a kindergarden, others two, others again only the compulsory pre-school year, and there is a fourth group who do not go near a kindergarden at any time. There are no data on the Roma membership of particular cohorts in either schools or kindergardens. Up to the 1992-1993 school year, schools recorded the number of Roma amongst their pupils. The methods by which those data were obtained were prohibited by data protection legislation. In 1994 Gábor Kertesi submitted a proposal which would have made it possible to record data on Roma pupils, their numbers and educational progress, as well as the educational institutions they attended without infringing human rights or data protection provisions: the data protection people approved, but the proposal was nevertheless not implemented.
[...]
Things began to change at the end of the eighties and even more so after 1989. The 1993 survey showed that 3 per cent of the 20 to 29 year olds had obtained the secondary school-leaving certificate. This was more than 1-2 per cent, but only just. Major changes were, however, noted by the segregation survey recently completed by Gábor Havas, Ilona Liskó and the present author. Before citing the data I must stress that our survey concerned general (primary) schools, we obtained no data on secondary school-leaving-certificate holders, only on the proportion of Roma children who obtained admission to trades or academic secondary schools.
In the 1998/99 scholastic year 15.4 per cent of Roma children who completed eight stages of the general school course attended a trade, and 3.6 per cent an academic secondary school, that is a total of 19 per cent in a secondary school that granted the érettségi, secondary school-leaving certificate, 56.5 per cent a school for apprentices. 15 per cent were not attending school and 9 per cent were in the type of special school which is not much more than nothing. Compared to the past, these are great changes indeed.
One of the explanations is that admission to secondary schools is much easier. The number of places in academic secondary schools grew from 106,000 in 1985 to 221,000 in 1996. The growth in the number of places was 40 per cent in academic and 70 per cent in vocational secondary schools. Because of what is called normative financing, teachers in secondary schools have a financial interest in admitting as many pupils as possible, and in the ongoing attendance of those admitted. The number of non-Roma among general school leavers has, however, steadily declined since 1989. In 1989 it was still 171,000, but only 114,000 in 1999. A result of this was that in 1989, 47.4 per cent of them were admitted to secondary schools, but 70.6 per cent in 1999. There were fewer applicants for more places, and under such circumstances even Roma children were admitted, just as Roma had been given jobs in mines and foundries twenty years earlier. I ought to stress right at the start that standards of admission were lowered to maintain numbers. It was no longer as important to be white and non-Roma, nor was it as important to know something. This was even truer when it came to retaining pupils, only more so.
I ought to mention that for fifteen years or more now standards in general schools have also been steadily declining. There is less insistence on children repeating the year and they put up with the fact that pupils know less and less.
It is part of this general trend that 17- or 18-year-old Roma children are given their (satisfactory) report even if this is not backed by knowledge, and it is part of the same trend that in future years a growing number will receive it in much the same way at fourteen or fifteen, knowing little.
It is becoming ever easier to gain admission to secondary schools and to complete the course. This suits the children since there is less homework, it suits parents, since family allowances and further education grants are paid, and while the children are at school, they are not unemployed. It suits the schools and the teachers' unions, since it avoids having to make teachers redundant, it suits the government because there are fewer unemployed but also because the more attend secondary school and the more obtain the érettségi the secondary-school-leaving certificate, the closer we approach the West where all this happened long ago. And it suits all those too who favour the integration of the Roma since surely all those families must be considered integrated where the children complete secondary schools. And it suits those too who don't like to speak of integration because of the vagueness of the term but who would like to see less hatred between Roma and non-Roma, since it is certainly true that the process here outlined makes for less hatred.
The way I see things then is that, in the future, a growing number of Roma children will make it to secondary schools, of the vocational variety in the first place, but also to academic secondary schools, and the drop-out rate too will be smaller than in the past.
To get back to our research data: in the 1996/97 scholastic year 13 per cent of general school-leavers registered with a secondary school, 16 per cent in 1997/98 and 19 per cent in 1998/99.
I should add too that we did our field work in schools where the Roma pupils accounted for 25 per cent or more of all pupils in 1992, in other words in poor schools. But when it comes to continuing education it is not poor schools that make up the vanguard. It is just about certain that the figures are better for those Roma children who attend better schools in circumstances where one cannot speak of segregation. Countrywide 70.6 per cent continue their education in secondary schools; in the schools where we did our field work only 56.5 per cent of the Roma did so. These figures too support my argument.
Thus the gates of secondary schools are wide open. But the promise can only become reality if the parents exploit this opportunity. On a national average 70 per cent of parents did so, recognising that it is difficult to survive on the labour market with just an eight-stage general school course or apprentice training, that finding a job is becoming more difficult every year. But a far smaller percentage of Roma parents opt for a secondary school education for their children. We questioned parents too on what they planned for their children. On a broad average 22 per cent chose secondary school, 57 per cent apprentice training, 4 per cent opted for immediate employment and 17 per cent had no clear idea about what they wanted their children to do. In this respect the social background made a difference. In Budapest 37 per cent of parents chose a secondary school, in Transdanubia 29 per cent, elsewhere the figures were below average. 56 per cent of parents with a secondary-school-leaving certificate and 33 per cent of those with skilled-worker training opted for a secondary school for their children. The ratio for others was smaller.
One could say that it is something to boast about that one in five of Roma parents opted for a secondary school and one might well ask why this happened in the mid-nineties. But one might equally ask why this happened so late in the case of non-Roma parents. One answer might be that earlier such a choice would not have been rational. Full employment was the rule, there was no need to feel anxious about a job. An érettségi certificate did not mean more money. It was in the eighties that educational qualifications started to count in finding a job and in the size of the pay-packet. In the nineties they became crucial.
In that light, one might well ask why only 22 per cent nationwide, and only 37 per cent in Budapest? It would appear that time is needed to prompt a rational sizing up of the situation, more time at a greater distance from Budapest, and more time still if you are less well off, or if you are illiterate or semi-illiterate.
Nor should one forget that attending a secondary school is more cumbersome and more expensive if you live in a village than for town-dwellers, even more trouble and even more costly if your village is off the beaten track. An even greater role is played by the fact that some families are in such a financial situation that attendance at secondary school is simply out of the question.
In spite of all this I think it likely that secondary school attendance will spread amongst the Roma just as it did amongst the non-Roma. That it should spread to the whole age-group is, however, out of the question. I think it unlikely that a higher ratio than 70 per cent will come about, if what we have in mind is not merely starting but also finishing. More than 80 per cent is, I should say, out of the question. The same ratios may eventually be recorded for the Roma, but only after much time has passed.
Whatever the future may hold, the present position is such that the standard of living of one in five Roma families permits secondary school attendance by their children, allowing for ambitions in this field, as in others, that are comparable to those entertained by non-Roma. What counts, however, is that in one in four families, the children are not even able to complete the full general school course, and in a further 30 per cent not within the proper time, and only in such a way that the certificate they are given when leaving school suggests greater knowledge and skills than they actually acquired.
The educational standards of non-Roma are different. It is characteristic of the bottom third that their children do not make it to secondary school. At the top, 17.5 per cent of those between 18 and 22 participate in some form of tertiary education, 108,000 attending universities and 171,000 colleges of higher education.
Which means that the gap between the Roma and the non-Roma has grown no smaller in forty years.
István Kemény
conducted pioneering field work and large-scale surveys on the Roma and on poverty in the 1960s and 1970s. His writings, once circulated as samizdat or published abroad, have now been published in Hungary.
