The Indigenous Status of the Hungarian Language Community in the Carpathian Basin : A Historical and Contemporary Interpretation.

Abstract

The notion of ‘indigenous’ as described in international regulations and resolutions is adjusted to the situation of the Hungarian language community in the Carpathian Basin, with special reference to the Hungarian minorities in the countries along the Hungarian border. The regional communities of the Hungarian minorities beyond the borders should be seen indigenous groups since 1920, with the flexible semantic extension of ‘indigenousness’. Significant parts of the Hungarian language community were annexed to the newly formed non-Hungarian states. The then new state borders cut through natural geographic, and mostly homogenous Hungarian ethnic, ethnographic, regional cultural and dialectal territories. Those left behind the borders became indigenous, while staying on their homeland. This interpretation is based on the linguistic and cultural features of the minorities in question, to point to the human side of their historical developments and present state.