Talk:Language law of Slovakia

Quotations
Wlad, you deleted almost all quotes. The article will, in any case, contain the opinions of those criticizing the law as this topic is very well documented all around the world. If not in form of quotations then I will write it in narrative text. But I thought that would be what others might say is POV, and tried to be as neutral as possible, by stating exact words. Qorilla (talk) 20:21, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I reverted the quotes back to make their gradual rephrasing possible, but I think it would be more than wise to transcribe only quotes with some actual substance. The name-calling is POV either way. "Unacceptable, unprecedented" and blah, blah, blah. If someone calls it unprecedented, it is far better to find a reliable source which confirms it not just transliterate the quote. Unacceptable is a POV, and is not particularly useful in an encyclopedia article. And so on. Wladthemlat (talk) 20:56, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Their opinion is in itself the topic, so stating that someone said it is unacceptable by him, is greatly encyclopedic! I rewrote them to be narrative, according to the guideline you referred to. But again, this can not mean that we suppress or hide the views of the criticizers, that are not just some last guys in a pub but EU and Hungary-leaders and analysts of Hungarian or international institutes. Qorilla (talk) 21:06, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

A joke?
I hope this article is a joke. It contains only opinions of Hungarians, people who have not read the law, lies (such as "critized by the Hungarian population" - I have seen no poll among the "Hungarian population"). How is this possible? Where is the other side? Is this supposed to be some kind of external Jobbik advertisment? All other minorities in Slovakia have expressed no objections whatsover to the law, the Germans have even officially confirmed that the law is an improvement with respect to the previous version. Where are the quotes? Where are the opinions of Slovak representatives? Where are quotes from the text of the law? How is it possible that such a mess is allowed to be published here without any opposition?? Irrespective of this, as anybody can see in the external link, the text of the law says in its first § explicitly that the law does not apply to ethnic minorities, which implies (for those who can read) that any criticism with respect to the rights of Hungarians made by anybody is ridiculous (i.e. wrong in any sense of the word "wrong"), because only a person having no idea of law, unable to read or trying to deceive others can claim that a sentence saying that a law does not apply to minorities implies that the law applies to minorities. Szab (talk) 23:02, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course of course. Why would any Slovak politician, leader do anything against Hungarians or minorities when they love the minorities so much. When a Slovak leader says "Hungarians are the cancer of the Slovak nation, without delay we need to remove them from the body of the nation." it means he loves Hungarians and it's obvious he only wants to help them with the language law as well. But let's see who this government consist of, which parties, which persons, who love minorities to this great extent, one of the parties of the slovak government SNS is frequently described as " ultra-nationalist, right-wing extremist  far-right and neo-fascist (because of its offensive and often racist    statements about the Hungarians, the Roma, Jews and homosexuals)."  One government party leader said the best policy for dealing with the Roma was "a long whip in a small yard."  A Slovak leader who created the present coalition with 2 others called the fascist leader Jozef Tiso "one of the greatest sons of the Slovak nation" and  40 of the 41 city council members in Žilina, where he was mayor, voted to dedicate a plaque honoring Tiso. Of course this is not racism, this is not fascism, it is pure love and helping of minorities above all else. I guess we know what opinions are lacking from the article as well it currently lacks the opinions by these people and their supporters and coalition buddies. Everything they do is because they want to help minorities and improve (!) their situation. It should be noted that any language law, is much better than being beaten with a whip, so the position of minorities in general could not be any better. Hobartimus (talk) 01:48, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh jeez... Please try to realize, that SNS is only one small part of Slovak politics and the Slovak parliament, please try to realize that Slota is not in the govt. and the reason for it is precisely this hate-speech he likes to give every now and then. Horthy isn't denounced in Hungary either, so please, cut this blaming crap and focus on the articles. You are only demonstrating your deep POV and prejudices here. Wladthemlat (talk) 08:52, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * And the purpose of your comment is? Specifically, what does Jozef Tiso, and all your other comments have in common with the contents of the act? It seems to me that you are only trying to push your anti-Slovak propaganda. -- 195.30.17.81 (talk) 22:23, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
 * With out going into anything too deep as far as I know Tiso was hanged as a war criminal and Horthy died of natural causes, and was never even charged let alone convicted as Tiso, but anyway this is not what I wanted to write, but You could help us with something. If you know of an official translation into English of the language law, it would be a good resource that current and future editors can use. In fact as a first try any English translation would be good but an exact one would be ideal. Hobartimus (talk) 10:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * That being only a proof that we were able to deal with our fascist whereas in Hungary they enjoyed a quiet life and silent admiration. Afaik there is no official english translation available on the internet, i will try to find some nevertheless. Wladthemlat (talk) 10:12, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I have to prove you wrong again. Horthy has actially never returned to Hungary, because the ever-so stupid communists would've destroyed him anyway. But he died in Portugal of natural causes, which means even international courts found him innocent (or not guilty). Sure, he did engage in the initial anti-semitic laws (like numerus clausus that was tailored for the Jews), but when the next step became their internation and demise, he didn't allow that. In the meanwhile Tiso was so eager in interning the Jews and sending them to extermination camps that his eagerness surprised even Hitler himself. So Tiso was executed for a reason. And no appraisals from Slovak archbishops and political leaders (Slota and co.) will change this. The thing is, it will just discredit Slovakia in the eyes of the others even more. No matter how many history books will be rewritten in the spirit of an SNS-perceived "Slovak patriotism" and no matter how many of their fascist leaders will be vindicated (like Hlinka amongst others, he just died early enough to avoid the "full process" of fascization to take its toll on him), the people will know the truth. Regardless of what the currently appointed government does in Slovakia. And argumenting with the fact that "Slota doesn't have any functions" is quite sleazy to say at least. Yeah, it's true that Slota doesn't have any positions in the Slovak government, yet he has ministers delegated by his party, namely the SNS. The task of these ministers seems to be to pursue the "national" agenda as perceived by SNS and mainly Slota himself. When I mention Slota to the Slovaks, they mostly dismiss his words with "yeah, he doesn't seem to know what he's talking about and besides, nobody takes him seriously". Unfortunately the truth is that too many people take him seriously, or at least the point of his "outbursts". They are mostly people sympathizing with the "morals" and "values" projected by SNS (their "fans"), but also members of the ruling party of the coalition (SMER). As we shouldn't forget, that the language law was written by Marek Madaric, a prominent member of the Smer. Dusan Caplovic, vice-president of the Slovak parliament for minorities (amongst others) was quoted to say that hundreds of thousands of "so-called" Hungarians are just Gypsies trying to pass as (or claiming themselves to be) Hungarians, offending thereby not only the Hungarians but the Gypsies as well. Interestingly enough, he's also a member of Smer. The Malinova-scandal and the brutal police attack was mishandled by the minister of inferior, Robert Kalinak, one of the "strongest" persons within Smer, probably the closest associate of Robert Fico. Oh, and comrade Fico was the one who almost labeled the president of an allied state, namely Hungary, a persona non grata. You know, even most of the dictators try to handle international diplomatic affair with the utmost care, especially ones with their allies. The leaders of Smer (and their prospects) know well the mentality of Slovaks, which became the most prevalent after WWII and the communist coup: the overwhelming majority of the population is first a nationalist and a communist only after that. This attitude has somewhat changed after 1989: nationalism remained still the no. 1 ideology for these people, but christianity became then second one, pushing communism to the 3rd place. And the thing is, these people form the overwhelming majority (at least about 60% of the population I'd say), some to a lesser degree, but still. These are the people who vote for Fico, Meciar and Slota, the exact one depending on the person's temperament and conscience. Smer fights for the votes of these people every single day apparently by more and more vehemence and nationalism. Disregarding everything and everyone else, including the international public, his own country and mostly the Hungarians. It is funny though that by doing so he hurts the areas where most of the Slovaks live the most: in the past few years up to this megacommunist's crowning as a prime minister, more and more Hungarian were visiting the Tatras, mostly from Hungary. After a while they began to represent a singifficant share of tourists there, so much in fact, the enterpreneurs in the area began to hire Hungarian-speaking staff for that. However as more and more (verbal and physical) attacks became known to the public in Hungary, the number of Hungarian visitors to the Tatras began to dwindle. Then came the language law and the Solyom-affair, and the dwindling became (and will become) a sharp drop. In some areas this meant that up to 50% of the hotel rooms area are going to be empty. Sure, some űheavy-headed "genuine" Slovaks might argue that it's due to the global crisis, but the numbers don't lie: it's mostly the Hungarians who are searching for a better destination to visit (where they don't get the world-famous Slovak anti-Hungarian treatment). CoolKoon (talk) 19:38, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Separating official and non official statements
Opinion by state officials should be given in their own section, this will also help later when trying to identify who said what and in what capacity. Hobartimus (talk) 05:18, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

false statements, or not, in a petition
I have just now removed the following


 * which contains several false and misleading statements,

because it's "original synthesis" at best: no source is given for the assertion that the statements are false and misleading.

Now, somebody might say that no source is necessary; that if X clearly says that Y says Z, whereas Y clearly does not say Z, then what X says is false. There clearly is some merit to such an argument.

A reasoned discussion is welcome below. An edit war is not welcome. -- Hoary (talk) 00:52, 1 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Indeed, I was thinking hard about the inclusion of such claims (and the relevant assertions). But I do believe that some information about it should be included in the article. Unfortunately, it has not been publicized much. The whole petition has not received widespread publicity and as for the claims, well, it is quite possible that it has not been published independently at all. At least I haven't found it anywhere. I learned about the petition on the Economist's forum, in the discussion about the act, so I read the petition and I immediately became gravely suspicious about something rotten in it, as I was not aware of anything to the effect of "inalienable rights" being in the covenant. So I opened it up, did a simple substring search as a 1st approach... and the result was negative. I think I published it in the discussion, but I doubt that anyone has published it besides me. I wrote to the Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences as early as August 2009, but to no avail, nothing has been changed, I have received no reply from them. (Not surprisingly, though, I actually expected that from a Hungarian institution which is merely just another link in a pro-Hungarian propaganda chain.) But I do believe that the inclusion of something like that is quite crucial, as it casts doubt about the whole petition, including its weight and the seriousness of all those signatures. Did they actually know that they were signing? Then there is another thing: I do acknowledge that the phrasing several false and misleading statements could be challenged on the grounds that only 1 such statement was addressed (but it was in plural). One could also argue whether several false or misleading statements would not be more suitable, as the original phrasing suggests that there must be at least 2 such claims that are both false and misleading. However, I feel that both conditions may be satisfied, although it can be quite tenuous: I first evaluated only the 1st part of the sentence for it truth value; it came out as false. Now comes the despicable part, shame on me, I know: aren't they trying to infer something from a false statement which they hold as true? I fear so. Besides, I consider the following rather misleading: Restricting the freedom of language use to this degree is particularly offensive in a member state of the Council of Europe and the European Union, since both the Council of Europe and the European Union respect multilingualism, and also expect their member states to do so. Actually, the act promotes multilingualism (according to Wikipedia's definition; it promotes at least bilingualism), since it essentially states that in certain cases, the Slovak language must be used alongside a minority language. Therefore I made the bold assumption that their conclusion may also be misleading or that the abovementioned quote at the end of the paragraph is misleading. Now comes the other occurrence. The very next paragraph reads as follows: The explicit requirement that any content in a language different from the state language be translated from the state language runs counter to the principle of the equal status of languages that has been long accepted in the science of languages. Thereby the Act violates not only freedom but also equality; it is severely discriminating. I consider this misleading, since it appears to suggest that the explicit requirement that any content in a language different from the state language be translated from the state language is among the provisions of the act, which is false. It does not pertain any content, only some content and only in some specific cases or under some specific circumstances. Thereby the Act violates not only freedom but also equality; it is severely discriminating. is then, technically, non sequitur; in plain English, a load of bunkum. Q.E.D. Besides, there are many other claims and allegation that could be refuted, but these 2 suffice to prove my assertion. In fact, it appears to me that there are more false or misleading statements than correct facts. Which is quite surprising, given that the translated snippets are (largely) correct. On a lighter note, I do realize the nature of Wikipedia and the limits to the inclusion of such claims or assertions. It stinks of original research, all the more that it indeed is my original research. If it had been published in a newspaper, it would be quite simple and straightforward. Perhaps it was wrong to insert it as an "intercalation" into the sentence; perhaps it could be separated into another, completely new paragraph following the one in which the sentence occurs. -- 78.99.175.144 (talk) 01:49, 2 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the comments. What you write does indeed look interesting, but then you rightly point out at the end that it's all describable as "OR" and thus discountable. If you are right in saying that the petition is to a greater or lesser extent based on misinformation (and I am not going to give my own opinion on this) then the world should know about this. One way would I suppose be to raise it at one or other of the web forums on linguistics issues; if you did that, you'd be wise to avoid what would look like gratuitous criticism of the Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. (I'm of course assuming here that, unlike some people who have commented on this kind of thing, you're interested in elucidation and not merely in scoring points.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:29, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I know I may have gone a little too far in my overtly biased criticism of the Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, I realized it when I was writing it, but I have heard so much propaganda on this issue, so many lies, especially on the part of Hungarians, in Slovakia, in Hungary, in Europe, and possibly also in America. And then it really irks you when so many (esp. foreign) sources take all those allegations at face value and then they rev up the scandalmongering... And then it looks like a thousand times repeated lie becoming the truth. Their fierce and concerted attacks, half-truths and lies leave less rather than more room for speculations about their motives. I simply could not believe that the level of science could actually be so low in Hungary that they could stoop to produce such a horrendous and untenable jumble. I therefore suspected that it was merely politically motivated. There has been a lot of misinformation, almost exclusively produced by Hungarians (and their supporters), the Slovak minister of culture has always refuted them patiently, although he also told a lie: there had been a dispute as to what constituted "official communication" and "public communication"; Hungarians claimed that the act would also affect weddings, which could take place in minority languages until then; the minister responded that marriage ceremonies were "civil ceremonies" and that they are not explicitly mentioned in the provisions of the act, so, he claimed, weddings could be conducted in a minority language. However, the term "civil" here merely denotes the opposite of "religious"; it is still an official act, not a "private one", with all the hard legal stuff surrounding it, the seal of the Slovak republic stamped on all the documents, all the officials, etc.—oh, yes, it is very much official! Actually, the dispute was somewhat more obscure, according to the Constitution, roughly speaking, the state authorities may do only what the law allows, whereas the citizens may do whatever the law does not forbid. The Hungarian politician claimed that since it is not mentioned (regulated) anywhere (i.e. not even exempted), the state authorities cannot conduct it in a minority language. The minister claimed, on the other hand, that because it is not regulated anywhere, the citizens may do as they please and conduct it in a minority language. Well, besides their missing the point, their particular dispute is largely irrelevant, because weddings are official acts. The original video is here (WMV streaming) and the complete transcript is here. (I am leaving it here just in case anyone wanted to review it.) But all of this boring verbiage of mine probably ought not to be even included here.
 * Well, posting in on any web forums would be largely useless, at least at this point. You know, "the Hungarians" basically lost the dispute in all significant political arenas or were rebuffed by all relevant institutions, so the interest in it had all but fizzled out by mid-September 2009, or so I think. There will be no fines until the end of this year. And they will not apply to ordinary people, only to legal persons, sole proprietors, and authorities. The ministry must first issue a warning note and only if the subject does not comply with the law within the specified period, a fine will be levied. So, there must be quite a lot of obduracy to get a fine. The amendment was necessary because the act originally did contain provisions on fines, but the later coalition, which included the Party of the Hungarian Coalition, eliminated the provisions, which completely eviscerated the act and turned it into an impotent farce. What is a law without any means for its enforcement? So, this coalition put them back in, and then they took the opportunity to put even more into the amendment. This amendment was necessary because it was not uncommon for local self-governing bodies and authorities in southern Slovakia to put notices only in Hungarian, which is completely incomprehensible to (untrained) Slovaks. This problem could not occur between the Slovak majority and any other minority because the German one is meagre, the Roma people rarely use the Romani language and all the other Slavic languages are largely comprehensible to the average Slovak anyway, esp. the neighboring ones, due to dialect continuum. Taken all in all, I do not think that the act will ever make it to the news. It will soon fall into oblivion, just like the Slovak Press Act (sometimes named as Slovak Press Code). There has been so much scaremongering about how the right of reply will be abused, etc. So far, only 1 case of using the right of reply has been publicized, and only about a year after it was passed almost 1.5 years ago, if my memory serves me well. That said, I would prefer to spend the time on Stormfront baiting Hungarian chauvinists and then indulging in a flame of witful retorts. -- 78.99.175.144 (talk) 09:33, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Hundreds of Hungarian extremists (or not)
The reader is told:


 * The event was attended by several hundred extremists, mostly Hungarian nationals, who expressed their vocal support for a territorial autonomy and chanted "Death to Trianon".

Extremist is merely a convenient word for demonizing those whose opinions are very unlike your own. See this debunking of the word (from Steven Poole's Unspeak).

Were they perhaps "extremist" by virtue of the fact that they "expressed their vocal support for a territorial autonomy and chanted 'Death to Trianon'"? Or does "extremism" mean something else here?

Well, whether extreme or mild, hundreds of these people were determined to be Hungarian nationals. This is remarkable. Were they waving their passports, or precisely which other method was employed to make this determination? -- Hoary (talk) 01:59, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

So what's the name of this law?
en:WP's article on "Language law of Slovakia" starts "The state language law of Slovakia".

Is there an official English title? (I rather doubt it.) If there isn't, which of these names is a more accurate translation? Or would some alternative be more accurate?

Rightly or wrongly, relevantly or irrelevantly, Slovak language talks of "Minority Language Act" and "the State Language Act". -- Hoary (talk) 04:30, 1 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, Hoary, if it were up to me, I would rename the article to "State Language Act of Slovakia" or "Slovakia's State Language Act". Because that is precisely what it is. It is technically an "act", not some "law". Moreover, this is the name by which it has been called in most English sources (just search for it, if you don't believe me). I think that there may be some confusion about it, but it may be caused by the fact that the Slovak language doesn't distinguish between these 2 terms (and I suppose that neither does Hungarian). So, you are quite correct about your suggestion. Regarding you question: it does have an official title, just look here, please (from Slovakia's Ministry of Culture): The Language act and minority rights in Slovakia. (And thank you very much for your suggestions about improving the article.) -- 78.99.175.144 (talk) 23:57, 1 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your informative and helpful reply. "State Language Act" within the article, one or other of "State Language Act of Slovakia" and "State Language Act (Slovakia)" as the title of the article, perhaps? But let's not rush this. -- Hoary (talk) 00:35, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe it is the 1995 Act on State Language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.203.80.26 (talk) 01:11, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Normative Statements, poor references.
The author's opinion is apparent. I edited out a comment in which he or she said it was ironic how the European Union was dealing with such a country, that a had a reference to an invalid source. I also find that many of the article's citation links are invalid. There are dubious remarks and claims, or they are not well investigated. Mostly negative or sensationalized opinions of the Act are presented. The article does not articulately demonstrate the differences between the Acts, the 1995 one, the 1999 amendment and the 2009 one. et al...

KMC 13.Dec.11 20:15 pm EST. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.203.80.26 (talk) 01:15, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

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