This thesis is a comparative sociolinguistic study which describes and compares language choice among people with Hungarian background in Sweden and Finland and studies their views on the importance of the Hungarian language and Hungarian cultural heritage for identity. The future prospects of language maintenance and language shift and differences between the Swedish-Hungarians and the Finnish-Hungarians are discussed. A survey was completed among 50 Swedish-Hungarian informants and 38 Finnish-Hungarian informants during 2006. The survey was supplemented by in-depth interviews with 15 informants during 2007. The majority language, either Swedish or Finnish, is much more active in the second-generation Hungarians’ lives than Hungarian is. Hungarian is mostly used in the domain of family relations. The language choices made today are dependent on the informant’s situation during childhood, particularly the parents’ usage of the language and the ability to learn and use Hungarian, chiefly gained through contact with the parents’ mother country and other Hungarian speakers. For some informants, having Hungarian roots forms the sole foundation for belonging, while for others it is this heritage combined with the culture, the ability to use the language or specific character traits. The Hungarian background is most often seen as a treasure offering diversity in life. Finnish-Hungarians are generally more positive about their Hungarian background, have better competence in the language and a greater awareness of the culture than Swedish-Hungarians. The Hungarian language plays a central though often symbolic role. The most important conditions for minority language preservation are language competence together with the desire and opportunity to use it; whereof the largest deficit among second-generation Hungarians is knowledge of the Hungarian language. Only one-fourth of the informants have all of the conditions necessary to be able to maintain the language, which means that Hungarian is an endangered minority language in Sweden and Finland.

This thesis is a comparative sociolinguistic study which describes and compares language choice among people with Hungarian background in Sweden and Finland and studies their views on the importance of the Hungarian language and Hungarian cultural heritage for identity. The future prospects of language maintenance and language shift and differences between the Swedish-Hungarians and the Finnish-Hungarians are discussed. A survey was completed among 50 Swedish-Hungarian informants and 38 Finnish-Hungarian informants during 2006. The survey was supplemented by in-depth interviews with 15 informants during 2007. The majority language, either Swedish or Finnish, is much more active in the second-generation Hungarians’ lives than Hungarian is. Hungarian is mostly used in the domain of family relations. The language choices made today are dependent on the informant’s situation during childhood, particularly the parents’ usage of the language and the ability to learn and use Hungarian, chiefly gained through contact with the parents’ mother country and other Hungarian speakers. For some informants, having Hungarian roots forms the sole foundation for belonging, while for others it is this heritage combined with the culture, the ability to use the language or specific character traits. The Hungarian background is most often seen as a treasure offering diversity in life. Finnish-Hungarians are generally more positive about their Hungarian background, have better competence in the language and a greater awareness of the culture than Swedish-Hungarians. The Hungarian language plays a central though often symbolic role. The most important conditions for minority language preservation are language competence together with the desire and opportunity to use it; whereof the largest deficit among second-generation Hungarians is knowledge of the Hungarian language. Only one-fourth of the informants have all of the conditions necessary to be able to maintain the language, which means that Hungarian is an endangered minority language in Sweden and Finland.

Ce travail de recherche s'inscrit dans une approche pluridisciplinaire – monographique, ethnographique et sociolinguistique avec une dimension longitudinale. Il tente de décrire de manière approfondie les pratiques linguistiques familiales de quatre familles indiennes immigrantes installées dans quatre pays européens : la France, la Suède, la Norvège et la Finlande. Cette étude cherche également à cerner les enjeux des politiques linguistiques familiales, domaine dans lequel peu de recherches ont été entreprises et qui, de ce fait, reste à développer. Par ailleurs, les idéologies et attitudes concernant les langues se traduisent dans les décisions prises par les chefs de la famille, les parents, qui privilégient l'apprentissage de telle ou telle langue, pour eux-mêmes et surtout pour les enfants. Au plan macro, la politique linguistique nationale de chacun des pays concernés par notre étude est évoquée, y compris celle de l'Inde, avec un centrage sur la politique linguistique éducative et les modalités d'enseignement des langues migrantes. Le plurilinguisme des participants est analysé avec la notion de répertoire multilingue au sein duquel les compétences langagières sont segmentées par domaine. Les notions d'espace, de contexte, de mobilité, d'échelle, de polycentralité et d'ordres d'indexicalité ont été convoquées pour pouvoir appréhender ces compétences. La transmission linguistique intergénérationnelle est abordée par le biais d'une analyse critique de la politique linguistique familiale et nationale ainsi que la question de l'incidence du legs des valeurs culturelles et linguistiques du pays d'origine (ou de son absence) sur la construction de l'identité de la deuxième génération. / This research is part of a multidisciplinary approach - . monographic, ethnographic, sociolinguistic, and includes a longitudinal dimension. It attempts to expound the language practices of four Indian immigrant families settled in four European countries : France, Sweden, Norway and Finland. This study also seeks to identify issues of family language policies, a domain where little research has been undertaken and therefore, remains to be developed. Moreover, ideologies and attitudes about languages are reflected in decisions taken by the heads of the household, who manifest a special penchant for a specific language, for themselves and in particular, for their children. At the macro level, the national language policy of each country in our study is discussed, including that of India, with a focus on language education policy and on the teaching of immigrant languages in schools. The plurilinguism of participants is analyzed with the concept of multilingual repertoire, in which language competencies are truncated by specific domains. The concepts of space, context, mobility, scale, polycentrality and orders of indexicality were raised in order to understand and sift the truncated verbal repertoire. Intergenerational language transmission is examined through a critical analysis of national and family language policies ; the question of the effect of the legacy of cultural and linguistic values of the country of origin (or the absence of such transmission) on the construction of the identity of the second generation are equally reviewed.

This study investigates intergenerational language transmission amongst Hungarian immigrants, using in-depth interviews and participant observation as the main methods. The analysis examines the experiences of parents and their school-aged children in 61 families living in Sweden´s two main cities, Stockholm and Göteborg. The sample families were separated into four groups, based on two pre-contact factors, namely (1) the parents´ linguistic environment and (2) their social identity prior to migration. Three of the four groups turned out to be comparable in size and serve as the focus groups of the study. Group 1 comprises families in which one or both parents are former majority members from monolingual parts of Hungary. Group 2 comprises families in which one or both parents are former majority members from Hungary, but in contrast, these parents grew up in bilingual areas, being exposed to other languages in their childhood settings. Group 3 comprises families in which often both parents grew up as members of a vital ethnic minority in bilingual or multilingual settings in Transylvania (Romania). It was hypothesised that the parents´ childhood experiences would have an effect on their ways of raising children in a migrant situation, which, in turn, will affect children´s bilingualism as well as the group´s maintenance chances. The results of the statistical analysis confirm the hypothesis and show significant differences between the focus groups in a number of factors, e.g. marriage pattern, religious engagement, cultural orientation, children’s opportunities to meet other group members, and language awareness. Most importantly, the investigation revealed broad variation in language use norms among the sample families, especially for family and group internal communication. This, together with the poor demographic conditions of the group, seriously threatens group cohesion. The prospects for Hungarian language maintenance in Sweden are therefore seen as limited.