Interest in the Hungarian language has increased significantly in Transcarpathia, the Government Commissioner of the Prime Minister’s Office responsible for the governmental coordination of the cooperation and development responsibilities of Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County and Transcarpathia said on Tuesday at the Zánka Erzsébet Camp where he met Ukrainian children learning Hungarian.
István Grezsa said: interest in the Hungarian language in Transcarpathia even takes precedence over English which qualifies as a world language. During the recently closed school year, 1,235 Ukrainian children learnt Hungarian in Ukrainian schools in Transcarpathia, he added.
The Government Commissioner also highlighted: according to the Ukrainian laws in force, if five parents request that their children should have the possibility to learn Hungarian, Hungarian language classes must be organised in any school of Transcarpathia. Parents are requesting this in more and more localities, including places where Hungarian is no longer spoken or is hardly spoken in the community, he added.
In addition to children, more than four thousand adults enrolled for courses of voluntary adult training to start in July so that they learn Hungarian within the framework of a four-month intensive language course in 62 locations throughout Transcarpathia, Mr Grezsa said.
Four hundred and forty Ukrainian children from Transcarpathia who also learn Hungarian spend a summer holiday in the Zánka language camp in two rounds. In each round, they are accompanied by thirty teachers, and the teachers of the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary involved in the teaching of Hungarian as a foreign language in Beregszász also help.
The Government Commissioner highlighted: Hungary has in the past few years given thousands of Ukrainian children the opportunity partly to attend the Erzsébet camps and partly to enjoy a holiday at Lake Velence. Some of them are the children of Ukrainians wounded or killed in the wars in East Ukraine, and the Hungarian nation policy programme supporting Transcarpathia as a particular priority which gives needy Hungarian students living in Transcarpathia the possibility to come on holiday in the motherland will shortly enter into its tenth year.
The Ukrainian people appreciate Hungary’s gesture, Jaroszlava Hartyáni, nationality spokesperson for the Ukrainian minority in Hungary stated in Zánka. She added: the Ukrainians feel that Hungary has behaved as a true neighbour, and extended a friendly hand to them during the most dramatic times.
According to Jaroszlava Hartyáni, it is joyful that, in addition to Hungarian children from Transcarpathia, Ukrainian children learning Hungarian may also enjoy a vacation in the Erzsébet camps because the Ukrainian children who master the language will be friends of Hungary and will also pass on Hungarian culture.