Hovorte po slovensky!

摘要

Language laws may protect minority rights or infringe them. Slovakia's new law, which comes into force on September 1st, is under fire for its harshness. It imposes fines of up to €5,000 ($7,000) on those who break rules promoting the use of Slovak in public. Hungarian-speakers, who number around a fifth of the population, mainly in the south of the country, see that as a direct attack on their right to speak their mother-tongue. So do politicians in neighbouring Hungary. A long-running dispute between two of Europe's most prickly neighbours is turning nasty.rnSlovakia's left-leaning populist government has been needling Hungary since it took power in 2006. It sidelined plans for a joint Hungarian-Slovak history textbook last year and has publicly endorsed the Be-nes Decrees, which expelled most Germans and many Hungarians from the then Czechoslovakia after 1945, as a punishment for their supposedly Nazi sympathies. The new law tightens rules about speaking Slovak in dealings with public officials: not just police officers or teachers, but also, say, doctors. Exceptions apply to monoglots, or in districts where the minority makes up a fifth or more of the population. Hungarian-language schools must conduct their administration in Slovak. The new law also lays down detailed instructions for the way in which memorials and plaques may be inscribed.