Ukrainian and Russian loanwords with professional vocabulary in Transcarpathian Hungarian dialect’s

Abstract

As a large number of previous studies show, there are a significant number of words borrowed from the state language in the vocabulary of Transcarpathian Hungarians. These studies also indicate that the vast majority of these loanwords are related to formal spheres of vocabulary. At the same time we do not have enough information about the extent to which the influence of the state language is manifested in the internal communication of the individual professions and how, as a consequence of this influence, unfamiliar loan words or those that have acquired a different meaning start to be used in everyday communication. In the research that became the basis for this publication, we conducted a sociolinguistic analysis of four socio-professional groups from among Transcarpathian Hungarians, whose indicators regarding the ability to speak Hungarian vary considerably. The first group is the vocabulary of Transcarpathian students pursuing higher education in Hungarian. In their case, opportunities to use Hungarian exist in all speech domains. At the same time, the influence of the state language manifests itself through state regulation of the educational process, as well as through communication with acquaintances studying in Ukrainian. The second group is the language of health care workers, whose mother tongue is Hungarian. In their case, it is only possible to obtain education in their speciality in the state language, and its impact on the workplace is also much more intense. The third group is the vocabulary of Transcarpathian drivers and car mechanics whose mother tongue is Hungarian. Their speech essentially combines the same linguistic conditions as those of health care workers. The fourth is the language of those Transcarpathian Hungarian men who did their military service in the Soviet or Ukrainian armies, where their training took place in the state language and the use of their native language was not possible due to a lack of communication partners. In their case, therefore, a specific situation arose where for them military slang in its traditional sense could only function in their mother tongue after completing their service in the format of memories.