Slavic Loanwords in the Speech of Transcarpathian Hungarians as a Result of the First One Thousand Days of the Russo-Ukrainian War

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/ahea.2025.588

Keywords:

Hungarian minority, Russo–Ukrainian war, Slavic loanwords, Termini Hungarian–Hungarian Dictionary and Database, Transcarpathia

Abstract

Transcarpathia is one of the westernmost counties of Ukraine with a Hungarian minority population consisting of more than 151,000 people, based on the last official census data from 2001. The local Hungarian language variety is different from standard Hungarian, spoken within the borders of Hungary, mainly in terms of vocabulary. The reason for this is that local Hungarians frequently borrow words from the language of the dominant nation of the country, i.e., Ukrainian. The number of Slavic loanwords has been increased by sociopolitical changes resulting from the Russo–Ukrainian war. In the present study, borrowings which are directly connected to the antecedents and consequences of the armed conflict are summarized on the basis of the Termini Hungarian–Hungarian Dictionary and Database. The aim of this paper is to present how a minority language variety can be influenced by the dominant language of the country in a few years of sociopolitical turmoil. In an international context, this might facilitate our understanding of the connection between language change, lexical borrowings, and military conflicts.

Author Biographies

Krisztián Váradi, University of Pannonia / Ferenc Rákóczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian College of Higher Education

Krisztián Váradi is a trainee lecturer at the Ferenc Rákóczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian College of Higher Education, Ukraine, and a PhD student at the University of Pannonia, Hungary. He is the editor of the Transcarpathian entries of the Termini Hungarian–Hungarian Dictionary and Database. His main research interests include Slavic loanwords in the Transcarpathian variety of the Hungarian language, multilingual linguistic landscapes in minority educational institutions, and the study of bilingual speech characteristics.

István Csernicskó, University of Pannonia / Ferenc Rákóczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian College of Higher Education

István Csernicskó, PhD, is a professor and the rector of the Ferenc Rákóczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian College of Higher Education, Ukraine, and a full professor of the University of Pannonia, Hungary. His main research interests include language policy, linguistic landscapes, sociolinguistics, and bilingual language use in Transcarpathia.

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2025-08-25

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