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Different states, same practices: visual construction of language policy on banknotes in the territory of present-day Transcarpathia

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Abstract

In this paper, we explore the role of mundane artefacts, namely bank notes, in the construction of language policy. Our case study involves a site of complex language policy and politics, namely the current day territory of Transcarpathia. During the twentieth century the region of Transcarpathia belonged to several different states: to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, to Czechoslovakia, to the Kingdom of Hungary, to the Soviet Union and finally to Ukraine. We explore which languages were represented in the inscriptions of the various series of banknotes issued during the twentieth century, based on the assumption that banknotes participate in the official language practices constituting the linguistic landscape (LL) and as such mediate language ideologies. Our study shows that multilingual banknotes were in use in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Republic of Czechoslovakia, the Kingdom of Hungary and the Soviet Union. Only the currency of independent Ukraine has been monolingual. However, even states issuing multilingual banknotes ensured that the language of the dominant nationality/nation was in the most prominent position. While several states that have ruled over the territory of today’s Transcarpathian region during the twentieth century have displayed multilingualism on their banknotes our study shows that this is nothing more than the “societally desirable” form of the “ideal” linguistic landscape. Whether paper money represents the linguistic ideology of pluralism or homogenism, even multilingual notes contribute to the reduction of linguistic diversity by prioritizing standard languages that have official status.

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Notes

  1. See: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/AHK_100_1902_reverse.jpg (Accessed 27 December 2016).

  2. See: http://colnect.com/hu/banknotes/banknote/16888-500_Korun-1919_Issue-Csehszlov%C3%A1kia (Accessed 27 December 2016).

  3. See: http://colnect.com/hu/banknotes/banknote/3383-20_Korun-1926-1934_Issues-Csehszlov%C3%A1kia (Accessed 27 December 2016).

  4. See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HUP_100_1930_obverse.jpg (Accessed 27 December 2016).

  5. See: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/25roubles1947a.jpg (Accessed 27 December 2016).

  6. Among the nationalities of the Soviet Union only those could organize a soviet socialist republic which did not have their own nation-state. Since Finland was an independent nation-state, the Karelian-Finnish SSR did not fit in this logic.

  7. On the coat-of-arms of the Soviet Union between 1940 and 1956, the slogan “Workers of the World, Unite!” was displayed in 16 different languages. After the demotion of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, Karelo/Finnish disappeared from the crest.

  8. For a banknote that was printed in 1957 with the date of 1947 (with 14 national languages and Russian), see: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/SUR_50_1947_B.jpg (Accessed 27 December 2016).

  9. This order of languages agrees with that of the union republics mentioned in the Constitution of the Soviet Union adopted in 1977 in its passage defining the form of goverment. It corresponds to the size of the population in decreasing order.

  10. See: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Soviet_Union-1961_Bill_3_Obverse.jpg (Accessed 27 December 2016).

  11. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/5_000_karbovanets_1993_front.jpg (Accessed 27 December 2016).

  12. See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:5_000_karbovanets_1993_back.jpg (Accessed 27 December 2016).

  13. Front side: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:50_hryvnia_2004_front.jpg; back side: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:50_hryvnia_2004_back.jpg (Accessed 27 December 2016).

  14. On these banknotes the German language had to share its space with others, the Hungarian did not. The presence of additional languages on the German side somewhat disrupted the “mirroring” of the two major languages.

  15. In 5 states out of the 13 that once constituted the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Austria, Slovakia, Italy, Slovenia and Montenegro), the current currency is the euro. In 6 states (Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania, Ukraine, Poland and Croatia), however, banknotes are monolingual. On the banknotes of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as Serbia, the inscriptions are monolingual, but some of the text is presented both in the Latin and in the Cyrillic alphabets.

  16. As to the former union republics of the Soviet Union, in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, people pay with the euro. In Georgia and Tajikistan, the bills of the lari ( ), and the somoni ( ) respectively present the nominal value of the money also in English. In Armenia on the notes issued in 1998 by the “Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia” the text appears in English; the former banknotes (issued in 1995) contained only Armenian-language text. In Kazakhstan, the nominal value is also indicated in Russian in addition to Kazakh. The banknotes of the other 8 former union republics are monolingual, showing only the language of the given state (the ruble of the Russian Federation is also monolingual: it is issued in Russian only).

  17. Most of the Jews living in the region spoke Yiddish as their mother tongue (Weinreich 1964), the rest of them were linguistically assimilated (Konrád 2013: 108). Most of the Roma became linguistically assimilated to the dominant language of the environment (Szuhay 2011). The term “Gypsy language” used in censuses is an all-inclusive category which conceals differences within the group which is categorized as Gypsy and schematically considered as homogeneous primarily due to their visible features of ethnicity (Marushiakova and Popov 2016: 27). The Roma of the Carpathian Basin, including those in Transcarpathia, speak two different languages and therefore form two different linguistic communities: Romani and Boyash (and the various dialects of these).

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Csernicskó, I., Beregszászi, A. Different states, same practices: visual construction of language policy on banknotes in the territory of present-day Transcarpathia. Lang Policy 18, 269–293 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-018-9485-3

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