HUNGARIAN CATHOLICS IN AMERICA 



THE Kingdom of Hungary (Magyarorszag) comprises 

 within its borders several races or nationalities other 

 than the one from which it derives its name. Indeed 

 the Hungarians are in the minority (or perhaps a bare ma- 

 jority) when contrasted with all the others combined; but 

 they outnumber any one of the other races under the Hun- 

 garian Crown. It therefore frequently happens that immi- 

 grants to the United States coming from the Kingdom of Hun- 

 gary, no matter what race they may be, are indiscriminately 

 classed as Hungarians, even by persons fairly well informed. 

 The Kingdom of Hungary, which is separate from Austria 

 except in matters affecting foreign relations, comprises within 

 its borders not only the Hungarians proper, but also the Slo- 

 vaks, Ruthenians, Rumanians, Slavonians and Croatians, as 

 well as a large number of Germans and some Italians. Repre- 

 sentatives of all these races from the Hungarian Kingdom 

 have emigrated to America. Their mother tongue is of Asiatic 

 origin and is quite unlike any of the Indo-European languages 

 in its vocabulary, structure, and grammatical forms. All its 

 derivative words are made up from its own roots and for the 

 most part are wholly native. Although it is surrounded and 

 touched in social and business intercourse on every side by 

 the various Slavonic tongues and by the Italian, German and 

 Rumanian languages, besides having the church liturgy and 

 university teaching in Latin, the Hungarian (Magyar) lan- 

 guage has nothing in it resembling any of them, and has bor- 

 rowed little or nothing from their various vocabularies. It re- 

 mains isolated, almost without a relative in the realm of Euro- 

 pean linguistics. This barrier of language has rendered it 

 exceedingly difficult for the Hungarian immigrant to acquire 

 the English language and thereby readily assimilate American 

 ideas and customs. Notwithstanding this drawback the Hun- 

 garian Americans have made progress of which every one may 



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