In October last year, the Slovak parliament accepted the motion of György Gyimesi (OĽaNO), the essence of which is that information can be displayed on road signs in the language of a minority in addition to Slovak - all thanks to the amendment of the Act on the Use of Languages of National Minorities.
The Ministry of the Interior has asked the 36 district offices and the Association of Slovak Towns and Villages (ZMOS) to carry out the implementation of the agenda for determining the use of road signs in minority settlements on the basis of the current legislation and the technical regulations for vertical road signs," reads the statement of the minority government commissioner. .
The government commissioner added that he welcomes the constructive attitude of the ministry. Thanks to this, they also agreed that, in order to avoid different translations and confusion in the meaning of the texts on the road signs, the Office of the Government Commissioner for Minorities will provide methodological assistance to the obligees.
Henceforth, the law makes it possible for the name of the settlement on road signs to be written in both the state language and the language of the national minority.
Until now, it was only possible to write the name of the settlement in the language of the minorities on the village nameplates at the beginning and end of the settlement or on the official buildings in those settlements where, according to the data of two consecutive censuses, at least 15 percent of the population declared themselves to belong to a national minority.
From January 2022, however, not only will it be possible to write the names of settlements on direction signs in Hungarian - or in another minority language - but also the names of rivers and the signs indicating county and district boundaries can be bilingual.
According to the law, not only municipal roads will be able to be marked with Hungarian signs, but also higher-order, state/county roads passing through the settlement. It is also a step forward that the names of the settlement parts of cities and villages inhabited by Hungarians will also be listed in Hungarian - so far the law did not allow this either.
Source and full article: Felvidek.ma
Featured Image: Bilingual South Slovakia
