O wymierającej gwarze polskiej na Węgrzech .......... 691

ABOUT A DYING POLISH DIALECT IN HUNGARY

The history of Polish settlement in Hungary can be divided into two periods: the older period which lasted from the beginning of the Middle Ages till the end of the 17th century, and the younger period which began in the 18th century. The first phase of Polish settlement resulted in the establishment of numerous compact Polish communities in the regions of Spiš, Orava, Čadca, Šariš, and Liptov. During the second period, the Polish population began to gradually penetrate ethnically Hungarian areas. This process involved the colonisation of depopulated or sparsely populated lands reclaimed by Hungary after the wars with Turkey. It paved the way to the establishment of many Polish and Slovak-Polish settlements, most of which were assimilated into linguistically dominant Hungarian or Slovak environment. The longest surviving trace of Polish presence in ethnically Hungarian areas can be found in the village of Derenk. In the years 1717–1943, the settlement was inhabited by Poles brought from the Podhale–Spiš border by Prince Esterházy. The village’s location in a forested area, away from larger centres of Hungarian culture, contributed to the preservation of its Polish linguistic and ethnic character. In 1943, following the establishment of a hunting park near Derenk, the village was abolished and its inhabitants relocated to various Hungarian towns. The majority of Derenk’s 250 inhabitants settled in the village of Istvánmajor, others moved to several other Hungarian towns. The Polish dialect persisted the longest in the village of Istvánmajor but over time it has been steadily replaced by Hungarian. Currently, several individuals from the oldest generation are alive who can still actively use the dialect. Reaching them would allow us to supplement the existing research on the phenomenon of Derenk.