Slovakia Bans Other Languages

In a slap at Slovakia’s 600,000-member Hungarian minority, Parliament voted Thursday to ban the use of any language but Slovak for most public activities.

The new law makes Slovak the language of television, radio and official functions and imposes fines on violators - up to $2,000 for individuals and $20,000 for businesses.

It isn’t clear how else the law would be applied. Taken to an extreme, it could ban the speaking of Hungarian in post offices and force Hungarians to adopt Slovak spellings for their names.

Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar appealed to anti-Hungarian sentiment to win support for the law.