You are on page 1of 6

German Czech Language Contact

Okuto Gunji
December 2016

1 Introductory Remarks
• Primary focus is put on German influences in Czech, not Czech influences in German.

• Structure
– Research History
– Theory of Contact-Induced Language Change
– History of German Czech Language Contact
– Analysis and Discussion

2 Research History
• Two general tendencies:
1. Long tradition of popular reflection, closely connected with Anti-Germanism and Language Purism
(cf. language compendiums from 19th century such as Javrek, 1873)
2. German Czech language contact remains as a secondary issue in Czech linguistics. Some pioneering
works in 19th century (cf. Nagl, 1894); brief discussions in many historical grammars (cf. Gebauer,
1894; Lamprecht, Šlosar, & Bauer, 1986) and monographic studies (cf. Hausenblas, 1958; Nekula,
1996); since 1990s a growing interest in the field (e. g. Berger, 2008; Šlosar, 2001; Žaža, 2015);
but still no monograph-size research conducted.
• An example of ”Intuitive/Speculative” arguments: (Štı́cha, 1997).

3 Theory of Contact-Induced Language Change


• Kaufman and Thomason (1988) as a starting point

• Main Claims
– The dominant factor of language change is not language-internal, but language-external (i. e.
primarily language contact). Language-internal factors can play an important role, but whether
a certain change can take place at a certain period of time is determined ultimately by external
factors.
– There is no structural/typological limitation on possible changes. Theoretically, anything can
happen if a preferable external condition is given.
– Change does not occur in isolation. If language contact a↵ects a subsystem (e. g. syntax), then
it most likely influences other subsystems (e. g. phonology lexicon) as well.
– It is possible that language contact only prompts a change without causing to the emergence of
an exactly identical construction.
– Ultimately, it is impossible to predict exactly when and how what kind of change will happen.
But it is possible to distinguish certain types of contact situations under which certain kinds of
changes are more likely to occur than the others.

1
• Two Basic Types of Contact-Induced Change
– (Bilingual) Borrowing: There is a group of Czech native speaker who are fluent in German
as well. When speaking Czech, they use certain vocabularies or constructions which are easier to
use or fill certain structural lacunas in their native Czech language.
– Language Shift / Imperfect Learning: There is a groupe of German native speakers who
do not speak Czech fluently. However, from whatever the reason, they give up German and start
using Czech as their primary language. However, during the process of language acquisition, they
either fail or refuse to master Czech perfectly. As a result they develop a new variation of Czech
which is influenced by their native German language.
• Di↵erent Consequences under Di↵erent Contact Situation Types

Thomason and Kaufman’s Theory


Factors Borrowing Shift
Time The longer the contact situation en- If a language shift takes place over
span dures, the more borrowings occur. For generations, the shifting community
the borrowing of complex structures, masters the target language perfectly,
a centuries-long intensive contact is so that little to no change will occur.
usually necessary.
Size and Even if the relative size of bilingual If the size of the shifting speakers is
Prestige speakers is small, borrowings could small, the result of their imperfect
spread, especially if they or the source learning usually cannot spread (even
language enjoy high prestige. if they enjoy prestige) because their
usage is considered to be “wrong”.
Typol. Hypothetically, those elements that Tentatively, those elements that typo-
distance typologically fit well to the recipient logically do not fit well to the recipi-
language are more likely to be bor- ent language are hard to master. The
rowed. shifting speakers are therefore more
likely to fail to master them and de-
velop a new language without these
elements.
Typical Loanwords; Introduction of new dis- Disappearance or alternation of
changes tinctive phonemes; slight syntactic phonemes or constructions with high
changes Extensive alternation in word complexity (i. e. changes in phonolog-
order or in inflectional morphology ical and syntactic systems), sometimes
can usually occur only under strong inflectional morphology as well.
cultural-political pressure.

• Criteria for Identifying German Contact Phenomena in Czech


1. It is established what kind of change took place.
2. It is determined when the change took place.
3. It can be proven that at the time of the change there was a favorable contact situation for
such a change.
4. The claim becomes more plausible if further changes that must have been caused by contact
with the same language at a similar time can be detected.
5. The claim becomes more plausible if it can be shown that the given change reflects neither
universal tendency of human language nor typological tendency of the given language
(group). That is, if it can be shown that the given change took place either only in the given
contact language pair or in some other languages which had a similar contact situation (e. g.
Polish, Sorb, Slovenian for Czech) (cf. Berger, 2008, 2009b).

2
4 History of German Czech Language Contact
4.1 Research History
• No monograph-size publication on the history of German Czech language contact yet, which would
make it possible to apply Thomason and Kaufman’s theory.
• Except for proper names and text fragments, the oldest Czech written documents are attested
from the end of 13th century onwards. For the earlier periods, it is practically impossible to
reconstruct the level of bilingualism, the relative sizes of German and Czech speakers etc.

• The following overview based primarily upon (Berger, 2009b, 2014).

4.2 Overview
Period Type Degree External Factors
Before Borrowing Casual Part of Slavic population in Bohemia christianized by German mission-
900 Contact aries. Czech nobles oriented towards Frankish culture. Slavic apostles.
900 - Borrowing Slightly Great Moravia lost its power, Přemislyd dynasty gained influence ap-
1100 + Shift? More proaching Holy Roman Empire. Many German speakers migrated to
Intense Bohemia, but Czech seems to have soon regained its dominant status.
Contact
1100 - Borrowing More Heyday of Přemyslid dynasty. Since 1240s Bohemian kings recruited
1300 Intense many German speakers to compensate losses incurred by Mongol inva-
Contact sions. Oldest Czech texts from the end of this period.
1300 - Borrowing Intense End of Přemyslid dynasty, beginning of rule by German speaking
1500 + Lan- Contact House of Luxembourg. Alarming e↵ect on Czech intellectuals, sud-
guage den emergence of religious and historiographical texts in Czech (Oldest
Shift? Chronicle in 1314). Development further promoted by Holy Roman
Empire Charles IV (Czech as first European vernacular into which the
Bible was translated completely) and Hussite Movement from 1415 on-
wards. Many German towns became Czech partly by assimilation of
German population.
1500 - Borrowing Slightly Era of confessionalization, co-existence of di↵erent religious communi-
1620 More ties partly developing di↵erent varieties of modern Czech. Autonomous
Intense development of religious practise by utraquists (mainstream protestant
Contact community) guaranteed by Religious Peace of Kutná Hora in 1485.
1620 - Borrowing Heavy Defeat of Protestants at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, Czech
1780 Cultural Protestant nobles and intellectuals expelled from Bohemia, replaced
Pressure with German speaking Catholics. Renewed Territorial Constitution
of 1627 established German as a second official language in Bohemia,
Czech gradually driven out from official spheres.
1780- Borrowing Heavy Era of so called National Renaissance, with influential language purism
1918 Cultural counteracting against cultural pressure of German. Made possible
Pressure by the so called Enlighted Absolutism of Kaiser Josef II. and Maria
Theresia, culminated into the German revolution of 1848/49. In 1850,
Czech language introduced as a school subject in Bohemia, in 1882
Prague university divided into a German and a Czech university.
1918 - Borrowing Slightly Czechoslovakia became independent in 1918, Czech national language
1945 More (more or less) codified. After the German occupation of 1937, Ger-
Intense man acquired the dominant status once again, but with the end of the
Contact World War II German influence mitigated.

3
5 Analysis and Discussion
5.1 Phonology
5.1.1 Four Peculiarities of Czech
• Fixed Stress on the First Syllable: Czech has lost the Common Slavic free and movable stress
system and developed instead a fixed stress on the first syllable. In German, the stress falls on the
first syllable as well except for some cases such as certain verbal prefixes.
• Decline of Palatalization Opposition: All Czech consonants except for t, d, n have lost their soft
counterparts. German does not have the palatalization opposition.
• Development of Vowel Quantitative Opposition: Common Slavic had a certain degree of the
vowel quantitative opposition which was, however, not yet highly developed. In Czech, the opposition
was further developed and now constitutes an important phonologically distinctive feature. German
always had the vowel quantitative opposition.
• Development of Diphthongs: Modern Czech has three diphthongs: /au/, /Eu/, /ou/. Besides, in
colloquial Czech the long vowel ý is often replaced by another diphthong ej. Modern German has three
diphthongs: /aI/, /aU/, /OI/, and had more in older periods.

5.1.2 Research History


• Since 18th/19th century, similarities of the phonological development of Czech with that of German
have been sporadically pointed out by some experts (cf. for example Gebauer, 1894).
• However, most linguists, heavily influenced by structuralist view, tried to explain the phonological
development in terms of language-internal imbalance and dynamism, while denying external influences.
• Jakobson (1929). pointed out that in Czech only those oppositions have come into being which either
existed or have developed in German, and those which either did not exist or did not develop in
German were eliminated. By referring to this and other examples, Jakobson argued that in certain
regions in Europe where the upper social stratum was bilingual from early on contact with neighboring
languages determined the development of the phonological system. His theory, however, did not enjoy
wide recognition, at least until recently (cf. Berger, 2003).

5.1.3 Analysis: See the other handout.

5.2 Lexicon
5.2.1 Newerkla’s Loanword Dictionary
Recently, painstakingly researched and documented by Newerkla (2011).
• Before 600 A.D.: ca. 20-30 Loanwords
• From Old High German (600-1050): more than 70 Loanwords
• From Middle High German (1050-1500): more than 400 Loanwords

5.2.2 New Complex Prepositions and Conjunctions


• Since modern period, especially since 1990s a number of new complex prepositions and conjuctions
such as na rozdı́l od, v souvislosti s, bez toho, že/aby, poté/potom, co/kdy.
• Emergence of complex prepositions and conjunctions consisting of preposition, demonstrative pronoun,
causal / temporal noun and conjunction can be observed in most European languages (cf. for example
Lehmann, 2002).

4
5.3 Grammar
5.3.1 Decline of Certain Word Classes
In Modern Czech the usage of short adjectives and transgressives (equivalence of Russian деепричастие) is
very limited. Besides, it has lost the equivalence of perfective причастие.

5.3.2 No Influence on Inflectional Endings?


There is no evidence of German influence on Czech inflectional endings (cf. Berger, 2014).

5.3.3 Semantics of Aspectual Prefixes


Dickey (2011) has recently pointed out that the semantics of certain Czech aspectual prefixes such as po- is
influenced by that of German prefixes such as be-.

5.3.4 Modal Constructions


• Late Common Slavic had only two modal verb: *mogti and *xъtěti. The modality was expressed
primarily by impersonal predicative or infinitive constructions.
• Old Czech (1300-1500) had three more modal verbs: drbiti, musiti/musěti and jmieti, which corresponded
to German dürfen, müssen and soln (haben zu tun). At first, these constructions coexisted with the
old modal constructions, but replaced them in the course of the development (drbiti was replaced by
smieti ).

• These "new"modal verbs later acquired epistemic usage just like their German counterparts. However,
in the preterit tense, the Czech and German modal verbs show certain syntactic and semantic differences
(cf. Porák, 1968; Weiss, 1987).

5.3.5 Periphrastic Constructions


• Modern Czech has some periphrastic constructions which are not found in most other Slavic languages:
1) the resultative or perfect construction mı́t + perfective passive participle, 2) the recipient passive
construction dostat + perfective passive participle (cf. Giger, 2003), and 3) the so called absentive
construction být + infinitive (cf. Berger, 2009a).

• These constructions, which show striking similarities to German, are attested from the New Czech
period (1500-1800) in which Czech was under heavy cultural pressure by German.

5.3.6 False Case Usage


• In Late Common Slavic, negated object was presumably given in genitive (instead of accusative),
predicative noun in instrumental (instead of nominative). This syntactic features (particularly negation
genitive), which are quite alien to German, declined in Czech in the course of historical development.
• Some cases, particularly genitive, are/were often falsely replaced with other cases (especially accusative)
or prepositional phrases in connection with certain verbs (e. g. bát se, účastnit se).
• Replacement of certain ”rare” or ”complex” cases with other ”basic” cases is a common phenomenon
observable in many European languages (cf. Hausenblas, 1958). It is, however, possible that contact
with German, which does not have instrumental and in which genitive is used less and less frequently,
facilitated this tendency to a certain extent.

5
5.3.7 Frequent and Article-like Usage of Demonstrative Pronouns
• Czech has developed a rich inventory of demonstrative pronouns, of which ten, ta, to etc. are used
very frequently, often in contexts in which they seem to be redundant (from Slavic perspective) and to
fulfil the function(s) of the definite article, e.g.) To je ten nejstaršı́ syn; Mám tě z té duše rád.

• Unlike the German definite article, however, the anaphoric use of ten is not obligatory. The pronoun
ten rather fulfils a ”reminding” function or an ”emotive, expressive” function, which partly overlap
with functions of the German definite article (cf. Berger, 1993; Mathesius, 1926).

References
Berger, T. (1993). Das system der tschechischen demonstrativpronomina.
Berger, T. (2003). Gibt es alternativen zur traditionellen beschreibung der tschechischen lautgeschichte.
Selecta Bohemico-Germanica. Tschechisch-deutsche Beziehungen im Bereich der Sprache und Kultur ,
9–37.
Berger, T. (2008). Deutsche einflüsse auf das grammatische system des tschechischen. Studien zur his-
torischen Grammatik des Tschechischen. Bohemistische Beiträge zur Kontaktlinguistik , 57–69.
Berger, T. (2009a). Einige bemerkungen zum tschechischen absentiv. Sagner.
Berger, T. (2009b). Tschechisch-deutsche sprachbeziehungen zwischen intensivem kontakt und puristischer
gegenwehr. Unsere sprachlichen Nachbarn in Europa: Die Kontaktbeziehungen zwischen Deutsch und
seinen Grenznachbarn. Bochum: Universitätsverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer , 133–56.
Berger, T. (2014). The convergence of czech and german between the years 900 and 1500. Congruence
in Contact-Induced Language Change: Language Families, Typological Resemblance, and Perceived
Similarity, 27 , 184-198.
Dickey, S. M. (2011). The varying role of po- in the grammaticalization of slavic aspectual systems. sequences
of events, delimitatives, and german language contact. Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 19 (2), 175-230.
Gebauer, J. (1894). Historická mluvnice jazkya českého. Praha.
Giger, M. (2003). Resultativa im modernen tschechischen: unter berücksichtung der sprachgeschichte und
der übrigen slavischen sprachen (Vol. 69). Peter Lang.
Hausenblas, K. (1958). Vỳvoj předmětového genitivu v češtině. Praha: ČSAV.
Jakobson, R. (1929). Remarques sur l’evolution phonologique du russe comparée acelle des autres langues
slaves (= travaux du cercle linguistique de prague, 2).
Javrek, J. J. (1873). Brus jazyka českého. Nakladatel Theodor Mourek.
Kaufman, T., & Thomason, S. G. (1988). Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. Berkeley
CA: University of California.
Lamprecht, A., Šlosar, D., & Bauer, J. (1986). Historická mluvnice češtiny. Praha.
Lehmann, C. (2002). New reflections on grammaticalization and lexicalization. Typological Studies in
Language, 49 , 1–18.
Mathesius, V. (1926). Přı́vlastkové ten, ta, to v hovorové češtině. Naše řeč, 10 (2), 39–41.
Nagl, J. W. (1894). Deutsche lehnwörter im czechischen. Wien.
Nekula, M. (1996). System der partikeln im deutschen und tschechischen: unter besonderer berücksichtigung
der abtönungspartikeln (Vol. 355). Walter de Gruyter.
Newerkla, S. M. (2011). Sprachkontakte deutsch-tschechisch-slowakisch. Wien.
Porák, J. (1968). Modalverben im tschechischen und deutschen. Deutsch-tschechische Beziehungen im
Bereich der Sprache und Kultur. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 97–101.
Šlosar, D. (2001). Česko-německé jazykové kontakty.
Štı́cha, F. (1997). Ke dvěma méně běžnỳm spojovacı́m prostředkm v současné češtině (poté, co a bez toho,
aby/že): korpusová analỳza. NŘ 80, 1997, č, 2 , 73–80.
Weiss, D. (1987). Polsko-niemieckie paralele w zakresie czasowników modalnych (na tle innych jezyków
zachodnioslowiańskich). Sprach-und Kulturkontakte im Polnischen. Munich: Otto Sagner , 131–56.
Žaža, S. (2015). Istoričeskoe vliyanie nemeckogo jazyka na različiya meždu češskim i russkim jazykami.
Crossroads of cultures: Central Europe.

You might also like