Prague German

Along with the Czech language in medieval Bohemia, German dialects were used . In the south and southwest, the southern and middle Bavarian dialects that came from Austria were used . In Egerland , near the city of Cheb , North Barbarian dialects were used . East-German dialects close to the dialects of Saxony and Silesia were widespread in the north and northeast ^[1] . Together with the German dialects proper, the Jewish population used Yiddish . The written language of Bohemia of the Middle Ages and the beginning of a new era was a kind of mixture of the above options .

In large cities, and especially in Prague, written Prague German was increasingly used in speech, becoming the language of the bourgeoisie and government. A language was formed combining the features of the South German dialects of the south of Bohemia and the Middle German features of the clerical language of the north. He enjoyed great popularity both in the north and in the south of the region, while the South German printed matter in the XVI - XVIII centuries. It was recognized in the south, but did not have wide circulation in the north, or even was completely ignored.

Prague German officially existed until the 20th century, after which its role in management was reduced to nothing. The last flowering of literature in this language is associated with the work of Rainer Maria Rilke , Franz Kafka , Max Brod , Gustav Meyrink , Franz Werfel , Egon Erwin Kisch , Friedrich Thorbberg , Oscar Baum , Johannes Urtsidil , Felix Weltsh , Paul Reppen and Lenki . After the Second World War and the deportation of Germans from Czechoslovakia, Prague German almost ceased to exist and continued to be used only in an emigrant environment.

German and Czech

Both languages, both Czech and German, were colloquially used and coexisted on the territory of Bohemia since the Middle Ages. At this time, the role of the literary language used among the intelligentsia , clergy and leaders, was performed by Latin . German and Czech were spoken languages ​​used by peasants in various territorial variations. With the activity of Jan Hus, the Czech language began to experience its heyday, however, from the 15th century , after the Hussite wars and the period of counter-reformation after the Thirty Years' War , its heyday ceased, and the language began to be associated with heretical or lumpenistic.

At the same time, the rise of the German language began, which increasingly defended its independence from Latin, and, in the end, became the language of education. Prague German developed into a regional standard version and from the 17th century became popular and prestigious. It was considered more “pure”, not tarnished by the regional differences in written and oral use that existed between the South and Middle German dialects ^[3] . After the Jews were legally recognized as full citizens under Emperor Joseph II , many of them began to merge into the German-speaking Bohemian society. By the 19th century, Jews began to occupy a significant part of the population who spoke German in Prague, which is why the role of Yiddish and its spread began to lose ground.

In the same XIX century, the Czechs began to protest against the spread of bilingualism , clearly realizing the secondary nature of the Czech language and discrimination against its speakers. With the development of the juvenile movement and under the influence of the Slavic Congress, the Czech-speaking population began to demand the expansion of their political participation and recognition of the Czech language. This created the prerequisites for the development of Czech literature and subsequently the language, which for centuries has been a second-class language. However, representatives of folk and linguistic groups did not reach a compromise, however, which played a role in the collapse of Austria-Hungary and the separation of Czechoslovakia.

Prague German entered a new phase of prosperity during World War I , in the interwar period and at the peak of national socialist and fascist sentiments in Germany and Austria , which was facilitated by Jewish writers and refugees from these countries. At the beginning of World War II and after the end of hostilities, this flowering abruptly ends.

In the Middle Ages, the German language in Bohemia had a strong phonetic similarity with the Bavarian dialects . In the era of Humanism and the Reformation , on the contrary, the tendency of the influence of East German dialects intensified, primarily due to the influence of the translations of the Bible by Martin Luther . After the Thirty Years' War, the devastated areas of Bohemia began to be populated by a new wave of German-speaking immigrants, which significantly diluted the language. Religious persecution during the counter-reform served as an impetus for the further development of these trends.

From the South German written language, which was circulated in the XVII-XVIII centuries. in Austria and Southern Germany, Prague German developed more and more towards the Saxon style. Thus, already in the early times, the differences characteristic of South German between diphthongs ei and ai came to naught, diphthongs ue , iu , uo and eu are eradicated in favor of the Middle German written tradition. The confusion between w and b , b and p , characteristic of the Bavarian dialect, goes back; the aspiratory kh that came from Carinthia and Tyrol is eliminated ^[4] . This alignment with the average German norms was characteristic only of spelling , while vocabulary , semantics, and grammar remained predominantly South German.

In the XVIII century, Bohemia became the site of hostilities of the Seven Years' War between Prussia and Austria, which led to large-scale destruction and major casualties. A new relocation adjusted the position between the two language poles. In the 19th century, the Austrian language influenced Prague German more and more. The state pulled a blanket over itself, establishing language concepts that were more convenient for itself. The vocabulary dates back to this time, which for the Bavarians seems typical Austrian ( Tischler - Schreiner, Fleischhacker - Metzger ). Bohemian culinary vocabulary, incorporating the characteristic Czech names, went in a different direction, spreading both in Austria and Bavaria, which caused the relative identity of this layer of vocabulary in all three regions.

• Prager Oberpostamts-Zeitung , later Prager Zeitung
• Bohemia (1828-1938);
• Prager Tagblatt (1876–1939);
• Prager Presse (1921-1939);
• Sozialdemokrat (1925–1938) - the central organ of the NSDAP of the Czechoslovak Republic ;
• Prager Rundschau (1931-1939);
• Deutsche Volks-Zeitung - publication of the communists of Czechoslovakia;
• Die Weltbühne - from 1934-1938 began to appear among the Prague emigrants;
• Der Neue Tag (1939–1945);
• Prager Abend (1939-1944);
• Böhmen und Mähren (1940–1945);
• Aufbau und Frieden (1951–1965), later Volkszeitung (1966–1968), later Prager Volkszeitung (1969–2005);
• Tschechoslowakei (1953–1960), later Sozialistische Tschechoslowakei (1961–1990);
• Im Herzen Europas (1958–1971), later Tschechoslowakisches Leben (1972–1992), later Tschechisches Leben heute (1993–1993);
• Informationsbulletin des Zentralkomitees der Kommunistischen Partei der Tschechoslowakei (1978–1989);
• Neue Prager Presse (1981-1990);
• Prager Zeitung (1991–);
• Die Länder der böhmischen Krone (1994-1997);
• Plus (1994–);
• Landes-Anzeiger (1995–1998), later Landeszeitung (1999–2014), later LandesECHO (2014–).

Other Bohemian German-language newspapers began to appear in Ceske Budejovice (Südböhmische Volkszeitung, Waldheimat), Prachatice (Der Böhmerwald) and Klatovy (Der Bote aus dem Böhmerwalde). There were also cities in Moravia (for example, Brno and Olomouc ), which as early as the 19th century focused more on Vienna than on Prague.

• Emil Skála. Die Entwicklung der Kanzleisprache in Eger 1310 bis 1660 .-- Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1967.
• Jaromír Povejšil. Das Prager Deutsch des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts - ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der deutschen Schriftsprache. - Hamburg: Buske, 1980 .-- ISBN 3-87118-349-0 .
• Peter Wiesinger. Studien zum Frühneuhochdeutschen - Emil Skála zum 60. Geburtstag am 20. November 1988. - Göppingen: Kümmerle-Verlag, 1988. - ISBN 3-87452-712-3 .

• Sudeten Germans
• Sudetenland

• Österreichische Bibliotheken im Ausland: Akademische Arbeiten zum Prager Deutsch (German) . Date of treatment July 21, 2012. Archived September 29, 2012.