German loanwords in Varaždin vernacular

Abstract

Even the earliest historical documents of the City of Varaždin, dating from the 13th century and preserved in the Varaždin City Museum and Varaždin State Archives, provide evidence of intense German-Croatian civilisation and language contacts in the area. Our research on the influence of the German culture and language throughout centuries started with the study of Varaždin’s history by gathering information on the first German settlers in the Middle Ages. We determined that from the 13th century onwards various types of GermanCroatian contacts occurred in Varaždin, becoming more intense from century to century, especially under the Habsburgs. The influence of the German language and culture in Varaždin reached the peak from the second half of the 18th to the end of the 19th century. Thus, the first chapter of this doctoral thesis provides information on social, historical, cultural and political background of the German-Croatian language contact in Varaždin. The second chapter of the doctoral thesis presents theoretical framework comprising language phenomena belonging to the scientific field of contact linguistics and sociolinguistics. Some of linguistic phenomena defined and dealt with are bilingualism, multilingualism, codeswitching, diglossia, lingua franca, pidgin, creole, mixed languages, language borrowing, donor language, recipient language, model, replica, interference, adaptation processes, integration and loanwords. The research confirmed that the influence of the German culture and language in Varaždin was so strong that in the second half of the 18th century and throughout the 19th century the language situation in Varaždin was characterised by diglossia in which German was used in favour of Croatian. Bilingual people of Varaždin used to associate the German language with prestige and education and as a result started using German loanwords in the local Kajkavian dialect. Up to the present time, systematic linguistic research into German loanwords found in historical as well as more modern sources written in the vernacular of Varaždin people has not been conducted. The first written forms of the Varaždin vernacular date back to the second half of the 16th century; however, the language material from the second half of the 16th century to the Illyrian movement (1835) is excluded from the research as this is the period when the Kajkavian dialect was the standard literary language used in the then Croatia. In order to be able to conduct research on German loanwords in the vernacular of Varaždin people, we had to compile a corpus. Thus, the identified German loanwords were compiled with the context of their use from the following sources written in the Varaždin vernacular: Varasdinski kolendar/Varaždinski kolendar (1864 – 1900), Ivan-cica (first half of the 20th century), Stefek z mustaci (1905 – 1906), Smola naroda (1919), Plitvicka oblast (1928), Filarka (1929), Varaždinske vijesti (1998 – 2011), and Rjecnik varaždinskoga kajkavskog govora (Tomislav Lipljin 2013). Next, we excerpted the loanwords from the context, identified their German models and compiled a glossary structured alphabetically according to the German model. Altogether, in the written sources of the Varaždin vernacular, we identified 6.682 German loanwords. The first step in the analysis of German loanwords in the vernacular of Varaždin people was to conduct the contrastive analysis of the language systems in contact. Due to this method, we were able to predict the interference at the phonological level of language. When analysing morphological adaptation processes of German loanwords in the Varaždin vernacular, the description of syntagmatic characteristics was applied instead of the contrastive analysis. Furthermore, we introduced the classification of German loanwords according to the type of morphological adaptation of loanwords in the Varaždin vernacular. Moreover, we also provided information on grammatical features of the Varaždin vernacular. The analysis of the loanwords at the semantic level of language included the description of the adaptation of meaning of loanwords. In order to analyse the relations of meanings of a German word and its Croatian equivalent, we applied dictionary definitions of the word meaning. Due to the fact that our research was conducted on the language material dating from several centuries, it was also necessary to apply diachronic approach in the analysis of certain loanwords. Thus, in the third chapter of the doctoral thesis the results of the linguistic analysis of German loanwords in the vernecular of Varaždin people at phonological, morphological and semantic levels of language, including the classification of the loanwords according to their morphological adaptation, are presented. While we were conducting research on German loanwords at different levels of language, we were also entering the results of phonological, morphological and semantic analysis under each German model and its Croatian equivalent. We also provided the context of use for the majority of loanwords from our corpus. In this way we compiled a glossary of German loanwords in the speech of Varaždin people which later became the fourth chapter of our doctoral thesis. The fifth chapter is actually a shortened list of German loanwords in Varaždin speech, structured alphabetically according to the loanwords. Next to each loanword we also give its model word from the German language. The sixth chapter of our doctoral dissertation is complementary to the analysis of German loanwords at the phonological level of language. In this chapter we provide information on the sound environments in which phonological adaptation of borrowed German language material occurs. The chapter comprises a list with diaphonic pairs unpredictable by the contrastive analysis of the phonological systems of the languages in contact. The appendix is complementary to the first chapter of the doctoral thesis as it provides photos of historical documents confirming the strong influence of the prestigious German language in Varaždin throughout history. The photos also give proof of bilingualism of the majority of Varaždin people in various centuries which contributed to the borrowing of German words into the Varaždin vernacular. Thus, aside from providing authentic knowledge on German loanwords in the speech of Varaždin people, this doctoral thesis resulted in compiling a glossary with 6.682 German loanwords, including results obtained from the linguistic analysis of adaptation processes at the phonological, morphological and semantic level of language. In this doctoral thesis we also provide answers to many questions in connection with the intensity of German-Croatian language and civilisation contacts in the City of Varaždin throughout the history