Burgenland Croatian Research Articles

On a particular usage of the locative and accusative cases in Burgenland Croatian

This article discusses the semantics and syntax of bare locative and accusative cases, such as ona je ? crikviloc. (lit.: She is church, ?She is in church?) and ona gre ? crikvuacc. (lit.: She goes church, ?She goes to church?) in Burgenland Croatian. Previous studies have indicated the existence of such phenomena in this language but have not analyzed the specific semantic and grammatical features of these constructions in historical and typological contexts. The author describes the specific usage of the previously mentioned constructions to demonstrate the conditions in which they are used. The article then considers whether the constructions are relics from Proto-Slavic, inherited from North Cakavian, or a later development in Burgenland. As a result of the analysis, the author concludes tentatively that the constructions in question emerged independently in Burgenland.

The Experience of the Virtual Investigation of the National Culture of the Burgenland Croatian Village of Koljnof (Western Hungary)

This article provides an overview of the survey of the Burgenland Croatian village of Koljnof (hung. Kophaza), located in western Hungary, six kilometres south of Sopron. The survey was conducted remotely via Skype and took place in two stages in August and September 2021. A brief outline of the history of the village is given, and the main difficulties arising from conducting a remote survey are described. These include the rapid fatigue of informants, the active role of the "guide" in the process of conducting interviews, and the difficulties with conversations on topics that are related in some way to the organization of space in the village. After that, the phenomena of the traditional spiritual culture of Koljnof collected during the survey from the field of calendar and family rites, as well as folk mythology, are considered. Calendar rites are most fully represented here, with a number of important terms in the field of family rites and several epics in the field of folk mythology being recorded. In general, the remote survey, despite its limitations, is a viable method of preliminary study of the traditional folk spiritual culture of a particular village. The collected data show that the village of Kolnof is part of Northern Burgenland for a number of reasons. In addition, the collected material allows us to verify some fragments of the tradition of the nearby Koljnof Croatian village of Unda resulting from Hungarian influence, including the rounds of boys on St. Lucia’s Day and the rounds of girls on Trinity.

The Supine in Czech Biblical Translations of the National Revival Period (Second Half of the Nineteenth Century)

This article provides an overview of the survey of the Burgenland Croatian village of Koljnof (hung. Kophaza), located in western Hungary, 6 kilometres south of Sopron. The survey was conducted remotely via Skype and took place in two stages in August and September 2021. A brief outline of the history of the village is given, and the main difficulties arising from conducting a remote survey are described. These include the rapid fatigue of informants, the active role of the "guide" in the process of conducting interviews, and the difficulties with conversations on topics that are related in some way to the organization of space in the village. After that, the phenomena of the traditional spiritual culture of Koljnof collected during the survey from the field of calendar and family rites, as well as folk mythology, are considered. Calendar rites are most fully represented here, with a number of important terms in the field of family rites and several epics in the field of folk mythology being recorded. In general, the remote survey, despite its limitations, is a viable method of preliminary study of the traditional folk spiritual culture of a particular village. The collected data show that the village of Kolnof is part of Northern Burgenland for a number of reasons. In addition, the collected material allows us to verify some fragments of the tradition of the nearby Koljnof Croatian village of Unda resulting from Hungarian influence, including the rounds of boys on St. Lucia’s Day and the rounds of girls on Trinity.

The Adventures of Hlapić in Burgenland Croatian

The Adventures of Hlapić in Burgenland Croatian

Wedding Ceremony of Prekmurje Slovenes in the General Slavic Background. 2. Characters and Ritual Attributes

Firstly, the Prekmurje wedding rite shows close cultural and linguistic connections of this Slavic region with the neighbouring Croatian and, to a lesser extent, with other South Slavic ones. And the further east in this area, the lower the degree of the convergence. Secondly, there are even closer and more distinct connections with the traditional culture of Slovakia and partly of Moravia. These parallels are not limited to the south-eastern regions of Slovakia closest to Slovenia, but also extend further in the north and east division by the Slovak Carpathian region and Western Ukraine. Separate, sometimes even more geographically distant correspondences, mostly sporadic, single or point-like, link the marginal Slovenian tradition of Prekmurje with some other archaic marginal or enclavian Slavic traditions – Sorbian, Slovincian-Kashubian, Burgenland Croatian, Southern Bulgarian (Rhodopian, Thracian), Northern Russian.

Koncept WOLNOŚCI w języku molizańskich i burgenlandzkich Chorwatów

This paper analyses and compares the linguistic picture of freedom, or rather, the concept of freedom in these two Croatian ethnic/language communities (Molise Croatian and Burgenland Croatian), whose language has been developing independently for centuries under the strong influence of the linguistic cultures within which they represent Slavic islands (Romance influence in Molise and German influence in Burgenland, although there is some Hungarian and Western Slavic influence among Burgenland Croats). This research relies on the main theoretical foundations and methodological assumptions of the Polish (Lublin) ethnolinguistic school (with certain limitations). After an introduction, the first part of the following chapter on the concept of freedom shall contain a discussion on the basis of lexicographic descriptions and written sources, while the second part shall contain a discussion on the basis of the results of the survey.

Gradišćanski Hrvati i gradišćanskohrvatski

The paper concerns the formation of the Croatian ethnic community in the Austro-Hungarian region in the 16th century, the author tracks the development of the literary language of the Croats in western Hungary since the 1750s and monitors establishing contacts with the literary language and orthography changes in Croatia in the second half of the 19th century. It was explained how the expressions Burgenland (Gradišće), Burgenland Croats (Gradišćanski Hrvati) and Burgenland Croatian language (gradišćanskohrvatski jezik) came to use after the first world war. The codification of Burgenland Croatian literary language is shown in 3 periods: 1. between the two world to the present. The main codification works (dictionaries, grammar books and orthography) in Burgenland Coratian literary language published after 1980s have been mentioned.

The Croatian Dialect of Petrovo Selo near Szombathely

The article deals with the geographically most marginal representative of the Štoji dialect group of Burgenland Croatian. The author assumes that the dialect has a tone distinction and he establishes, among other things, that the vowel lengthening before tautosyllabic resonants yielded a long falling vowel, which is in contrast with what has been found until now in other Burgenland Croatian dialects that have a tone distinction and is a potentially very important source of information on the origin of the dialect. Another interesting trait of the dialect is the fact that phonemically short stressed e, a and o can be realized long in any position, including final open syllables. This is the most extreme variant found until now of the Burgenland Croatian tendency towards lengthening of non-high vowels.

On the Dialect of the Moravian Croats1

The article deals with the northernmost variety of what is traditionally called Burgenland Croatian (with ‘Burgenland’ used in a very broad sense). Because of its marginal geographic position, the dialect is potentially of great importance to anyone interested in Burgenland Croatian. However, the information on the dialect to be found in the linguistic literature is scarce. This is partly due to the fact that after the Second World War the speakers, who originally lived in three villages in southern Moravia, were forced to leave their homes and were spread over a large number of villages, mostly in northern Moravia. After the political changes in Czechoslovakia and its successor states it became possible to trace the Moravian Croats and to investigate their dialect, but until now only one article has appeared (Lončarić 1998). The present author, in contradistinction to Lončarić, is of the opinion that the dialect has a three-way accentual opposition in stressed syllables: vowels can be long or short, long vowels can be rising or falling. There is a length opposition in the first posttonic syllable. A number of characteristics distinguish the dialect from the neighbouring Čakavian dialects, the most important being (a) consistent lengthening of originally stressed short a; (b) no stress retraction from internal syllables to a preceding long syllable. Both these characteristics are relevant for the historical dialectology of Burgenland Croatian. 1 I am very grateful to Andrej Novik (Prague) for travelling with me to the Moravian Croats in Šternberk, Frielištof and Vienna and introducing me to them. I also wish to thank all the Moravian Croats I spoke with for their hospitality, time, patience and support, especially Josef Hubený (Šternberk) and Josef Lawitschka (Vienna). My fieldwork was financially made possible by the Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG).

Kasusbeschränkungen bei reflexiven Sätzen (Pseudopassiven) in Varietäten des Bosnischen/Kroatischen/Serbischen und im Burgenland-Kroatischen

The present paper deals with semantic restrictions with respect to the case marking of objects of reflexive decausativised sentences in varieties of Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS) including Burgenland-Croatian (BC). Reflexive elements across languages may affect the external argument of the verb (passivization, decausativization). Many languages including some Slavic and Romance languages allow for accusative marking of the internal argument in sentences with reflexive elements (reflexive A[ccusative]I[mpersonal]S[entences]), although no overt external argument is selected. I will, however, provide evidence (binding data) that reflexive AIS do not involve mere absorption of the external argument specified by the lexical verb. Polish and Slovenian do not seem to impose any semantic restrictions on the internal argument, i.e. transitive verbs quite productively occur with the AIS pattern. Varieties of BCS and BC, on the other hand, only allow for animate accusative NPs with reflexive decausatives. Rivero (2001) observed that the null subject selected by reflexive IS always has an indefinite animate interpretation. These elements are in need of referential support by other nominal expressions. Thus, the null external argument forms a syntactic dependency with the internal argument (cf. Lopez 2004) with shared interpretive features (Φ-features). In BC and partly in BCS (in contrast to Polish) the features shared by both constituents include the feature [+animate].

Die kroatische Sprache im Burgenland heute

The paper gives a survey of the situation of Burgenland Croatian today. The Croats of the former Western Hungarian lands originate mostly from the 16th century. Their present number is approximately 20000 in Austria, and even smaller in Hungary and Slovakia. The Croats in Austria are bi-lingual, Croatian and German. Their literary language is a Čakavian, ikavian-ekavian variety of Croatian, which has been written since the 17th century. Efforts to standardize the language have resulted in dictionaries and a grammar recently. Language contacts between Burgenland Croatian on the one hand, and Standard Croatian, German, and Hungarian on the other are described. Language policy is not very much in favour of the Croats. Nevertheless have they achieved better presence in the mass media during the last years. The linguistic usage of bi-lingual individuals differs according to age, sex, and profession. Bi-lingual instruction is conducted in a small number of schools only.

Ptići i slavuji / Hawks and Nightingales: Current Burgenland Croatian Poetry

Ptići i slavuji / Hawks and Nightingales: Current Burgenland Croatian Poetry