Language loyalty and language shift in Bohemia in the long 19(th) century based on the language biography of Friedrich (Bedrich) Smetana

Nekula, Marek (2021) Language loyalty and language shift in Bohemia in the long 19(th) century based on the language biography of Friedrich (Bedrich) Smetana. LANGUAGE & HISTORY, 64 (2). pp. 92-112. ISSN 1759-7536, 1759-7544

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Abstract

Language loyalty can be viewed from the perspective of both language stability and language shift. The paper focuses primarily on the latter as it shows how the Bohemian composer Friedrich Smetana (1824-1884) shifted from a predominate use of German to Czech in private and official correspondence and his diaries to become known as the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana. This change serves as a model of the collective language and social shift in Bohemia in the long 19(th) century. The paper shows, however, that Smetana encountered difficulties in making the language shift from German to Czech due to the stability of his previous language loyalty to German, tracing both Smetana's subsequent evaluation of the limited language shift's success and his explanation of its failure. In this regard, the study also considers the narrative of a Germanisation Smetana invokes to explain his loyalty to the German language during his education and beyond due to the Germanisation of educational institutions. The paper thus shows how Smetana's narrative of his own language biography is a model narrative for his generation as whole.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Diglossia; language biography; language loyalty; language ideology; language shift; Bohemia; Czech; German
Subjects: 400 Language > 490 Other languages
Divisions: Languages and Literatures > Institut für Slavistik > Professur für Bohemistik und Westslavik (Prof. Dr. Marek Nekula)
Languages and Literatures > Wissenschaftliche Einrichtung Bohemicum Regensburg-Passau
Depositing User: Dr. Gernot Deinzer
Date Deposited: 06 Jul 2022 05:45
Last Modified: 06 Jul 2022 05:45
URI: https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/45666

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