Original scientific paper
Ethnic and Linguistic Situation in the Towns and Settlements of Styrian Podravina and Pomurje in the Centuries Prior to 1800
Boris Golec
; Milko Kos Historical Institute at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Abstract
In conducting research into the ethnic and linguistic situation in the four cities and nine settlements selected for this study, the investigation is limited by two types of sources: 1. the pool of names of inhabitants as the sole, more or less relevant indicator of ethnic sources and potential ethnicity of the population being examined, and 2. narrative sources testifying to the presence of individual languages in public and private use. In the linguistic sense, the centuries prior to the emergence of the modern national consciousness can be conditionally referred to as the time of the ‘natural state.’ The linguistic assimilation of newcomers in predominantly German urban (micro)surroundings, partially caused by social reasons among other things, led to Germanization, while in markedly Slovenian areas it went in the opposite direction. The principal features, or rather the role, of different linguistic and ethnic groups in the milieu of cities and other settlements in the area being studied can be fit into the following two facts: immigration of Slovenian rural inhabitants was the main source of physical reproduction of the population, while the Slovenian environs of cities and settlements meant that even the German-speaking urban population remained at least functionally bilingual until well into the nineteenth century. The citizenry of Maribor and Ptuj, and to a lesser extent Slovenska Bistrica, was largely German, while in the town of Ormož and most settlements, it was generally a matter of individual German settlers and their families. German played an exceptionally major social role as almost the sole written language and language of communication over a broader area. Meanwhile, the neighbouring Croatian Kajkavian zone, with its written tradition, had a stimulating impact on the modest Slovenian official literacy in the border zone of the area under consideration. The linguistic status of the areas surrounding cities and other settlements continued to be formed by numerous inter-linguistic influences and the functional bi- and multilingual nature of its inhabitants.
Keywords
cities; settlements; Styria (Steiermark); language
Hrčak ID:
78860
URI
Publication date:
1.6.2004.
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