Language contact of minority languages in Central and Southern Europe : a comparative approach

Abstract

In this paper contact induced changes in several minority languages in Italy, Germany and Austria will be compared, especially Molise Slavic and Arbërisht in Southern Italy, Colloquial Upper Sorbian in Germany and to a lesser extent some others like Burgenland Croatian and the minority languages of the Slovene language family in Austria and Italy. Main emphasis will be put on grammatical influences. Due to the given constellations, with German and Italian as donor languages and minority languages mainly of the Slavic and the Albanian language group, intersecting discussions will be possible (similar genetic type of the replica but different model languages versus different replica languages but the same model language). In the given situations of absolute language contact, where almost all speakers of the minority languages are (at least) bilingual and the donor language in question is also the most important or only umbrella language, the adstrate influences on the minority languages are particularly intense and far-reaching, thus giving rise to many adaptations of the minority grammars to the grammatical systems of the model languages. Nevertheless, there are also many fields in which minority languages remain conservative (persistent, pertinacious) in spite of their differences with respect to the dominant languages.