The Language of Eastern Slovak Publications in the USA
(the End of 19th – the Beginning of 20th Centuries)
Konstantin V. Lifanov
Lomonosov State University of Moscow
This paper is the first attempt for linguistic analysis of the specific language of published texts (newspapers, English grammar and tale) written in the USA by Slovak immigrants at the threshold of the 20th century. The language of these texts has been uninvestigated till present but there is an opinion they were created in the Eastern Slovak dialect. In fact, there are many diverse Eastern Slovak phonetic and morphological features in its structure, but they compete corresponding with the Slovak literary language ones. In this connection this language may be identified as a mixture arisen as a consequence of of Eastern Slovak and Slovak literary language interaction.
The Slovak literary language and the Eastern Slovak have different positions in the Slovak American publications, because the first idiom is considered as a phenomenon of indivisible whole. On the contrary, the Eastern Slovak functions as a certain generalization of its components competing not only with Slovak literary language, but also each other. In this case the Slovak literary language often plays a part of peculiar filter, which assists their penetration into the structure of these texts or prevents from it.
The rules of the Slovak literary language continue to be used in the language of the Slovak American publications, but they are modified under influence of the Eastern Slovak. However, it enables to conclude the Slovak literary language was just the base of the language of the Slovak American publications.
The language of the Charter of “The First Hungarian-Slovak Society Supported in the Case of Illness” published in 1887 in New York essentially differs from other Slovak American publications, because the Eastern Slovak dialect actually was its base.
Contents :
Introduction
Chapter 1. Eastern Slovak dialect in the structure of Slovak publications in the USA
Chapter 2. Competition of Eastern Slovak features in the Slovak American publications
Chapter 3. Mechanism of interaction of the Slovak literary language and Eastern Slovak dialect and the influence of other languages
Chapter 4. The language of the Charter of “The First Hungarian-Slovak Society Supported in the Case of Illness”
Conclusions
Bibliography
Appendix. Fragments of the texts from the Eastern Slovak publications in the USA
ISBN 9783895864827. LINCOM Studies in Slavic Linguistics 25. 110pp. 2005.
