Deutsche Sprachinseln in der Slowakei mit Fokus auf das Hauerland – Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft
German Language Islands in Slovakia with a Focus on the Hauerland – The Past, Present and Future

Summary/Abstract: The following article focuses on German language islands in Slovakia. These areas have been inhab- ited and influenced by Germans for centuries. In this case, special attention is paid to one specific area - the Hauerland. This language island in the middle of Slovakia exists today only rudimentarily. The main aim of this article is to describe the historical evolution of the aforementioned islands of Slovakia, the origin of their dialects and their characteristics. The focus will be on the village of Ma- linová (Zeche) and its dialect, which is part of a more extensive research. The aim of further research is to describe the morphological level of this dialect, which has not yet been done. At the first sight, there are some major shifts not only on the morphological level, but also on the syntactic one. In this context, reference can be made to the grammatical mood, especially the subjunctive and its forms, which could be considered quite unusual. The Slovak language, which has been the main contact language for the Zeche dialect, has influenced it severely, not only on the two mentioned levels of grammar, but also in its lexicon. The linguistic analysis has been based on a series of free interviews, that were recorded specially for this purpose with the oldest living speakers of the Zeche dialect. These transcribed interviews form the main corpus, which serves as a database for further linguistic analyses. The dialects of Hauerland are threatened by extinction as the number of their speakers is constantly declining. This research of the Zeche dialect should help to ensure that the knowledge of the structures of these dialects is preserved within German dialectology.

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