The Mixed Language Of The Viennese Bulgarians Between Vitality And Extinction
Смесеният език на виенските българи между виталността и отмирането
Keywords: language death; vitality; mixed language; first generation; Bulgarian migrants; Austria
Language death occurs within unstable bi- or polylingual communities because of the linguistic dominance of the new language and the retreat of the minority language. The article draws some significant conclusions regarding the vitality and prospects for the existence and development of the mixed language that can be registered in many places among the larger Bulgarian-speaking migrant communities around the world. In this case, the conclusions are drawn on the basis of the mixed language of the Austrian Bulgarians. The mixed language has a more stable character in the first generation of Bulgarian migrants in Austria. In the case of the representatives of the second generation of Austrian Bulgarians, the process of Germanization is very advanced and they together linguistically oppose the representatives of the first Bulgarian generation with their already stabilized German lexical elements and grammatical constructions. While in the informants of the first generation the Austro-Germanisms have a variable character, in the second generation they have become almost the norm and the duplicity with Bulgarian elements is less inherent for them.
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