Slavonic Languages in Emigre Communities

Abstract

At different times various groups of speakers of Slavonic languages have emigrated or been forced to emigrate, either by political or economic necessity or for religious reasons. In the period between 1848 and World War I, economic factors were the main force bringing masses of Slavs from Europe to the USA. The Australian gold rushes of the 19th century attracted many people from Poland and elsewhere. The Dalmatians of New Zealand emigrated there principally at the end of the 19th century for economic reasons and formed a close-knit community. In more recent times so-called Gastarbeiter, mainly from Yugoslavia, came to live in Western Europe. They have been joined since the fall of the Berlin Wall by large numbers of Russians and Poles. These immigrants were confronted with a different language, which they were compelled to learn to at least some degree. Weinreich (1953) and Haugen (1953) proved that languages in contact do not evolve in a chaotic fashion but follow rules. Haugen postulates �intermediate norms� with the �potentiality for stabilization� in bilingual communities, while the immigrants� children may retain only an �emblematic� command of their parents� language. Rather than using the term interference, Clyne (1967) prefers transference/transfer. Transfers may be progressively phonologically and morphologically integrated (assimilated). Calques are common as are semantic transfers. Triggering causes the speaker to switch from L1 to L2. Hlavac (2003) distinguishes extra-clausal, inter-clausal and intraclausal switching