GERMAN IN THE PRESS AROUND 1848 IN THE AREAS POPULATED BY SLOVENES: AN EXEMPLARY ANALYSIS OF LAIBACHER KIRCHENZEITUNG, CILLIER ZEITUNG AND SLOVENIENS BLATT

Abstract

The article tries to explain and compare the German newspapers which started to be published in the revolutionary year 1848/49 in areas where a Slovenian-speaking population was present. Since the year 1848/49 was marked by revolution and the newspapers are mirrors of their time, it is not surprising that they had a pronounced political character. In this context we wanted to explore the extent to which the language of the new newspapers has been shaped by the external circumstances.
We sought to identify the characteristics of and possible differences in language use, particularly on the morphological and syntactic levels, and to investigate the possible reasons behind it. Our analysis has shown that the newspapers do present linguistic differences, which may be related to different educational backgrounds of the authors as well as to the specific readerships and the social milieus in which the newspapers were published. It is not surprsing then that Sloveniens Blatt in comparison with Cillier Zeitung and Laibacher Kirchenzeitung was influenced by a Slovenian nationaistl spirit despite being a German language publication.