Army Slavic
Army Slavic (German: Armee-Slawisch) was a rump language[1] consisting of about eighty key words, mostly of Czech origin. It was developed to help overcome language barriers in Austria-Hungary and was in use until the end of World War I.
| Army Slavic | |
|---|---|
| Armee-Slawisch | |
| Created by | Austro-Hungarian Army |
| Setting and usage | Military communication |
| Era | after 1867 – 1918 |
| Purpose | select vocabulary |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
 | |
Part of the reason for the existence of this specialized language was the fact that, while German and Hungarian were official languages, half of the soldiery was recruited from areas that spoke various Slavic languages. In all, there were eleven different official languages to contend with. While efforts were made to keep soldiers grouped by language, mixed language units still occurred.
References
- Watson, Alexander (2016). "Managing an 'Army of Peoples': Identity, Command and Performance in the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1914–1918". Contemporary European History. 25, No. 2 (Special Issue: Agents of Internationalism): 247. Retrieved 19 April 2023.
The language's military terms were usually from German, but matched with a Slavic language's grammar.
Sources
- Deak, Istvan (1989), Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1848-1918, Oxford University Press, p. 100
- Scheer, Tamara (2020), Language diversity and loyalty in the Habsburg army, 1868-1918, Habilitation Thesis, University of Vienna, online https://utheses.univie.ac.at/detail/57914#, p. 184.
- Walter, John (1999), Central Powers' Small Arms of World War One, Crowood Press, ISBN 1-86126-124-1
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