Specific language contact phenomena in the Habsburg Empire and their possible utilization for teaching Czech as a foreign language in Austria

Not only does pluricentric German display characteristic features of Standard Average European, but it also comprises several distinguishing features in various contact areas with Baltic, Finno-Ugrian and Slavic languages. Like isoglosses, which constitute certain dialect areas in dialectology, bundled language contact phenomena distinguish certain contact areas from others. A major language contact area in Central Europe — merely one out of several — is the contact zone which we can associate with the former centre of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with German, Hungarian, Czech and Slovak as its core languages as well as Polish, Slovene and others as its only partially involved peripheral languages. From this contact area, a micro-area emerged in Vienna and Eastern Austria that was particularly affected by the influence of Czech on German vice versa. This contribution illustrates how the latter language contact phenomena can fruitfully contribute to the process of teaching Czech as a foreign language in Austria.