Project part 06 (PP06) explores the (historical) language contact of German varieties in Austria with other languages, especially Slavic ones. It explicitly focuses linguistic phenomena, i.e. systematic changes in German in Austria that can be traced to contact with Slavic languages such as the usage of the verb vergessen ‘to forget’ with prepositional objects in sentences like: “Ich habe ganz auf die Aufgabe vergessen” ‘I completely forgot the about the task’. Special attention is paid to Slavic loanwords.

Our aim is to summarise and reinterpret existing data and publications on language contact while at the same time showing how – despite the scientific treatment of this subject – linguistic myths from the 19th century have remained effective to the present day. In another step, PP06 analyses historical and recent language data including those collected by Task Cluster B in order to describe the diachronic and areal distribution and variation of (potential) contact phenomena in German in Austria. Resting upon these data-based descriptions we – for the first time – will be able to assess the contact explanations of selected phenomena.

In addition, the project part develops the module MiÖ-SAKON of the Information system on (historical) multilingualism in Austria (MiÖ). In form of a wiki, this module will provide an overview of the current state of research regarding potential (Slavic) contact phenomena in German in Austria.