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It’s not all about you: New perspectives on address research
Edited by Bettina Kluge and María Irene Moyna
[Topics in Address Research 1] 2019
► pp. 125–138

Now you Sie me, now you don’t

The history and remnants of the 3pl V address pronoun calque in Slovak (onikanie) and in Czech (onikání)

Among the neighbouring languages that calqued the third person plural (3pl) address pronoun Sie from German in the 18th century, the closely related languages Czech and Slovak offer contrasting diachronic and synchronic uses of their respective Sie-calques. In Czech, onikání (literally ‘addressing with the 3pl masculine pronoun oni’) was among the German linguistic influences hotly fought against by linguistic purists in the Czech National Revival of the 19th century, and, as a consequence, its use today is restricted to jocular or ironic use only. In Slovakia, the national revival came later, and purist proponents of Slovak as a national language did not just have German as a linguistic adversary, but also Hungarian, and to a certain degree, even Czech. Therefore, there was less pressure for onikanie, the Slovak version of onikání, to be ousted so clearly. As a result, the subsequent history and development of 3pl address differs somewhat in Slovak from Czech, something which is confirmed by the status we can still find today of remnants of Slovak onikanie. The diachronic development of Slovak onikanie shows some differences to that of Czech onikání, due, we argue, to the different social and political histories of both languages and of their respective national states. We conducted a pilot study (including data drawn from online discussions by native speakers) into the extent, varieties, and domains where Slovak onikanie is still used. Results show its present usage to be different from that of its Czech counterpart.
Keywords: Slovak, Czech, third person plural V address, German, humour
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The development of pronominal 3pl address in German
  • 3.Czech and Slovak – two closely related languages with very different social histories
  • 4.History of Czech onikání and Slovak onikanie
  • 5.Slovak onikanie and Czech onikání today
    • 5.1Remnants of Slovak onikanie
    • 5.2Differences and similarities in the use of Czech onikání and Slovak onikanie
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 28 November 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tar.1.05kre
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