From ethnocultural pride to promoting the Texas Czech vernacular: current maintenance efforts and unexplored possibilities

Abstract

Texas Czech is a product of over a century and a half of contact between Moravian Czech and English in Texas. While Texans of this descent have largely maintained a sense of distinctive ethnic identity and have creatively re-authenticated their ancestors’ traditions into a unique Texas Czech culture, their language is now on the verge of disappearing. Having a healthy counterpart in Europe, Texas Czech may not appear to face as dire a fate as endangered Indigenous languages do. However, when this variety dies, so will a distinct blend of the nineteenth-century Moravian dialects, literary Czech and English spoken in Texas, which bears little resemblance to modern European Czech. This paper analyzes, through the lens of a participant observer trained as an applied linguist, the insiders’ views expressed in attitudinal questionnaires on the importance of the heritage language ability to ethnic self-identification and to maintaining their ethnic culture. It then explores the apparent detachment between one's self-perceived ability in Texas Czech and ethnic self-perception, the current state of teaching of Texas Czech and the ways in which well-established Czech-related organizations could attract more attention to both language documentation and language teaching while the interest and resources still exist. 1 1. An earlier version of this paper was presented as part of the colloquium Global Language Extinction and Applied Linguistics at the annual meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (April 2010).

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