The song traditions of the Gail Valley (Gailtal/Ziljska dolina, Carinthia, Austria) are characterized by many Slovenian-German songs, the oldest evidence of bilingualism dating back to the early 19th century. Code-switching also characterized the song “Buǝg nan dajte ‘n dobǝr čas” (God, give us auspicious time), which correlates with the bilingual written entry of the Gail Valley parish fair and the Gail Valley costume description in the Inventory of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Austria. The Gail Valley region and its inhabitants have undergone significant changes in ethnic identification, which raises two questions: first, the role of bilingualism in the historical context, and second, the relevance of songs in revealing this context.
This article identifies the circumstances in which bilingual songs in Slovenia existed and follows the changes in the songs’ social role from the first half of the 19th century to the period after the end of the Second World War. It follows these changes as they occurred within the framework of folkloristics and in the practices that folklore scholars tried to shape and those that continued without intervention.In order to discern the circumstances in which bilingual songs were created, the author focuses on two songs that were documented by one of the first collectors and researchers of Slovenian folk songs, Stanko Vraz. These are the German-Slovenian toast song “Seid fröhlich, ihr Brüder”, which only rarely appears in later records, and a Slovenian song “Kam bova vandrala vandrovček moj” (‘Whither Shall we Wander, my Little Wanderer?’), which transcribers encountered in different dialects or supradialects. This song appears in the records as a bilingual, Slovenian-German song only later, in the 20th century. The author explores which social groups were characterized by bilingual songs and whether the negative attitude of folkloristics to these songs directed and changed only a selection of folk songs made by collectors, or the repertoire of singers as well.
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