German-Czech dialect contact in the third millennium: On the research on historical German dialects in the Czech Republic

At the beginning of the third millennium, projects based on the linguistic geography method are being finalized. Territorial dialects, the object of research, are in decline. In the context of the Czech language, the state of dialects is recorded in the Czech Linguistic Atlas (1992-2011). Among others, this atlas shows how earlier contact with German dialects is manifested in the so-called Sudetenland, inhabited by a German-speaking population until 1945. The University of Regensburg, the University of Vienna and Masaryk University in Brno have begun a joint research project on the German dialects in this area not affected by the post-war expulsion of the German ethnic group from the Czech lands. The results of this research are presented in Kleiner Mahrischer Sprachatlas der deutschen Dialekte (Small Language Atlas of German Dialects in Moravia and Silesia, 2011). This atlas is important as a record of the local German dialects in the phase of their decline: confrontation with the Czech Linguistic Atlas deepens existing knowledge of German-Czech dialectal interference. The paper discusses the contribution of this publication in the context of the existing research on contact features from both sides of the language border.