The Silesian Language

The Silesian Language: History and Bibliography offers a concise socio-political history of Silesian alongside the most extensive chronological survey yet assembled of books published wholly or substantially in the language.

Silesian has long occupied an unusual position in Central Europe. Spoken by communities in Upper Silesia and its borderlands, it has been variously classified as a language, dialect, ethnolect, Moravian variety or regional speech. Its speakers have lived under German, Austrian, Czechoslovak, Czech and Polish rule, while the language itself has repeatedly been marginalized, discouraged or excluded from education and public life. Yet Silesian survived-and developed a substantial written and printed tradition.

The volume opens with "Silesian: A Brief Socio-Political History," which traces the language from the multilingual world of historical Silesia through nineteenth- and twentieth-century nationalism, Germanization, Czechization and Polonization to the contemporary movement for recognition and standardization. Particular attention is paid to the adoption of a standard Silesian orthography, the growth of publishing after 1989, and Silesian's increasingly visible presence in digital media.

At the heart of the book is A Chronological Bibliography of Fully and Partly Silesian-Language Books, 1716-2026. More than four hundred titles and editions are documented, encompassing religious works, primers, poetry, prose, drama, folklore, dictionaries, dialectological studies, translations and modern literature.

A separate bibliography lists major scholarly books that treat Silesian as a language in its own right.

The volume concludes with Books Published in the Moravian Language, 1783-2026, a comparative bibliography that illuminates the historically fluid linguistic frontier between Silesian and Moravian and documents the important Prussian-Silesian Moravian and Hlučín traditions.

Designed both as a scholarly reference work and as a guide for readers interested in Silesian literature, language and culture, this book brings together materials scattered across national-library catalogues, regional bibliographies, specialist studies and historical publications.

A reference work for linguists, historians, bibliographers, students of Central Europe, Silesian speakers, and anyone interested in the history of minority and regional languages.