Did Our Ancestors Really Speak German? Understanding German in Slovenian Genealogy

In my work with family histories and historical sources, I repeatedly return to the question of language. Partly, this comes from a very personal place. German loanwords accompanied me already in childhood, when I heard them in the everyday speech of my grandmother Jožefa Trnovšek, born in 1912. For her, these words were nothing special or “foreign” – they were simply part of ordinary daily language. Only later did I begin to notice that many of these words are no longer self-evident to younger generations, and that some have almost completely disappeared from everyday use. This experience gradually led me to a broader question: what was the actual relationship of our ancestors to the German language, which for centuries was the official language of the region in which they lived?

When people first encounter archival documents related to their ancestors, this question often arises in a very concrete way. Parish registers, land records, and other official documents are written in German or Latin, and personal names appear in forms that seem far removed from modern usage. Franz, Johann, Margaretha, or Thaddeus can easily create the impression that our ancestors may have spoken German, or were even of German origin. To understand this properly, we must first clarify the historical role of language.

German as the Official Language of the Habsburg Lands

For many centuries, the territory of present-day Slovenia was part of the Habsburg Monarchy. Within this framework, German became the central official language, used in state administration, the military, education, and most written records. This, however, does not mean that German was also the everyday spoken language of the majority of the population. The Slovenian lands were distinctly multilingual, but with clearly defined roles for each language. German functioned as the language of authority and administration, while Slovene remained the language of home, village life, and community.

Distinguishing between official and everyday language is essential for understanding historical sources. Without this distinction, the language found in documents can easily lead to incorrect conclusions about the linguistic identity of our ancestors.

The Language of Parish Registers and the Meaning of Written Records

Until 1784, parish registers in the Slovenian lands were kept in Latin, the traditional language of the Church. Following the reforms of Emperor Joseph II, Latin was gradually replaced by German in ecclesiastical records. This change reflected an administrative reform, not a shift in the spoken language of the population. Priests were required to keep records in the language prescribed by the state, regardless of the language spoken by the people themselves.

For this reason, entries written in German or Latin must be understood primarily as part of an administrative framework. The language of a record tells us how the system functioned, not how people spoke in their everyday lives.

Understanding German in Everyday Life

The question of whether people understood German requires a more in-depth investigation. The majority of the population did not speak German fluently and did not use it in everyday conversations within the family or the village. Nevertheless, German was not entirely unfamiliar. People encountered it in trade and at fairs, during apprenticeship in crafts, through military service, on pilgrimages, and in dealings with courts and administrative offices.

In these contexts, they learned basic expressions and phrases necessary for practical communication. This was primarily passive or functional knowledge. German served as a tool that enabled communication in specific situations, not as a language that replaced Slovene in private life.

German as the Language of the Educated Classes

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, German acquired an especially important role as the language of the educated elite. Schools, universities, and scholarly literature functioned predominantly in German. Anyone who wished to become a teacher, physician, priest, or civil servant had to learn German. Knowledge of German provided access to education and opportunities for social advancement.

This, however, does not mean that the majority of the population spoke German. On the contrary, most people remained firmly rooted in the Slovene linguistic environment, often in strongly developed regional dialects closely tied to local identity.

Personal Names Between Documents and Real Life

One of the most frequent sources of confusion in genealogy concerns personal names. In historical documents, names are written in the language of the record, not in the language of everyday life. Franz in a document represents Franc, Johann corresponds to Janez, Gertrud to Jera, Agnes to Neža, Margaretha to Meta, and Maria to Marija. These are the same individuals, recorded in different linguistic forms.

In compiling family trees, I therefore generally use Slovene forms of personal names and surnames. A family tree is not merely a literal transcription of archival sources, but an attempt to reconstruct the lived identity of individuals. The Slovene form of a name usually better reflects how a person was actually known within their community.

Had I myself been born around the year 1800, I would very likely have been recorded in a parish register as Thaddeus Trnouscheg. Yet in my community, no one would have called me Thaddeus – I would simply have been known as Tadej. This distinction between written record and lived reality is essential for correctly interpreting historical sources.

German Loanwords in Everyday Slovene

Many German loanwords that we now perceive as dialectal or colloquial were still part of entirely ordinary everyday speech in the twentieth century. Linguistic research shows that this is not a marginal phenomenon. German loanwords represent one of the most extensive layers of borrowed vocabulary in the Slovene language. This does not involve a few dozen words, but several hundred in the general language and several thousand when dialects, professional terminology, and historical usage are taken into account.

Below is a short selection of loanwords that were in common use well into the twentieth century and that some generations still recognize today.

These words are not evidence that our ancestors spoke German. Rather, they demonstrate that they lived in a space where languages naturally intersected and borrowed from one another in everyday life.

When we ask today whether our ancestors spoke and understood German, the answer is clear, but not simplistic. They understood German to the extent necessary to function in a world where it was the language of authority and official communication. At home, among their own people, they spoke Slovene. It is precisely this distinction between the language of records and the language of lived experience that provides the key to a correct understanding of our family and cultural past.