The Academy of the Imperial Sprachbund
Having to come to terms with internal issues has been a shared problem among the nations of the world. The Imperial approach to it in particular may yet be the most curious, and the hardest to classify.
Despite its imperialistic inclinations, the HRE has been described numerous times as using a hybrid ideology, with roots in pragmatism and limited democracy. As such, its ethnic and cultural diversity is often depicted and used as a strength, not a flaw: it is the Kaiser’s benevolent triumph that people so diverse would stand and belong under a single banner.
As a reflection of this, the Empire’s diverse languages are well represented and seldom repressed. Beyond the political aspect however, this unchecked multilingualism does pose practical problems in trade, transportation, academic efforts, and administrative work.
To facilitate this, the state-funded Akademie des kaiserlichen Sprachbundes (Academy of the Imperial Sprachbund) was founded in 1885. Contrary to what outsiders often assume, the institution’s aim is not to bring the German language to the far reaches of the dominion, but indeed to bring all the Imperial languages to those who need them.
Having begun with a single building in Würzburg hosting classes for Polish, Dutch and Hungarian, the Academy quickly grew to include numerous branches, departments, and affiliated programs. Nowadays, the AkS is present in most provincial capitals and major Imperial cities. It teaches the primary languages of the empire to millions of students each year, providing a large, constantly renewed pool of highly-qualified translators, interpreters and teachers. These languages include Lombardo-Venetian, Shtokavian, Dutch, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Bohemian, Yiddish, and Ukrainian. Local branches of the Academy may offer complementary courses for regional vernaculars, dialects, and contact languages such as Swedish, French, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Russian, Slovenian, Albanian, Greek, Luxembourgish, and more.
The AkS has also constituted a primary hinge upon which to define the Empire’s linguistic policies. These vary per area, with various degrees of state inference.
The Lombardo-Venetian situation is fairly unique in featuring two Northern Italian languages that are quite distinct from the Roman or Neapolitan tongues: Lombard and Venetian. In this case, an Imperial edict from 1901 made Venetian the official language of the province, Venice being the province capital. This made Venetian instruction mandatory in Lombard schools, which many Lombards have resisted. As a result of this, more informal structures have been put in place by senior language workers to provide newcomers with rudiments of Lombard as well. These actions have not been opposed by the AkS, as they have reduced Lombard discontentment towards the central government.
Shtokavian is the standardized language in place in Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro. It is defined and normalized by the AkS itself, which acts as a linguistic authority in the matter.
Similarly, Bohemian is the AkS-regulated language taught in Bohemia and Moravia. Despite minor protests regarding the language’s artificiality and the forced cultural merger of Czech and Slovak peoples that it represents, its use is fairly accepted.
Before the AkS era, Latin was also widely used as the official language for the Imperial military. The multilingual approach has now mostly replaced it, with Latin falling into disuse as increasingly impractical. That said, Imperial military jargon still retains a majority of Latin vocabulary.
Last but not least, the Academy has standardized the various High German dialects into a single Dachsprache (umbrella language), simultaneously contributing to the loss of linguistic diversity in ethnically German areas, and to an increased scientific understanding of it. In most other provinces, the AkS acts as a mere observer and educational body, scarcely enforcing linguistic measures.
The Holy Roman Empire has since become an inspiration for approaching the issue of internal languages. It enjoys the largest translation-related workforce worldwide, with the Academy contributing many of the world’s pioneering linguists, expert philologists, and skillful diplomats. Bilingualism or multilingualism is seen as paramount to Imperial higher education, and the reputation of the Kaiser’s translators and interpreters is unrivaled – even regarding languages spoken outside the Empire.
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