VARIATIONist Linguistics meets CONTACT Linguistics

This article examines the language contact situation as well as the language attitudes of the Caucasian Germans, descendants of German-born inhabitants of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union who emigrated in 1816/ 17 to areas of Transcaucasia. After deportations and migrations, the group of Caucasian Germans now consists of those who have since emigrated to Germany and those who still live in the South Caucasus. It’s the first time that sociolinguistic methods have been used to record data from the generation who experienced living in the South Caucasus and in Germany as well as from two succeeding generations. Initial results will be presented belowwith a focus on the language contact constellations of German varieties as well as on consequences of language contact and language repression, which both affect language attitudes.

migration policy of his grandmother Catherine Ia nd again invited many foreigners to movet oR ussia. Due to his settlementp olicy, he promoted the settlement of the newly conquered southern Ukrainian territories. At the sametime the settlement of Germans in Transcaucasia wasenforced in order to protect the empire against the Turks in the south. In 1816 forty families followed Alexander I'si nvitationt ot he South Caucasus to flee economic hardship, political oppression and religious confrontations. In 1817, more than 1400 families followed (cf. Biedlingmeier 2005: 17)-mainly radical Pietists from Württemberg.T hey gathered in Ulm, crossed the Danube to the Black Sea, hibernated near Odessa and continued their journey in the countryside to the South Caucasus, where they founded the first German colony Marienfeld( today: Sartitschala) in early summer 1817, which is situated eastoft he capital of Georgia Tbilisi.
In the courseofthe followingcentury more thantwentyGerman settlements were established in Transcaucasia. This settlementdevelopment wasinterrupted duringthe Second Wo rldWar, whenthe mother and daughter colonies were dissolved in 1941 and theirinhabitantswereforcibly deported. Caucasian Germans whohad enteredintoso-calledintermarriageswithGeorgians, Armenians,Azerbaijanis,or other ethnic groups were excluded fromthe deportations.Inthe deportationareas of CentralAsia, the Caucasian Germans finally came into contact 1 withother so-1E venbefore the deportation there were some contacts with Vo lga Germans, for example, when they came from the north to the Transcaucasian German villagesinyears of famine. Shortly before the deportations in August 1941, some Caucasian Germans also reported that Russians Language Contact and Language Attitudes of Caucasian Germans called 'Russian Germans' 2 (cf. Berend /Riehl2008: 22).Noawadays, Caucausian Germans are consideredasRussian Germans. 3 Thus, three different speaker groups of Caucasus Germans emerged, twoo f which spoke aSwabian variety. First, there are the Caucasus Swabians with the largest number of Caucasian Germans, who often settled in mixed Kazakh, Uzbek, Russian and German settlements after the deportations and migrated to Germany in the 1990s at the latest-partly to the villages and cities from which their ancestors had emigrated 200 years ago.I na ddition, there are those Caucasus Swabians who were exempt from forceddeportations or were allowed to return to the Caucasian villages, which waso nly the case if they had al ocal partner.
Finally, the smallest faction of the Caucasian Germans are the descendants of the so-called 'Russian Germans',who had already settled in the oil metropolis of Baku as architects and engineers or in Tbilisi as merchants, pharmacists and doctors in the 18 th and 19 th centuries and mingled with the locals. Their descendants today speak awell-educated colloquial or near StandardGerman. This is probably due to the excellent,mostly academic education, to which the families attachedgreat importance (cf. Note 5, on this subgroup of 'Russian-Germans').
The three groups also experience very different language contact constellations: The last described and smallest group has as L1 either aS tandard German variety or Russiana nd as L2 either Russiano raS tandard German variety, depending on what their parentslearned first. Especially with regardto broughtCrimean Germans to the Caucasian villagestohelp with the harvest before everyone wasfinally deported to Central Asia at the end of the harvest. 2T he term 'Russian Germans',which is commonly used today, is questionable. See especially Peterson /W eger 2017. More appropriate is the term 'Germans from X'.O nt he historical background of the Russian Germans see Wiens 1993 ;Eisfeld 1999;Eisfeld /H erdt 1996;Landmannschaftder Deutschen aus Russland e.V. 2006;Krieger 2013 and2017. 3I tisoften overlooked that the group of so-called 'Russian Germans' is historically very heterogeneous, and must be divided into at least twogroups from alinguistic perspectivealone: On the one hand, there were those who had already immigrated to Russia since the middle of the 16 th century for professional reasons and belonged primarily to higher classes of urban Germany, such as engineers, architects, doctors, officers and merchants. They mostly stayed temporarily in Russia (mostly living in metropolises such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, later also Odessa,Tbilisi and Baku), retained German citizenship, or often relinquished their Russian nationality and later abandoned their German language. On the other hand, there wasamuch larger group of people who followed the advertising and planned settlement policy of the Russian tsars between 1763 and 1824 and emigrated to Russia. This group had economic, social and religious motives, and mainly arural, arable population, craftsmen and winegrowers (cf. Stumpp 1982: 6). They settled-permanently first since 1763-in newly conquered, mostly rural areas in southern Russia in mostly closed colonies at the Vo lga, then since 1780 around the Black Sea and on the Crimea and still later-since 1817-in the Caucasus region. Unfortunately, this cannotbediscussed in detail here due to lack of space.

Katharina Dück
the oldest generation (I) 4 ,t he respectiven ational language is added as L3.B ecause this group does not speak any Swabian variety, it is not considered hereinafter. However, the groups of Caucasian Germans who havenot leftthe Caucasian villages or were not allowed to return belong to the descendants of the Caucasus Swabians and thus speak aS wabian variety: In most cases the L1 is either a Swabian variety or the language of the non-German parent (Georgian or Azerbaijani). The L2 is then usually the language or variety of the non-L1 speaking parent. The L3 is usuallyStandard German for this group and the L4 is Russian. The L2 and L3 were learned in school. For most Caucasian Germans the L1 is without exception aSwabian variety, the L2 is the StandardGerman and the L3 is Russian, which generations Iand II usuallylearned in school. These observations coincide with Riehl'sremarks on the language skills of the different generations of 'Russian-Germans' in Siberia (cf. Riehl 2017:22-25). However, questions about the language use in the country of origin were added to the autors interviews.
In general, all three groups speak Russian very well. This is due to the language repressionpolicy in the Soviet Union, which affected both the Caucasian and the Central Asian countries. Only after the collapse of the Soviet Uniond id the respectivenational languages such as Georgian, Azerbaijani and Armenian become more widely spoken, but theyw erestill largely confined to the context of the family. 5 Until the 1990s, the first twog enerations spoke Russian in public. Finally, with the end of the policy of language repression,the respective family languages also entered the public sphere. However, the use of the respective variety does not only differ according to countryand group affiliation, but also with regard to each generation.

3S tate of Research
There are already numerous studies on German language minorities in Central and Eastern Europe in general. Besides works about Germans in Ukraine( cf. Hvozdyak 2008, especially Trankarpatien-Ukraine cf. Melika 2002) and Romania (cf. Bottesch 2008;Scheuringer 2010, especially Banat Swabians cf. Scheuringer 2016, the following should be noted from Berend (1998;2 011), Berend/Jedig (1991), Berend /Riehl (2008), Blankenhorn (2003) and Rosenberg (1994), who are mainly dedicated to the Russian-Germand ialects in Russia respectively the 4F or the determination of the generations see Figure 2w ith the distribution of recordings (total). 5H ad 'Russian Germans' not emigrated in the 1990s from Central Asia, the same might have been said for Kazakh and Uzbek, which would theoreticallyh avea ffected the language of Generation II.

Language Contact and Language Attitudes of Caucasian Germans
former Soviet Union. In addition, studies should be considered which deal with the language contact of Russian Germans in Germany, like Anstatt (2011), Meng (2001, Pfetsch (1999) and Rosenberg (2010).
Research on the Swabian variety of Transcaucasian settlementsr emains a desideratum to this day, although, in contrast to other 'Russian-German' varieties (cf.,f or example Berend 2011), Swabian hardly had contact with other ('Russian-German')v arieties until the pre-war period of the 1930s due to the comparatively closed settlementso ft he Caucasus Swabians (Berend 2011:103, 105). This data gap in language contact researchaswell as in variationlinguistics -primarily the 'Russian-German' varieties and their description-needs to be closed. The author recorded voice data on audio and video of almost thirty Caucasian Germans of the experience generationa nd twog enerations of descendants:i nB aku (Azerbaijan), in Tbilisi'sd istricts Didube (formerly Alexandersdorf)a nd Tschugureti (formerlyN eu-Tiflis), in Bolnisi (formerly: Katharinenfeld) for the first time, and in various German citiess uch as Landau, Neustadta nd er We instraße, Offenburg and Schwaikheim (Rems-Mur-Kreis). The number of respondents is not representativei nq uantitativet erms, but qualitativestatements can be made with around 15 hours of footage.

4T heoretical Framework of Treated Topics and Methodology
19 questionnaire-based interviewsw ith Caucasian Germans were collected in Southwest Germany, where the largest groups of Caucasian Germans livetoday. 7 interviews were collected in Georgia and 2i nA zerbaijan. The sociolinguistic interview-guide, which contains 40 questions, wasdesigned to elicit quantitative and qualitativedata. The interview-guide is inspired by Albert /Marx (2010) in consideration of Nortier (2008) and König( 2014) and jointly discussed and developed within the framework of the aforementioned project 'German in the Wo rld' at the IDS. The surveys in the area of language attitude follow the methods of Gärtig et al. (cf. 2010) and Plewnia /Rothe (cf. 2012: 9-118). So, in order to make statementsa bout the connection between language and identity construction as well as the effects of migration and repression on language acquisition and multilingualism,linguistic biographical data were incorporated and the test persons were asked about their language skills (in German, Swabian, Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani etc.), theirr espectivel anguage attitudes and the social, cultural and media situation. Katharina Dück generation I 1917-1942generation II 1943-1973generation III 1974 femalem ale femalem ale femalem ale Bolnisi ( The questionnaire-based interviews were conducted by the author herself from September to December 2017 in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Germany. These, as well as informal table discussions, were recorded over audio and in some cases also video recorder. Within the framework of this project the data are currently being transcribed and evaluated (following Schmidt /Schütte 2016). The approach to quantitativeand qualitativedata evaluation wasprimarily based on Berend (1998;2003: 151-164), Meng (2001) and Anstatt (2011:101-128). Afterwards the voice and videorecordings will be processed technically and entered into the Archiv für Gesprochenes Deutsch ('Archivef or Spoken German')o ft he Leibniz-Institute for the German Language.

Language Contact of CaucasianGermans in the South Caucasus
This chapter begins by describing the language contact constellations of the Caucasian Germans who were excluded from the forced deportations because they were, for example, married to aGeorgian, Azerbaijani or Armenian person, and who still liveinthe German villages of the South Caucasus. Their language contact situation is describedbythe Caucasian German Balthasar Megrelishvili 6 below. His biography is quite exemplary.Hewas born in 1947 in Bolnisi(formerly Katharinenfeld, Georgia) and wasr aised with aS wabian variety (L2) by his German grandmother, with whom he spent most of his childhood. His grandfather wasGeorgian. His parentsboth spokeGeorgian (L1) with him.
6T he names of the informants were changed by the author. Apart from the numerous hesitations and pauses,w hich the speaker explains with alack of language practice, the simultaneoususe of the Standard German and the Swabian variety is particularlystriking. An example is the interchangeable use of /i/ and /ich/ for the first person. When the speaker remembers his earliest childhoodm emories with his grandmother, typical Swabian diphtongs such as /gwea/, /hau/ and /taun/ stand out. The lattert wo forms are overcorrectionsthat other Caucasian Germans do not use. In addition to the Swabian variety as L2, his Swabian grandmother also taught him German songs and poems, such as Heinrich Heine'sL oreley, which he recited freely-in what he called the "high language".Itisuncertain whether the simultaneous use of the standard variety orignates from this, from German lessons at school, or from his media consumption-Megrelishvili stated that he still reads alot in German on the Interneta nd also watches films and videos in German. He repeatedlya nd deliberately points out the difference between the Swabian "dialect" and the "high language" German. He later refers to Georgian (L1) as his mother tongue,although here he still claims that he thought in German up to the first grade and,m oreover, that a person is defined by the language he or she thinks in. On the other hand, he repeatedly describes himself as Georgian. In the family Georgian wasa lways spoken except for the grandmother, who spoke German. In school, Russian became his L3, and accompanied him during his professional life as an aviator During this time, his Georgian also sufferedfrom the repressivelanguage policy in the Soviet Union. He reports that he usually spoke Russian with his Georgian colleagues and only used Georgian when they were alone in pairs. Only after he had retired and returned to his birthplace Bolnisi did Georgian become his main language of communication again.
Overall, it is difficult for the speaker to speak German, and he occasionally changes to Russian or Georgian during the interview: [3] Balthasar Megrelishvili (BM) reports about his relatives in Germany language acquisition in the family and the first language contact with Russian (also present at the interview Gustav Armin (GA))-Interview Katharina Dück (KD) 2017. For example, the interviewer wass ometimes asked whether she understood the respectivel anguage after changing to Russian/Georgian. Despite all his efforts to speak German, Megrelishvili switched to Russian and Georgian without knowing that the interviewer speaks (and understands) Russian. As soon as he noticed this due to the author'su se of the Russian consent particle /da/ (cf. Blankenhorn 2003: 110), he asked directly about the Russian knowledge, and used Russian during the remaining conversation more frequently for longer speeches, and aboveall for complexcontents. Before that, he had tried to explain complex contexts in German and to use his passiveG erman vocabulary. He emphasized several times that he lacks the practiceinGerman. The phenomenon of the alternating use of elements of twoormore languages-whether complete 9/ silno ljubimij ne budesch/: Russian for 'you won'tg et very popular' [like 'you can'tf orce popularity /love']. 10 /da da/: Russian for ,yes, yes'. 11 /khartula dassesea/: Georgian for 'in Georgia it'snot like that'. 12 /tzalitz tzaporeli weri knewi/: Georgian for 'you can'tb en ice on purpose' [like 'you're not necessarily considered nice']. 13 /tak/: Russian for 'well'. 14 /wot/: Russian für 'so'.
Language Contact and Language Attitudes of Caucasian Germans utterances or even insertso fi ndividual lexemes-is well known to the informants: [4] BalthasarM egrelishvili (BM) talks about his everyday experiences with code switching (also present at the interview Gustav Armin (GA))-Interview Katharina Dück(KD)  Viticulturew as aS wabian domain in the former German villages of Transcaucasia and not only in Bolnisi (formerly Katharinenfeld), where the informant wasborn and raised. In fact viticulture also existed in the South Caucasusbefore the German settlers, the Württemberg Pietists, came. They came from aw inegrowing region, and significantlye xpandeda nd effectively improved it in the South Caucasus( again in 2001). The vocabularyo ft he wine-growing sector contains accordingly numerous Swabian lexemes, which are activated in the informant'sspeech about the grape harvest and initiate further Swabian variants such as /ropft/, /got alles zum grund/, /ghet/.A tt he same time, he still uses a speech relatively close to the standard German: /aber jetzt ist waseh: gewesen/, instead of the Swabian variants 'isch' and 'gwea' ,which he uses as well during the interview. It is unclear why the informant does not use the Swabian variety throughout the conversation.P erhaps it is because the interviewer doesn ot belong to the network of "Caucasian Germans",and the informant tries to speak in the "Hochsprache" ('high-level language')out of courtesy. It is probable that the speaker moves within the range of his varieties and, depending on the in- The informant makes an effort to speak High German-especially the adjective /klein/ seems difficult to find; he first uses /klo/ for the Swabian variant 'kloi',but then corrects himself. Numerous hesitations, stuttering and many pauses occur, which provet hat the informant struggles with finding the Standard German vocabulary. Although he knows how to use it, he cannotconsistently maintain it (this concerns for example the lexem /isch/).C aucasian Germans use the language perceived as High German, usuallyr eferred to as "literary German" or "high language",inconversationswith non-Caucasian Germans. It is acolloquial variety of German with Swabian colouring-mainly in its phonetic and some lexical Swabian peculiarities such as "schwätzen".Assoon as Caucasian Germans are present, or when someoneprompts him to use his variety, he changes to the Swabian variety and speaks much moref luently and freely. Compare the informant'swife in line 0031:/na schwätz schwäbisch wenduschoibest schwätze verzeele wilschst/. This variety is particularlyevident when Caucasian Germans are among themselves (or havebecome accustomed to the interviewer):  The conversation shows an excerpt from atable talk of four Caucasus Swabians in arelaxed atmosphere in aprivate setting (the author waspresent but washardly noticed over time). Being over 90 years old, three of the four female speakers belong to the generation of experience( Generation I). They were born in the 1920s in the former Swabian colony Katharinenfelda wayf rom the Germanspeaking world, where they were neighbours over 70 years ago (as theyare again today). They can still actively remember their childhood in Katharinenfeld. Particularly impressiveinthis excerpt are the strongly overlapping, repeatedly confirming speeches-as ign that the participantsi nt he discussion feel comfortable and uninhibited, talking to each other as they always do. Especially noticeable arethe numerous lexeme variants of Swabian such as /isch/ for 'is' or 'I';/oin/, /koin/ for 'one' or 'none';/guat/ for 'good' or /hochmiatig/ for 'haughty'. There even are examples of words that are typical of the 'conserved' Swabian variety and are hardly ever used today, such as /ghet/ for 'had';/gwea/ for 'been' and /ghept/ for 'had'.The speakers onlyswitch to Standard German to make sure that the interviewer still understands everything. Apart from that, the twoand a half hours of conversation-with few exceptions such as aRussian job title for exterminators-show only afew obvious effects of language contact, which can probably be traced back to the early functionals eparation (diglossia) of the Swabian (L1) as low variety from Standard German as high variety (cf. Riehl 2014: 16).
The language contact situation of the Caucasian Germans in Germany (here only Generation Ia pplies) differs substantially from that of those living in the South Caucasus today; they initially grew up alone with the 'conserved' variety of Swabian (L1) without afurther language of aparent.Asalready mentioned, this generationlearned Standard German, which they call "literary German" (L2), in the German village schooli nK atharinenfeld. They used this variationw hen talking to the teacher, reciting poems, or in singing lessons. According to their own statements, only the L1 wasused in everyday life. After the deportations in adolescence,they used the L1 exclusively in their domestic environment and the L2 with other Russian Germans from the Vo lga or Black Sea regions, and they continue to do so today with other Germans.

Language Contact and Language Attitudes of Caucasian Germans
This generation only encountered Russian (L3) as af oreign language at school. This changed in 1931 when the school language waschanged to Russian after the summer holidays. From thenonitwas completely forbidden to use any language other than Russian in public spaces. At home, this generation continued to speak solely Swabian. They onlycame into contact with other languages, such as Georgian, when they had hired Georgian workers. Some report that they had played with the childrenofthe cattle keepers or housekeepers and thus learned Georgian. 18 Of this closer domestic language contact, only afew words from the domestic and culinary fields haveremained to this day: They use 'shish kebab' instead of 'spit roast', 'dolma' instead of 'cabbage rolls' or 'ajap-sandali' instead of 'vegetable stew'.A sm ost people of this generation spent their entire professionallife in the Kazakh, Kyrgyz or Uzbek deportation areas (until the 1950s it wasforbidden to leavethe assignedsettlement),their Russian is at agood to very good language level: everyone can read, write and speak Russian.However, nobody of this generation (!)spoke Russian with me. Code-switching waslimited to individual technical terms from former professionall ife when they reported about it in afree conversation.
The situation is different with Generation II of the Caucasus Swabians living in Germany, as with the spokeswoman WS, who is represented in the abovewith a short speech. She wasborn in 1954 in one of the mixed settlementsinKazakhstan and grew up there. Her language contact in German wasprimarily with Russian. The language repressions 19 in the Soviet Union also applied to Kazakh, so that there waslittle or no language contact here (cf. Berend /Riehl 2008: 23). On the other hand, there wasv ariety contact, namely with other Russian-Germanv arieties, so that this informant already shows aw eakened Swabian variety both through the dominance of Russian in public life and the pressure of the other Russian-German variants. The fact that she still masters the 'conserved' Swabian variety quite well is probably due to the language education of her parents, who despite the ban on speakingalanguage other than Russian, insisted that the children speak Swabian as soon as they entered the house. Thus,she had the same L1 as the parents,but due to the stronger pressure of the language in her environment as well as other varieties, she developed aw eakened Swabian which is characteristic for numerous speakers of thisgeneration. At the same time, there are also some informantsi nt his generation who,h aveb een so strongly influenced by the Russian language contact and the related repressions that theyname Russian as their mother tongue. The CaucasusS wabians, however, represent a 18 The fact that Georgian or Armenian employees could be afforded waso nly possible at the beginning of the 20th century, when the Caucasus Swabians becamewealthier with the bloom of the winegrowers' cooperatives. 19 In 1929, in all parts of the Soviet Union the Russian language wase stablished as the only language to be used (in public life) and from 1931 onwards it wasprosecuted.

Katharina Dück
remarkably small proportion in contrast to other Russian-German speakers. In addition, the Caucasus Swabians,ingeneral-and this is also remarkable-often answer the question about their mother tongue explicitly; their mother tongue, according to them, is Swabian and not German. Moreover, the cohesion, culture and language of this group is particularly striking: while other 'Russian Germans'-like in the Vo lga area-mingled with each other, so that aprocess of koineization began quite early on (cf. Berend 1998: 10), the CaucasusSwabians sought future spouses almost exclusively among the CaucasusS wabians after the deportations. The internal social structure of the Caucasian Germans is characterisedb yastrikingly pronounced sense of togetherness (also across countries)-in contrast to other Russian Germans. After the partial rehabilitation of the 'Russian Germans' in the 1950s, the Caucasus Swabians had already settled in Kazakhstan and Central Asia in so-called 'Posjolki gorodskoga tipa' ("city-like settlements")a nd formed new varieties, and thus culture and identity communities. An example of these settlements is the Shelisinka area of Pavlodar territory innorthern Kazakhstan, where many more settlementsw ere situated (cf. Berend 2011:106). However, these settlements ceased to exist in the 1990s because most of the CaucasusSwabians emigrated to Germany.
Interestingly, astriking number of Caucasian Swabians havesettled again in southernG erman regions-often not far from the emigration places of their ancestors. Finally, theses ettlement trends influencet he developmento ft he 'conserved' Swabian variety that should not be underestimated; it is still quite dynamic within the Caucasian Germans in Germanye vena mong the third generation, of which some were born in the Federal Republic. Some of them also state "Swabian"-and not "German"-as their nativel anguage (although only twoh aveb een recorded in interviews so far). However, they are increasingly using the variety of Swabian which is already common in Germany.I nc ommunication with grandparents (GenerationI ), however, this generation uses exclusively the 'conserved' Swabian variety. None of the 3rd generation informants Ispoke to speaks Russian, while their parents speak Russian fluently.

Language AttitudesofCaucasian Germans
The cross-country identification with the Caucasian German group is reflected particularlys trong in the language attitudes that prevail towards the German language: when asked about the German language in general or the Swabian variety in particular, all Caucasian German speakers exhibit strikingly positive reactions and attitudes, whether they livei nG ermany or in the Caucasus. Associations with the German language as well as the Swabian variety areexpressed Language Contact and Language Attitudes of Caucasian Germans by terms such as "beauty", "love",a nd "home".A ll informants rate both languages as "good" or even "very good".The informantsmake the strongest distinction between the Swabian variety and the Standard German in the point of "speechmelody".Both haveanice sound; but while StandardG erman sounds "beautiful",especially in poems and songs, Swabian is, in comparison, considered an "honest" and "direct" language. The emotionala spect, often closely connected with the Swabian variety, cannot be emphasized strongly enough: Swabian is the "language of childhood", "family" and "friends",and is largely associated with the nostalgicfeelings "familiarity", "protection",and "security"-especially by the Caucasian Germans in Germany. Emotional descriptions like thesea bout Standard German do not occur. While the form of Standard German is mainly perceived favourably, the Swabian variety is primarilylinked to its associativecontent.
Some informantsa re not sure whether it is possible to separate "Swabian" from "German".Itisoften mentioned by the Caucasian Germans in Georgia who show as trong contrast between the Swabian variety and Standard German in their speech that they "belong inseparably" together. This finding is certainly due to the fact that the transitions between the Swabian and Standard German are not distinct (cf. Riehl 2006: 191), although the speakers are conscious of the distinction between the twovarieties. Since,for this group of speakers, both varieties havethe function as the "language of nearness" (Riehl 2006: 190).

6C onclusion and Research Desiderata
As has been shown, similar observations could be made in the interviews with the Caucasian Germans as Berend (1998;), Blankenhorn (2003 and Riehl (2006;2014;2017). The most striking variation phenomenon in the language contact of Caucasian Germans is code switching, although it can be observed much more frequently in the language use of Caucasian Germansinthe South Caucasus, and not specifically in the network. This stands in contrast to the Caucasus Germans in Germany, where code switching is network-specific and takes place less frequently. An essential factor for switching between language elements (nonfunctionalc ode switching lefta side) is the will to verbalize strong emotions. Another important factor is the lack of acounterpart in the situationally dominant language: either the term sought is more appropriate for what is meant in the other language or the informants cannot think of it and the other language is used to bridge amomentary lexical gap.
More ambiguous is the change between the 'conserved' Swabian variety and the StandardGerman. In general, the Caucasian Germans are aware of the difference ["dialect" is "dialect" and "Hochsprache" is "Hochsprache" ('high-level