Robert Sedlaczek (born 1952) is an Austrian journalist, Germanist, expert for Austrian German, and non-fiction author. [1] He is best known for his works on aspects of the German language. In addition, he writes books and articles on cultural history topics. In his book Die Tante Jolesch und ihre Zeit. Eine Recherche he traced the history of the industrial family of the same name as well as the lawyer, Hugo Sperber. These people are characters in Friedrich Torberg's book Die Tante Jolesch.
Robert Sedlaczek was born 2 April 1952 in Vienna. He studied German Studies, English Studies and Journalism in Vienna, earning a Doctor of Philosophy. From 1973 to 1978, he worked as an editor for the news agency, United Press International. After working as a freelance journalist, among others for the magazine Extrablatt , he became press spokesman for the Austrian Chancellor, Bruno Kreisky in 1980, and, later, for Ferdinand Lacina. From 1986 to 1990, he was a member of the curatorium of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation or ORF, from 1989 to 2003, he was Managing Director of the Austrian Federal Publishing House, (Österreichischer Bundesverlag). Since 2005, he has been working as a columnist in the feature section of the Wiener Zeitung, and since 2009 he has written the section "German for Journalists" for the industry magazine Der österreichische Journalist. He writes books for the publishers, Amalthea Signum, for Haymon of Innsbruck, for Edition Atelier of Vienna, and for Ueberreuter, also of Vienna.
Sedlaczek has been married to Melita Sedlaczek since 1988, who also supports him as a co-author of his books, and has a stepdaughter, whom he adopted as a child. Sedlaczek lives in Vienna and Neulengbach, a town on the western edge of the Vienna Woods.
In 1994, Sedlaczek and co-author Werner Schima received the Steinfeder Prize for wine journalism from the Vinea Wachau Nobilis Districtus for the Austrian wine guide Unser Wein, which was published several times.
Robert Sedlaczek has worked with illustrator, Martin Czapka, since 2016. Czapka runs an advertising studio in Vienna and illustrated the books published by Amalthea: Österreichisch für Anfänger, Österreich für Fortgeschrittene and Österreichisch fia Fuaßboifäns, as well the quiz games Das neue Österreich Quiz and Challenge Austria released by Ferdinand Piatnik & Sons.
Sedlaczek is one of the most prominent voices of Austrian German, both as a standard variety of German ("österreichisches Standarddeutsch") and as a range of dialects, especially for Viennese and Eastern Austrian dialects, for which he has published widely. His regular column in Wiener Zeitung, "Sedlaczek am Mittwoch", has for over 20 years explored many aspects of Austrian German, e.g. Meidling "L" (dark /l/ à la Vienna- Meidling, [2] pressure from German Standard German (2004, 2021), [3] gender issues and language (2020), Viennese dialects (2011). Since the discontinuation of Wiener Zeitung as a daily newspaper in 2023, Sedlaczek has been publishing his regular language columns as a blog. [4]
Sedlaczek is the author of several dictionaries of varieties of Austrian German with Haymon Publishers (Innsbruck). [5] These include Wörterbuch des Wienerischen. (with Melita Sedlaczek), Haymon Taschenbuchverlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-85218-891-1, Wörterbuch der Alltagssprache Österreichs, Haymon 2011 (7th ed. 2019) or Das große Wörterbuch des Wienerischen, 2023. One aspect worth mentioning is that Sedlaczek, like the makers of Österreichisches Wörterbuch, writes outside of academically institutionalized Germanistik, who have consistently ignored Standard Austrian German and Austrian German as a stand-alone, legitimate research stance. A fact that has recently led to the formulation of a One Standard German Axiom in academic Germanistik.
Sedlaczek is a major promoter of Tarock card games. Das große Tarock-Buch ("The Big Tarock Book"), written with Wolfgang Mayr and Roland Kronigl, and Die Strategie des Tarockspiels ("The Strategy of the Game of Tarock"), written with Wolfgang Mayr, are regarded as standard German-language works for this family of card games. Together with Mayr, he founded the Vienna Tarock Cup (Wiener Tarockcup) in 2003 for the Tarock game of Königrufen and initiated a final for the Austrian tournament series, which is held annually at Linz Casino. Sedlaczek is also the main initiator of the reintroduction of Hungarian Tarock in Austria. From 2005 to 2018, in his Tarock columns in the Wiener Zeitung , he and Wolfgang Mayr gave tactical tips for the variants of Tarock common in Austria; he is currently writing a similar series with his wife Melita for the Oberösterreichisches Volksblatt (Upper Austrian News). His latest publication on the subject is Kulturgeschichte des Tarockspiels. Geschichten über Tarock und seine berühmten Spieler (The Cultural History of Tarock: Stories about Tarock and its Famous Players") which he again co-authored with Mayr.
Works that Robert Sedlaczek has published include the following: [1]
Austrian German, Austrian Standard German (ASG), Standard Austrian German, Austrian High German, or simply just Austrian, is the variety of Standard German written and spoken in Austria and South Tyrol. It has the highest sociolinguistic prestige locally, as it is the variation used in the media and for other formal situations. In less formal situations, Austrians use Bavarian and Alemannic dialects, which are traditionally spoken but rarely written in Austria. It has been standardized with the publishing of the Österreichisches Wörterbuch in 1951.
Königrufen or Königsrufen is a four-player, trick-taking card game of the tarot family, played in Austria and Southern Tyrol, with variants for two, three and six players. As with other regional tarot card games, it is usually called Tarock by its players. It is the only variant of Tarock that is played over most of Austria and, in 2001, was the most popular card game in Austria after Schnapsen and Rommé. By 2015, it had become "the favourite card game of Austrians". It has been described as the most interesting tarot game for four players, the "Game of Kings", a game that requires intelligence and, with 22 trumps in play, as good "training for the brain".
The Grazer Autorinnen Autorenversammlung (GAV) was founded under the name of Grazer Autorenversammlung in March 1973 and is one of the two major Austrian writers' association (besides the Austrian PEN). H. C. Artmann was its first president. Other writers who contributed to the foundation of the association, were Friedrich Achleitner, Wolfgang Bauer, Georg Bydlinski, Barbara Frischmuth, Peter Handke, Ernst Jandl, Alfred Kolleritsch, Friederike Mayröcker, Reinhard Priessnitz, Peter Rosei, Gerhard Roth, Gerhard Rühm, Michael Scharang, and Oswald Wiener.
The Austrian Writers' Association has been founded in 1945 and was thus one of the first Austrian professional associations after World War II. The association fosters the communication between writers and the contact between authors and readers and is located in Vienna, Austria. Sidonia Gall is chairman of the OESV.
Raoul Schrott is an Austrian poet, writer, literary critic, translator and broadcast personality.
Jürg Amann was a Swiss author and dramatist. He has written radio plays, a biography of Robert Walser, and other works.
Gerhard Rühm is an Austrian author, composer and visual artist.
Tapp Tarock, also called Viennese Tappen, Tappen or Tapper, is a three-player tarot card game which traditionally uses the 54-card Industrie und Glück deck. Before the Anschluss (1938), it was the preferred card game of Viennese coffee houses, for example, the Literatencafés and Café Central. Even today Tapp Tarock is played sporadically. The exact date when it appeared is not possible to identify; some sources suggest it may have been developed in Austria in the early 19th century, but its mention in caricature operas in 1800 and 1806 suggest it was well known even by then and must have arisen in the late 18th century. The oldest description of the actual rules is dated to 1821. Tapp Tarock is considered a good entry level game before players attempt more complex Tarock forms like Cego, Illustrated Tarock or Königrufen.
Bettina Balàka is an Austrian novelist, poet, essayist, playwright and short story writer. Recent novels include Eisflüstern, Kassiopeia (2010) and Unter Menschen.
Strohmandeln, also called Strohmandel, Strohmanntarock, Strohmanntarok, Zweiertarock, Strawman Tarock or Straw Man Tarock, is an old, two-hand card game from the Austrian branch of the Tarock family. It takes its name from the three-packet talon of four cards, the Strohmänner ("strawmen"), each player has at the start of the game. While the original game has been described as jejune, it was eventually superseded by an attractive successor which is both challenging and very exciting.
Illustrated Tarock or Illustrated Dreiertarock is an Austrian card game that has been described as the "queen" of all three-handed Tarock games played with the 54-card pack. It was thought by Mayr and Sedlaczek to be extinct but, in 2009 when the two Tarock authors were guests on an ORF radio programme, players from Vienna called in who confirmed they still played the game. It is sometimes called Point Tarock which, however, is a different, probably extinct, game, albeit a close cousin. Although it has "a reputation for being a little more convoluted than the others", Furr maintains that this is not so, but recommends that players become familiar with Tapp Tarock before attempting this game.
A blank is a playing card in card-point games that is a non-counter, or is worth nothing. In Poker, the term refers to a community card which is extremely unlikely to help any remaining player.
Dreiertarock is a 3-handed card game of the Austrian Tarock family. Although less popular than it once was, it is still played in Austria, especially in Carinthia, and in neighboring Slovenia. In 2013, it was one of five variants of Tarock game competed for in the International Piatnik Tarock Tournament in Vienna. For a long time, three-handed variants of Tarock were played alongside the four-handed games and were very popular everywhere in Austria. They have since fallen behind in popularity which "is a pity because they are interesting variants which demand a high level of skill". They remain popular in Slovenia.
Viktor Riemann was an Austrian author, commentator, journalist and politician (VdU). He sat as a member of the "Nationalrat" between 1949 and 1956.
Husarln ("Hussar") is a mid-20th century, three-hand card game of the Austrian branch of the Tarot family. It is a 42-card variant of Illustrated Tarock and appears to be a close Austrian relative of the 42-card Hungarian tarock card games. The game is dominated by the distribution of Tarocks, giving it a "brisk and energetic feel" that is reflected in its name. It is also known as Block Tarock, although that name was given to a quite different and older game.
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The One Standard German Axiom (OSGA) is a concept by Austrian-Canadian UBC linguist Stefan Dollinger in his 2019 monograph The Pluricentricity Debate, used to describe what he believes is scepticism in German dialectology and linguistics towards the idea of multiple standard varieties.
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