Kafka's language

One of the most interesting aspects of Kafka's work is that he wrote in Prussian dialect, not German. Prussian literature is uncommon, at best, as Prussian is thought to be a strict, highly technical language-- the language of engineers. (The difference between Prussian and German is akin to the difference between the English of Nabokov's Lolita and that of the Owner's Manual from a '94 Jeep Wrangler.)

In this regard, Kafka follows an interesting Jewish literary tradition: the oldest Jewish prayers (e.g. Mourner's Kaddish) and literature (e.g. The Old Testament's Song of Songs, aka the Song of Solomon) are written in Aramaic-- a trade language older than Hebrew. The vast bulk of the Jewish contribution to World Literature and Art, prior to WWII and Shoa (aka the Holocaust), was in Yiddish-- a pidgin composed of German, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Greek, etc. and rendered in the Hebrew character set (just as Aramaic is.) Yiddish was primarily a trade language. What's this all mean? Uncertain-- but certainly an interesting tidbit.