Not Easy Being Emperor--The Answer

So anyway, the question was, can you name the 12 separate ethnic components of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire ? Answer in a moment, but first a word of appreciation for the source—Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, Wittgenstein’s Vienna (1973). It’s more “Wittgenstein” than “Vienna”—for a more general overview, you would want Carl A. Schorske, Fin-de-Siécle Vienna: Politics and Culture (1981). But J&T do an elegant job of situating Wittgenstein as part of an ongoing conversation at the heart of the Empire, as distinct from being a cranky Englishman who just dropped in from outer space.

By way of background, however, they describe the empire as an

Ungovernable mélange of Germans, Ruthenes, Italians, Slovaks, Rumanians, Czechs, Poles, Magyars, Slovenes, Croats, Transylvanian Saxons and Serbs.

--Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, Wittgenstein’s Vienna 41 (1973).

Wiki offers a somewhat similar list of AH “languages” (link), but Wiki says “Rusyn” (for Ruthenian?). It Serbian, Croation, and Serbo-Croatian (could this be an editing error?). It adds Ukranian and Lithuanian. Ukranian I understand, but Lithuanian? Aren’t those guys a long way away?

J&T introduce their society as “Kakania,” which they define in a lead footnote:

The name was invented by Robert Musil, and combines two senses on different levels. On the surface, it is a coinage from the intialos K.K. or K. u. K., standing for “Imperial-Royal” or “Imperial and Royal,” which distinguished all the major instituions of the Hapsburg Empire. … But to anyone familiar with German nursery language, it carries also the secondary sense of “Excrementia” or “Shitland.”

--Id., at 13

Fn.: Underbelly's Teutonic specialist, who for some reason does not like to post comments, points out that it could just as well be Kukanias= cookooland.