The inhabitants were mostly farmers. Their lives consisted mainly of hard work. The population was Roman Catholic, and the rhythm of life was therefore mainly governed by the church and its festivities. An education in a German school was considered to be of great importance; six villages had their own German elementary school and the town of Lissowitz had a grammar school. As a result of the geographic separation from other German settlements, the language of these German-speaking inhabitants retained its original form to a great extent, and the area became a language island. It is a variety of a Southern German dialect. One peculiarity is that a "w" was pronounced very much like a "b."