Kafka was born on 3 July 1883 in Prague, a large provincial capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that was home to many Czechs, some Germans, and a lesser number of German-cultured, German-speaking Jews. His father, Hermann Kafka, of humble rural origin, was a hard-working, hard-driving, successful merchant. His mother tongue was Czech, but he spoke German, correctly seeing the language as an important card to be played in the contest for social and economic mobility and security. Kafka's mother, Julie Löwy Kafka, came from a family with older Prague roots and some degree of wealth. She proved unable to mediate the estrangement between her brusque, domineering husband and her quiet, tyrannized, oversensitive son.
The boy and his three younger sisters were largely cared for by a transient staff of mostly Czech-speaking household servants, for when Julie was not pregnant she helped her husband in his fancy-goods and haberdashery business. At the age of six Kafka began attending the German school, and thereafter he spoke more German than Czech. When he was ten he entered the Altstädter Deutsches Gymnasium, the German preparatory school in Old Town.
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