Linguistic nationalism was a decisive linguistic ideology all through the nineteenth century. Consequently, by its very nature, it determined thinking about language throughout the entire period, and thus, linguistic behavior, as well. Based on metalinguistic data, this paper attempts to reconstruct the form of existence of this linguistic ideology in Hungary in the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1867–1918). The author’s aim is not to explore and contrast the various prominent and less prominent individual views of the period but rather to reconstruct and explain the general, collective system of ideas and values that underlies their apparent multiplicity and which is more or less constant throughout the period at hand. The paper hence wishes to contribute to a significant and neglected domain of historical sociolinguistics, the recognition of the history of linguistic awareness.