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140-712: On the Czech side of the border (in Trans-Olza ) it is spoken mainly by the Polish minority , where it was and still is strongly influenced mainly by Czech (mainly lexicon and syntax). It is used to reinforce a feeling of regional solidarity. Polish and Czech linguists differ in their views on the classification of the dialect. Most Czech linguists make a distinction between the dialect as spoken in Czechia and in Poland, and classify

280-750: A 'good night' lenition is blocked ( nos as a feminine noun normally causes lenition of a following modifier, for example Gwener 'Friday' yields nos Wener 'Friday night'). Within Celtic, blocked lenition phenomena also occur in Irish (for example ao n d oras 'one door', an chéa d d uine 'the first person') and Manx (for example u n d orrys 'one door', yn chie d d ooinney 'the first man') however. Outside Celtic, in Spanish orthographic b d g are retained as [b, d, ɡ] following nasals rather than their normal lenited forms [β, ð, ɣ] . In

420-525: A trill to a tap . The spirantization of Gaelic nasal /m/ to /v/ is unusual among forms of lenition, but it is triggered by the same environment as more prototypical lenition. (It may also leave a residue of nasalization in adjacent vowels.) The orthography shows that by inserting an h (except after l n r ). Some languages which have lenition have in addition complex rules affecting situations where lenition might be expected to occur but does not, often those involving homorganic consonants . This

560-580: A blow which will play an important role in our relations with the Czechoslovak Republic. The decision of the Council of Ambassadors has given the Czechs a piece of Polish land containing a population which is mostly Polish.... The decision has caused a rift between these two nations which are ordinarily politically and economically united' ( ...." Another account of the situation in 1918–1919

700-525: A consonant mutation in which a consonant changes from one considered weak to one considered strong. Fortition is less frequent than lenition in the languages of the world, but word-initial and word-final fortition is fairly frequent. Italian, for example, presents numerous regular examples of word-initial fortition both historically (Lat. Januarius with initial /j/ > gennaio , with [dʒ] ) and synchronically (e.g., /ˈkaza/ "house, home" → [ˈkaːza] but /a ˈkaza/ "at home" → [aˈkːaːza] ). Catalan

840-657: A document in which a non-German citizen declared that he had some German ancestry by signing it; refusal to sign this document could lead to deportation to a concentration camp – were introduced. Local people who took them were later on enrolled in the Wehrmacht . Many local people with no German ancestry were also forced to take them. The World War II death toll in Trans-Olza is estimated at about 6,000 people: about 2,500 Jews, 2,000 other citizens (80% of them being Poles) and more than 1,000 locals who died in

980-473: A feminine noun taking the ending -a . The historic development of lenition in those two cases can be reconstructed as follows: Synchronic lenition in Scottish Gaelic affects almost all consonants (except /l̪ˠ/ , which has lost its lenited counterpart in most areas). Changes such as /n̪ˠ/ to /n/ involve the loss of secondary articulation ; in addition, /rˠ/ → /ɾ/ involves the reduction of

1120-469: A language at a particular point in time) and diachronically (as a language changes over time ). Lenition can involve such changes as voicing a voiceless consonant, causing a consonant to relax occlusion , to lose its place of articulation (a phenomenon called debuccalization , which turns a consonant into a glottal consonant like [ h ] or [ ʔ ] ), or even causing a consonant to disappear entirely. An example of synchronic lenition

1260-609: A language has no obstruents other than voiceless stops, other sounds are encountered, as in Finnish, where the lenited grade is represented by chronemes , approximants , taps or even trills . For example, Finnish used to have a complete set of spirantization reflexes for /p t k/ , though these have been lost in favour of similar-sounding phonemes. In the Southern Ostrobothnian , Tavastian and southwestern dialects of Finnish, /ð/ mostly changed into /r/ , thus

1400-606: A majority of them were dissatisfied with the situation after October 1938. Zaolzie remained a part of Poland for only 11 months until the invasion of Poland started on 1 September 1939. When Poland entered the Western camp in April 1939 , General Gamelin reminded General Kasprzycki of the Polish role in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. According to historian Paul N. Hehn , Poland's annexation of Zaolzie may have contributed to

1540-502: A mostly Czech population, the other three were mostly inhabited by Poles. During the 19th century the number of ethnic Germans grew. After declining at the end of the 19th century, at the beginning of the 20th century and later from 1920 to 1938 the Czech population grew significantly to rival the Poles. Another significant ethnic group were the Jews, but almost the entire Jewish population

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1680-409: A population of 227,399 people. Administratively the annexed area was divided between two counties: Frysztat and Cieszyn County . At the same time Slovakia lost to Hungary 10,390 km with 854,277 inhabitants. The Germans were delighted with this outcome, and were happy to give up the sacrifice of a small provincial rail centre to Poland in exchange for the ensuing propaganda benefits. It spread

1820-534: A special treaty between Duke Vladislaus I of Opole and King Ottokar II of Bohemia on December 1261 which regulated a local border between their states along the Ostravice River . In order to strengthen the border Władysław of Opole decided to found Orlová monastery in 1268. In the continued process of feudal fragmentation of Poland the Castellany of Cieszyn was eventually transformed in 1290 into

1960-505: A specific and distinct subgroup of that dialect (Stanisław Bąk, 1974; Alfred Zaręba, 1988; Bogusław Wyderka, 2010). As such, from the 1990s the Cieszyn Silesian dialect became an object of the debate, whether Silesian is a separate language or just a dialect. The Gorals in the south of Cieszyn Silesia do not call their dialect Silesian but Goral (Górolski) and have more Vlach and Slovak influence. The language of Cieszyn Silesia

2100-433: A stronger sound becomes a weaker one. Lenition can be seen as a movement on the sonority hierarchy from less sonorous to more sonorous, or on a strength hierarchy from stronger to weaker. In examples below, a greater-than sign indicates that one sound changes to another. The notation [t] > [ts] means that [t] changes to [ts] . The sound change of palatalization sometimes involves lenition. Lenition includes

2240-586: A treaty with Czechoslovakia in Warsaw on 13 June 1958 confirming the border as it existed on 1 January 1938. After the Communist takeover of power, the industrial boom continued and many immigrants arrived in the area (mostly from other parts of Czechoslovakia, mainly from Slovakia ). The arrival of Slovaks significantly changed the ethnic structure of the area, as almost all the Slovak immigrants assimilated into

2380-495: A type of assimilation of the consonant to the surrounding vowels, in which features of the consonant that are not present in the surrounding vowels (e.g. obstruction, voicelessness) are gradually eliminated. Some of the sounds generated by lenition are often subsequently "normalized" into related but cross-linguistically more common sounds. An example would be the changes [b] → [β] → [v] and [d] → [ð] → [z] . Such normalizations correspond to diagonal movements down and to

2520-590: Is y cathod , not * y gathod . The change of / k / to [ ɡ ] in y gath is thus caused by the syntax of the phrase, not by the modern phonological position of the consonant / k / . The opposite of lenition, fortition , a sound change that makes a consonant "stronger", is less common, but Breton and Cornish have "hard mutation" forms which represent fortition. Lenition involves changes in manner of articulation , sometimes accompanied by small changes in place of articulation . There are two main lenition pathways: opening and sonorization. In both cases,

2660-465: Is a mystery and tragedy of European history that a people capable of every heroic virtue ... as individuals, should repeatedly show such inveterate faults in almost every aspect of their governmental life." Churchill also associated such behaviour with hyenas . In 2009 Polish president Lech Kaczyński declared during 70th anniversary of start of World War II, which was welcomed by the Czech and Slovak diplomatic delegations: Poland's participation in

2800-412: Is a transitional dialect, located roughly at the mid-point of a dialect continuum connecting Czech, Slovak, and Polish. Polish linguists tend to classify it as a Silesian Polish dialect, and thus maintain that the territory of Polish extends into Czech Silesia. This interpretation emphasizes the history of the dialect over the current situation, as it has its roots mainly in Polish. The other view, which

2940-452: Is also a form of lenition. An example with geminate consonants comes from Finnish , where geminates become simple consonants while retaining voicing or voicelessness (e.g. katto → katon , dubbaan → dubata ). It is also possible for entire consonant clusters to undergo lenition, as in Votic , where voiceless clusters become voiced, e.g. itke- "to cry" → idgön . If

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3080-420: Is colloquially known as 'blocked lenition', or more technically as 'homorganic inhibition' or 'homorganic blocking'. In Scottish Gaelic, for example, there are three homorganic groups: In a position where lenition is expected due to the grammatical environment, lenition tends to be blocked if there are two adjacent homorganic consonants across the word boundary. For example: In modern Scottish Gaelic this rule

3220-447: Is diachronic in the sense that the developments took place over time and displaced [b, d, g] as the normal pronunciations between vowels. It is also synchronic in an analysis of [β̞ ð̞ ɣ̞] as allophonic realizations of /b, d, g/ : illustrating with /b/ , /bino/ 'wine' is pronounced [bino] after pause, but with [β̞] intervocalically, as in [de β̞ino] 'of wine'; likewise, /loba/ → [loβ̞a] . A similar development occurred in

3360-441: Is found in most varieties of American English , in the form of tapping : the / t / of a word like wait [weɪt] is pronounced as the more sonorous [ ɾ ] in the related form waiting [ˈweɪɾɪŋ] . Some varieties of Spanish show debuccalization of / s / to [ h ] at the end of a syllable , so that a word like estamos "we are" is pronounced [ehˈtamoh] . An example of diachronic lenition can be found in

3500-439: Is generally favoured by Czech and Slovak linguists, emphasizes a more recent distinction between the dialect spoken on the Polish side of the border from the dialect on the Czech side, with the latter considered to have become a "mixed Czech-Polish dialect" ( nářečí polsko-českého smíšeného pruhu ). Since the border dividing Cieszyn Silesia was created in 1920, there has been increased language contact with Czech, in particular

3640-742: Is given by historian Victor S. Mamatey . He notes that when the French government recognised Czechoslovakia's right to the "boundaries of Bohemia , Moravia , and Austrian Silesia " in its note to Austria of 19 December, the Czechoslovak government acted under the impression it had French support for its claim to Cieszyn Silesia as part of Austrian Silesia. However, Paris believed it gave that assurance only against German-Austrian claims, not Polish ones. Paris, however, viewed both Czechoslovakia and Poland as potential allies against Germany and did not want to cool relations with either. Mamatey writes that

3780-538: Is no longer triggered by its phonological environment but is now governed by its syntactic or morphological environment. For example, in Welsh , the word cath "cat" begins with the sound / k / , but after the definite article y , the / k / changes to [ ɡ ] : "the cat" in Welsh is y gath . This was historically due to intervocalic lenition, but in the plural, lenition does not happen, so "the cats"

3920-589: Is not phonemically distinctive. The basic system of consonant phonemes of the Cieszyn Silesian dialect is as follows: The dialect as spoken in the area around Havířov merges the postalveolar and pre-palatal fricatives, realising both as alveo-palatal . The native Slavic vocabulary of the Cieszyn Silesian dialect consists of some words shared with modern Czech and some words shared with modern Polish. It also contains words which has become obsolete in modern Polish but whose cognates are still used in Czech. Cieszyn Silesian has borrowed heavily from German, specifically

4060-533: Is of a transitional nature. The Cieszyn Silesian has been known by various names over the years. The modern speakers refer to it as cieszyńsko rzecz , and is also commonly referred by them as po naszymu , which means " in our own way ", a self-designation also encountered for other Slavic varieties in the Carpathians. In the past, the dialect has been mostly lumped together with other, territorially bigger languages/dialects: beginning with Polish (the language of

4200-500: Is only productive in the case of dentals but not the other two groups for the vast majority of speakers. It also does not affect all environments any more. For example, while aon still invokes the rules of blocked lenition, a noun followed by an adjective generally no longer does so. Hence: There is a significant number of frozen forms involving the other two groups (labials and velars) and environments as well, especially in surnames and place names: Though rare, in some instances

4340-412: Is rarely used. The term Zaolzie denotes the territory of the former districts of Český Těšín and Fryštát , in which the Polish population formed a majority according to the 1910 Austrian census. It makes up the eastern part of the Czech portion of Cieszyn Silesia. However, Polish historian Józef Szymeczek notes that the term is often mistakenly used for the whole Czech part of Cieszyn Silesia. Since

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4480-458: Is realized [ʒ] between vowels, and in typical speech of Central Tuscany, the voiceless stops /p t k/ in the same position are pronounced respectively [ɸ θ x/h] , as in /la kasa/ → [laˈhaːsa] 'the house', /buko/ → [ˈbuːho] 'hole'. Diachronic lenition is found, for example, in the change from Latin into Spanish , in which the intervocalic voiceless stops [p t k] first changed into their voiced counterparts [b d ɡ] , and later into

4620-550: Is traditionally called "eclipsis" in Irish grammar). Although nasalization as a feature also occurs in most Scottish Gaelic dialects, it is not shown in the orthography on the whole, as it is synchronic (the result of certain types of nasals affecting a following sound), rather than the diachronic Irish type sonorization (after historic nasals). For example taigh [t̪ʰɤj] "house" → an taigh [ən̪ˠˈd̪ʱɤj] "the house". The phenomenon of consonant gradation in Finnic languages

4760-478: The /k/ of /kasa/ as [ˈkaːsa] casa 'house' in a post-pause realization, [iŋˈkaːsa] in casa 'in (the) house' post-consonant, but [laˈhaːsa] la casa 'the house' intervocalically. Word-internally, the normal realization is also [h] : /ˈbuko/ buco 'hole' → [ˈbuːho] . In the Celtic languages , the phenomenon of intervocalic lenition historically extended across word boundaries. This explains

4900-736: The Cieszyn Silesia Euroregion with a few municipalities in the Euroregion Beskydy . Ethnic structure of Trans-Olza based on census results: Sources: Zahradnik 1992, 178–179. Siwek 1996, 31–38. 49°45′N 18°30′E  /  49.750°N 18.500°E  / 49.750; 18.500 Lenition#Spirantization In linguistics , lenition is a sound change that alters consonants , making them “weaker” in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin lēnis 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within

5040-734: The Duchy of Cieszyn , which in 1327 became an autonomic fiefdom of the Bohemian crown . Upon the death of Elizabeth Lucretia , its last ruler from the Polish Piast dynasty in 1653, it passed directly to the Czech kings from the Habsburg dynasty. When most of Silesia was conquered by Prussian king Frederick the Great in 1742, the Cieszyn region was part of the small southern portion that

5180-586: The European Union in May 2004, and especially the entry of the countries to the EU's passport-free Schengen zone in late 2007, reduced the significance of territorial disputes, ending systematic controls on the border between the countries. Signs prohibiting passage across the state border were removed, with people now allowed to cross the border freely at any point of their choosing. The area now belongs mostly to

5320-540: The Gaelic script , fricating lenition (usually called simply lenition ) is indicated by a dot above the affected consonant, and in the Roman script, the convention is to suffix the letter h to the consonant, to signify that it is lenited. Thus, a ṁáṫair is equivalent to a mháthair . In Middle Irish manuscripts, lenition of s and f was indicated by the dot above, and lenition of p , t , and c

5460-576: The German invasion of Czechoslovakia . After the German-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, the area became a part of Nazi Germany until 1945. After the war, the 1920 borders were restored. Historically, the largest specified ethnic group inhabiting this area were Poles. Under Austrian rule, Cieszyn Silesia was initially divided into three ( Bielitz , Friedek and Teschen ), and later into four districts (plus Freistadt ). One of them, Frýdek , had

5600-581: The Germanic languages is evidenced by Latin-English cognates such as pater , tenuis , cornu vs. father , thin , horn . The Latin words preserved the original stops, which became fricatives in old Germanic by Grimm's law . A few centuries later, the High German consonant shift led to a second series of lenitions in Old High German , chiefly of post-vocalic stops, as evidenced in

5740-726: The Kingdom of Prussia . The influence of Czech in Upper Silesia , to that date similar in scope to the Duchy of Teschen, quickly waned, replaced by the growing imposition of the German culture and language, especially after 1749. This led to attempts of approximation of the two codes and large influx of the German borrowings, embodied in the term Wasserpolaken , later adopted also by the Austrian Germans. The Austrian Silesia ,

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5880-557: The Military district of Upper Silesia . On 26 October 1939 Nazi Germany unilaterally annexed Trans-Olza as part of Landkreis Teschen . During the war, strong Germanization was introduced by the authorities. The Jews were in the worst position, followed by the Poles. Poles received lower food rations, they were supposed to pay extra taxes, they were not allowed to enter theatres, cinemas, etc. Polish and Czech education ceased to exist, Polish organizations were dismantled and their activity

6020-542: The Olza River. The history of the Trans-Olza region began in 1918, when, after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the newly established Czechoslovakia made claims to the area with Polish majority, which gave rise to a dispute. For Poles, giving Trans-Olza to Czechoslovakia was unacceptable, so they decided to hold elections in the region to which Czechoslovakia responded by sending army to

6160-574: The Ostravice River. A two-volume survey of the dialect on the Czech side of the border was undertaken by Adolf Kellner in the 1940s, which named it "Eastern Lachian" ( východolašská nářečí ), thus grouping it together with the Lachian dialects. This was a politically motivated decision, however, as the Nazi censors would have forbidden publication of any title that linked Slavic languages to

6300-640: The Polish-Soviet War crisis in July 1920. As Watt writes, "Over the dinner table, Beneš convinced the British and French that the plebiscite should not be held and that the Allies should simply impose their own decision in the Cieszyn matter. More than that, Beneš persuaded the French and the British to draw a frontier line that gave Czechoslovakia most of the territory of Cieszyn, the vital railroad and all

6440-586: The Romance languages , where the / t / of Latin patrem ("father", accusative ) has become / d / in Italian and Spanish padre (the latter weakened synchronically / d / → [ ð̞ ] ), while in Catalan pare , French père and Portuguese pai historical / t / has disappeared completely. In some languages, lenition has been grammaticalized into a consonant mutation , which means it

6580-536: The Silesian Beskids , bringing the shepherds culture and vocabulary, although they were by that time linguistically mostly Polish. In the mid 16th century the population of the region became in large part Protestant and Duchy of Teschen itself soon lost territorial integrity: among others the Frýdek state country with the majority of regional Moravian/Lach-speakers, who also remained mostly Roman Catholic. On

6720-540: The Silesian German dialects spoken in the area, and also contains some "Carpathianisms" of Romance , Albanian , Hungarian and East Slavic origin, which are mostly words relating to the pastoral lifestyle of shepherds in the highlands. The main standard languages used in Cieszyn Silesia are Czech and Polish; in the past, German and Latin were also used. However, several writers and poets wrote in

6860-463: The Silesians are included as Poles or not) range from 110,000 to 140,000 people in 1921. The 1921 and 1930 census numbers are not accurate since nationality depended on self-declaration and many Poles filled in Czech nationality mainly as a result of fear of the new authorities and as compensation for some benefits. Czechoslovak law guaranteed rights for national minorities but reality in Trans-Olza

7000-529: The concio Polonica , Polish congregation), " Moravian " (" moravski / po moravsku "), diluted Polish ( Wasserpolnisch ) or less pejoratively hyphenated Silesian-Polish ( schlesisch-polnisch ), but mostly with Silesian by the Upper Silesians and Poles. Polish linguists have mostly seen it as part of the Silesian dialect, first in 1974 recognising the Cieszyn Silesian dialect ( narzecze cieszyńskie ) as

7140-621: The cultural assimilation of Poles and also to significant emigration to Poland. After a few years, the heightened nationalism typical for the years around 1920 receded and local Poles increasingly co-operated with Czechs. Still, Czechization was supported by Prague, which did not follow certain laws related to language, legislative and organizational issues. Polish deputies in the Czechoslovak National Assembly frequently tried to put those issues on agenda. One way or another, more and more local Poles thus assimilated into

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7280-622: The diphthong /au/ , which was monophthongized , yielding the monophthong /o/ in Modern French. Sometimes a particular example of lenition mixes the opening and sonorization pathways. For example, [kʰ] may spirantize or open to [x] , then voice or sonorize to [ɣ] . Lenition can be seen in Canadian and American English , where /t/ and /d/ soften to a tap [ɾ] ( flapping ) when not in initial position and followed by an unstressed vowel. For example, both rate and raid plus

7420-524: The 1960 reform of administrative divisions of Czechoslovakia, Trans-Olza has consisted of Karviná District and the eastern part of Frýdek-Místek District . After the Migration Period the area was settled by West Slavs , which were later organized into the Golensizi tribe. The tribe had a large and important gord situated in contemporary Chotěbuz . In the 880s or the early 890s the gord

7560-540: The Allies to make a decision on Cieszyn. After a brief interval, to make it appear that due deliberation had taken place, the Allied Council of Ambassadors in Paris imposed its 'decision'. Only then did it dawn on the Poles that at Spa they had signed a blank check. To them, Beneš' stunning triumph was not diplomacy, it was a swindle (...) As Polish Prime Minister Wincenty Witos warned: 'The Polish nation has received

7700-551: The British and French reluctance to attack the Germans with greater forces in September 1939. Richard M. Watt describes the Polish capture of Zaolzie in these words: Amid the general euphoria in Poland – the acquisition of Zaolzie was a very popular development – no one paid attention to the bitter comment of the Czechoslovak general who handed the region over to the incoming Poles. He predicted that it would not be long before

7840-856: The Celtic languages, where non-geminate intervocalic consonants were converted into their corresponding weaker counterparts through lenition (usually stops into fricatives but also laterals and trills into weaker laterals and taps), and voiceless stops became voiced. For example, Indo-European intervocalic * -t- in * teu̯teh₂ "people" resulted in Proto-Celtic *toutā , Primitive Irish * tōθā , Old Irish túath /t̪ʰuaθ/ and ultimately debuccalisation in most Irish and some Scottish dialects to /t̪ʰuəh/ , shift in Central Southern Irish to /t̪ʰuəx/ , and complete deletion in some Modern Irish and most Modern Scots Gaelic dialects, thus /t̪ʰuə/ . An example of historical lenition in

7980-562: The Cieszyn Silesian dialect, with Czech and Polish for comparison: Trans-Olza Trans-Olza ( Polish : Zaolzie , [zaˈɔlʑɛ] ; Czech : Záolží , Záolší ; German : Olsa-Gebiet ), also known as Trans-Olza Silesia ( Polish : Śląsk Zaolziański ), is a territory in the Czech Republic , which was disputed between Poland and Czechoslovakia during the Interwar Period . Its name comes from

8120-534: The Conference of Ambassadors) divided each of the three disputed areas between Poland and Czechoslovakia. The local Polish population felt that Warsaw had betrayed them and they were not satisfied with the division of Cieszyn Silesia. About 12,000 to 14,000 Poles were forced to leave to Poland. It is not quite clear how many Poles were in Trans-Olza in Czechoslovakia. Estimates (depending mainly whether

8260-485: The Czech Zemský národní výbor pro Slezsko did so in its declaration of 1 November 1918. On 31 October 1918, at the end of World War I and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the majority of the area was taken over by local Polish authorities supported by armed forces. An interim agreement from 2 November 1918 reflected the inability of the two national councils to come to final delimitation and on 5 November 1918,

8400-536: The Czech Republic. It is mainly used by the Polish minority , but also by some people of Czech and Slovak ethnicity in the same area. The Czech government considers the Cieszyn Silesian dialect to be a variety of Polish, and Polish is a recognised minority language in the Karviná and Frýdek-Místek Districts , where the dialect is natively spoken. In Poland, because of the closer linguistic relationship between

8540-405: The Czech majority in the course of time. The number of self-declared Slovaks is rapidly declining. The last Slovak primary school was closed in Karviná several years ago. Since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, Trans-Olza has been part of the independent Czech Republic . However, a significant Polish minority still remains there. The entry of both the Czech Republic and Poland to

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8680-486: The Czech population. Within the region originally demanded from Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany in 1938 was the important railway junction city of Bohumín ( Polish : Bogumin ). The Poles regarded the city as of crucial importance to the area and to Polish interests. On 28 September, Edvard Beneš composed a note to the Polish administration offering to reopen the debate surrounding the territorial demarcation in Těšínsko in

8820-494: The Czechoslovak portion of the Archdiocese of Breslau (colloquially: Apostolic Administration of Český Těšín; Czech : Apoštolská administratura českotěšínská ), seated in Český Těšín , thus disentangling the parishes from Breslau's jurisdiction. On 31 May 1978 Pope Paul VI merged the apostolic administration into the Archdiocese of Olomouc through his Apostolic constitution Olomoucensis et aliarum . Poland signed

8960-429: The Czechs based their need on the Cieszyn coal, useful in order to influence the actions of Austria and Hungary , whose capitals were fuelled by coal from the duchy. The Allies finally decided that the Czechs should get 60 percent of the coal fields and the Poles were to get most of the people and the strategic rail line. Watt writes: "Czech envoy Edvard Beneš proposed a plebiscite. The Allies were shocked, arguing that

9100-434: The Czechs were bound to lose it. However, Beneš was insistent and a plebiscite was announced in September 1919. As it turned out, Beneš knew what he was doing. A plebiscite would take some time to set up, and a lot could happen in that time – particularly when a nation's affairs were conducted as cleverly as were Czechoslovakia's." Watt argues that Beneš strategically waited for Poland's moment of weakness, and moved in during

9240-481: The English-German cognates ripe , water , make vs. reif , Wasser , machen . Although actually a much more profound change encompassing syllable restructuring, simplification of geminate consonants as in the passage from Latin to Spanish such as cuppa > /ˈkopa/ 'cup' is often viewed as a type of lenition (compare geminate-preserving Italian /ˈkɔppa/ ). All varieties of Sardinian , with

9380-552: The French Prime Minister, told the US ambassador to France that "he hoped to live long enough to pay Poland for her cormorant attitude in the present crisis by proposing a new partition ." The Soviet Union was so hostile to Poland over Munich that there was a real prospect that war between the two states might break out quite separate from the wider conflict over Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Prime Minister, Molotov , denounced

9520-457: The German occupants during the war was never returned. As to the Catholic parishes in Trans-Olza pertaining to the Archdiocese of Breslau Archbishop Bertram, then residing in the episcopal Jánský vrch castle in Czechoslovak Javorník , appointed František Onderek (1888–1962) as vicar general for the Czechoslovak portion of the Archdiocese of Breslau on 21 June 1945. In July 1946 Pope Pius XII elevated Onderek to Apostolic Administrator for

9660-423: The Holy See complied. Pope Pius XI , former nuncio to Poland, subjected the Catholic parishes in Trans-Olza to an apostolic administration under Stanisław Adamski , Bishop of Katowice . Czechoslovak education in the Czech and German language ceased to exist. About 35,000 Czechoslovaks emigrated to core Czechoslovakia (the later Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ) by choice or forcibly. The behaviour of

9800-494: The Olza") is used predominantly in Poland and by the Polish minority living in the territory. It is also often used by foreign scholars, e.g. American ethnolinguist Kevin Hannan . The term Zaolzie was first used in 1930s by Polish writer Paweł Hulka-Laskowski . In Czech it is mainly referred to as České Těšínsko / Českotěšínsko ("land around Český Těšín "), or as Těšínsko or Těšínské Slezsko (meaning Cieszyn Silesia ). The Czech equivalent of Zaolzie ( Zaolší or Zaolží )

9940-418: The Poles "brought the matter before the peace conference that had opened in Paris on 18 January. On 29 January, the Council of Ten summoned Beneš and the Polish delegate Roman Dmowski to explain the dispute, and on 1 February obliged them to sign an agreement redividing the area pending its final disposition by the peace conference. Czechoslovakia thus failed to gain her objective in Cieszyn." With respect to

10080-604: The Poles as "Hitler's jackals". In his postwar memoirs , Winston Churchill compared Germany and Poland to vultures landing on the dying carcass of Czechoslovakia and lamented that "over a question so minor as Cieszyn, they [the Poles] sundered themselves from all those friends in France, Britain and the United States who had lifted them once again to a national, coherent life, and whom they were soon to need so sorely. ... It

10220-454: The Poles controlled about a third of the duchy's coal mines. The Czechs realized that they had given away rather a lot (...) It was recognized that any takeover in Cieszyn would have to be accomplished in a manner acceptable by the victorious Allies (...), so the Czechs cooked up a tale that the Cieszyn area was becoming Bolshevik (...) The Czechs put together a substantial body of infantry – about 15,000 men – and on 23 January 1919, they invaded

10360-419: The Poles would themselves be handing Zaolzie over to the Germans. Watt also writes that the Polish 1938 ultimatum to Czechoslovakia and its acquisition of Zaolzie were gross tactical errors. Whatever justice there might have been to the Polish claim upon Zaolzie, its seizure in 1938 was an enormous mistake in terms of the damage done to Poland's reputation among the democratic powers of the world. Daladier ,

10500-576: The Polish official language in primary schools and offices. The higher education remained German-speaking, which the Polish activists tried to change as well. For example, in 1874 Andrzej Cinciała  [ pl ] , a Polish deputy to the Imperial Council of Austria , proposed to open a Polish-speaking teachers' seminar in Teschen, as well as a Czech-speaking one in Troppau ( Opava ). This

10640-644: The Polish-Czechoslovak negotiations failed, the Allied powers proposed plebiscites in the Cieszyn Silesia and also in the border districts of Orava and Spiš (now in Slovakia) to which the Poles had raised claims. In the end, however, no plebiscites were held due to the rising mutual hostilities of Czechs and Poles in Cieszyn Silesia. Instead, on 28 July 1920 the Spa Conference (also known as

10780-552: The Polish-held areas. To confuse the Poles, the Czechs recruited some Allied officers of Czech background and put these men in their respective wartime uniforms at the head of the invasion forces. After a little skirmishing, the tiny Polish defense force was nearly driven out." In 1919, the matter went to consideration in Paris before the World War I Allies. Watt claims the Poles based their claims on ethnographical reasons and

10920-664: The Wehrmacht (those who took the Volksliste). Also a few hundred Poles from Trans-Olza were murdered by Soviets in the Katyn massacre . Percentage-wise, Trans-Olza suffered the worst human loss from the whole of Czechoslovakia – about 2.6% of the total population. Immediately after World War II, Trans-Olza was returned to Czechoslovakia within its 1920 borders, although local Poles had hoped it would again be given to Poland. Most Czechoslovaks of German ethnicity were expelled , and

11060-572: The annexation of Czechoslovakia in 1938 was not only an error, but above all a sin. And we in Poland can admit this error rather than look for excuses. We need to draw conclusions from Munich and they apply to modern times: you can't give way to imperialism. The Polish annexation of Zaolzie is frequently brought up by Russian media as a counter-argument to Soviet-Nazi cooperation. On 1 September 1939 Nazi Germany invaded Poland , starting World War II in Europe, and subsequently made Trans-Olza part of

11200-505: The approximants or fricatives [β̞ ð̞ ɣ̞] : vita > vida , lupa > loba , caeca > ciega , apotheca > bodega . One stage in these changes goes beyond phonetic to have become a phonological restructuring , e.g. /lupa/ > /loba/ (compare /lupa/ in Italian, with no change in the phonological status of /p/ ). The subsequent further weakening of the series to phonetic [β̞ ð̞ ɣ̞] , as in [loβ̞a]

11340-489: The arbitration decision itself, Mamatey writes that "On 25 March, to expedite the work of the peace conference, the Council of Ten was divided into the Council of Four (The "Big Four") and the Council of Five (the foreign ministers). Early in April the two councils considered and approved the recommendations of the Czechoslovak commission without a change – with the exception of Cieszyn, which they referred to Poland and Czechoslovakia to settle in bilateral negotiations." When

11480-416: The area of Cieszyn Silesia, containing 67.9% of the population. It was this territory that became known from the Polish standpoint as Zaolzie – the Olza River marked the boundary between the Polish and Czechoslovak parts of the territory. The most vocal support for union with Poland had come from within the territory awarded to Czechoslovakia, while some of the strongest opponents of Polish rule came from

11620-414: The area on ethnic criteria: a majority (69.2%) of the area's population was Polish according to the last (1910) Austrian census. In this very tense atmosphere it was decided that a plebiscite would be held in the area asking people which country this territory should join. Plebiscite commissioners arrived there at the end of January 1920, and after analysing the situation declared a state of emergency in

11760-565: The area was divided between Poland and Czechoslovakia by an agreement of the two councils. In early 1919 both councils were absorbed by the newly created and independent central governments in Prague and Warsaw . Following an announcement that elections to the Sejm (parliament) of Poland would be held in the entirety of Cieszyn Silesia, the Czechoslovak government requested that the Poles cease their preparations as no elections were to be held in

11900-639: The blame of the partition of the Republic of Czechoslovakia, made Poland a participant in the process and confused political expectations. Poland was accused of being an accomplice of Nazi Germany – a charge that Warsaw was hard-put to deny. The Polish side argued that Poles in Trans-Olza deserved the same ethnic rights and freedom as the Sudeten Germans under the Munich Agreement . The vast local Polish population enthusiastically welcomed

12040-591: The change, seeing it as a liberation and a form of historical justice, but they quickly changed their mood. The new Polish authorities appointed people from Poland to various key positions from which locals were fired. The Polish language became the sole official language. Using Czech (or German) by Czechs (or Germans) in public was prohibited and Czechs and Germans were being forced to leave the annexed area or become subject to Polonization . Rapid Polonization policies then followed in all parts of public and private life. Czech organizations were dismantled and their activity

12180-524: The city. At noon on 30 September, Poland gave an ultimatum to the Czechoslovak government. It demanded the immediate evacuation of Czechoslovak troops and police and gave Prague time until noon the following day. At 11:45 a.m. on 1 October the Czechoslovak foreign ministry called the Polish ambassador in Prague and told him that Poland could have what it wanted. The Polish Army, commanded by General Władysław Bortnowski , annexed an area of 801.5 km with

12320-496: The country, Prague, including and foremost the chancellery language: Latin, German (alongside Latin from 1331), Czech (increasingly dominant over German from the mid-15th century). Probably due to the peripheral location and a certain level of autonomy the cancellaria bohemica in the Duchy of Teschen was preserved after the Battle of White Mountain (1620), in contrast to the region of Bohemia . The chancellery language did not reflect

12460-408: The dialect and standard Polish, the dialect is becoming diluted more quickly than in the Czech Republic. Grammatically and phonologically, the Cieszyn Silesian dialect is closer to Polish than to Czech. Czechs who are not familiar with the dialect may therefore have considerable difficulty understanding it. The mutual intelligibility with other dialects of Polish is generally higher. Cieszyn Silesian

12600-407: The dialect spoken on the Czech side of the border as a "mixed Czech-Polish dialect", a designation already used in the 19th century. Polish linguists tend to classify the language on both sides of the border under the Silesian dialects of Polish. Although the dialect has its roots mainly in Polish (phonology and morphology are consistently shared with Polish), the diachronic development of the dialect

12740-440: The dialect, including Adolf Fierla , Paweł Kubisz , Jerzy Rucki , Władysław Młynek , Józef Ondrusz , Karol Piegza , Adam Wawrosz and Aniela Kupiec . Poets who wrote in Cieszyn Silesian generally regarded their work as part of the Polish literary tradition, rather than belonging to a new standard language, by contrast to Ondra Łysohorsky , who wrote in a Lachian literary standard of his own creation. The Lord's Prayer in

12880-410: The dialects have a synchronic lenition of an alveolar stop into an alveolar trill /t/ → /r/ . Furthermore, the same phoneme /t/ undergoes assibilation /t/ → /s/ before the vowel /i/ , e.g. root vete- "water" → vesi and vere- . Here, vete- is the stem, vesi is its nominative, and vere- is the same stem under consonant gradation. Fortition is the opposite of lenition:

13020-588: The disputed territory and annexing it in January 1919. The area as we know it today was created in 1920, when Cieszyn Silesia was divided between the two countries during the Spa Conference. Trans-Olza forms the eastern part of the Czech portion of Cieszyn Silesia. The division again did not satisfy any side, and persisting conflict over the region led to its annexation by Poland in October 1938, following

13160-536: The disputed territory until a final agreement could be reached. When their demands were rejected by the Poles, the Czechs decided to resolve the issue by force and on 23 January 1919 invaded the area. The Czechoslovak offensive was halted after pressure from the Entente following the Battle of Skoczów , and a ceasefire was signed on 3 February. The new Czechoslovakia claimed the area partly on historic and ethnic grounds, but especially on economic grounds. The area

13300-563: The early 18th century, earlier than anything known in Poland. Probably the most discussed and analysed of them is the first Polish, rural bookplate by Jura (Jerzy) Gajdzica (1777-1840) from Cisownica . The text was written primarily in the local dialect, but was stylized to resemble standard Polish: Roku 1812 przed Gody Francuz prziszeł na Mozgola do bitki, ale sie Francuzowi źle podarziło, Pon Bóg mu tam bardzo wybił, trefiła zima wielko i mroz, i zmorz tam, że sie go mało wróciło i musioł sie wrócić chned w poście z Galicje. (...) Depending on

13440-533: The education of the writer a varying level of code-switching between Czech, Moravian, Silesian and Polish can be observed, which apparently didn't impede much the communication between the Slavic speakers, as opposed to the language barrier , that could and often did exist between the local Slavic and German speaking population. After the First Silesian War in 1742 the majority of Silesia was annexed by

13580-635: The end of the 19th century, local Polish and Czech people co-operated, united against the Germanizing tendencies of the Austrian Empire and later of Austria-Hungary . At the end of the century, ethnic tensions arose as the area's economic significance grew. This growth caused a wave of immigration from Galicia . About 60,000 people arrived between 1880 and 1910. The new immigrants were Polish and poor, about half of them being illiterate. They worked in coal mining and metallurgy. For these people

13720-486: The ethnic composition of the majority of the population of Cieszyn Silesia, however it did affect the preference of the well established Czech over reimposed German, as it was linguistically much closer to the Cieszyn Silesian dialect. The earliest traces of the vernacular language were exposed in place names, as they were first mentioned in Latin and/or German-speaking documents. They sometimes contained nasal vowels , one of

13860-450: The first traits differentiating early medieval Polish and Czech: they were present in the place names later inhabited by Cieszyn Silesian-speaking people, like Dambonczal ( Dębowiec ), but not in the area settled by Moravian-Lach population. From the 13th and consolidated in the 14th century was the spirantization g ≥ h, another major trait delineating from then on Polish and Czech, as well as Lach and Cieszyn Silesian dialects. Even after

14000-514: The important coal fields. With this frontier, 139,000 Poles were to be left in Czech territory, whereas only 2,000 Czechs were left on the Polish side". "The next morning Beneš visited the Polish delegation at Spa. By giving the impression that the Czechs would accept a settlement favorable to the Poles without a plebiscite, Beneš got the Poles to sign an agreement that Poland would abide by any Allied decision regarding Cieszyn. The Poles, of course, had no way of knowing that Beneš had already persuaded

14140-634: The interest of mutual relations, but he delayed in sending it in hopes of good news from London and Paris, which came only in a limited form. Beneš then turned to the Soviet leadership in Moscow, which had begun a partial mobilisation in eastern Belarus and the Ukrainian SSR on 22 September and threatened Poland with the dissolution of the Soviet-Polish non-aggression pact . The Czech government

14280-464: The introduction and dominance of Czech as an official language, those place names were adapted to the chancellary language only partially, for example Dębowiec as Dubowiec instead of Dubovec , or Ogrodzona as Ogrozena instead of Ohrazena , however for example Dombrowa continued to be written with the nasal vowel even in the Czech documents. In the late 15th century ( Brenna ) the Vlachs reached

14420-536: The local Polish population again suffered discrimination, as many Czechs blamed them for the discrimination by the Polish authorities in 1938–1939. Polish organizations were banned, and the Czechoslovak authorities carried out many arrests and dismissed many Poles from work. The situation had somewhat improved when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia took power in February 1948. Polish property deprived by

14560-401: The loss of a feature, such as deglottalization , in which glottalization or ejective articulation is lost: [kʼ] or [kˀ] > [k] . The tables below show common sound changes involved in lenition. In some cases, lenition may skip one of the sound changes. The change voiceless stop > fricative is more common than the series of changes voiceless stop > affricate > fricative. In

14700-439: The modern Celtic languages, lenition of the "fricating" type is usually denoted by adding an h to the lenited letter. In Welsh, for example, c , p , and t change into ch , ph , th as a result of the so-called "aspirate mutation" ( carreg , "stone" → ei charreg "her stone"). An exception is Manx orthography , which tends to be more phonetic, but in some cases, etymological principles are applied. In

14840-584: The most important factor was material well-being; they cared little about the homeland from which they had fled. Almost all of them assimilated into the Czech population. Many of them settled in Ostrava (west of the ethnic border), as heavy industry was spread through the whole western part of Cieszyn Silesia. Even today, ethnographers find that about 25,000 people in Ostrava (about 8% of the population) have Polish surnames. The Czech population (living mainly in

14980-466: The most popular if not the shortest route from Prague or Vienna to Kraków , and from Wrocław to Upper Hungary (modern day Slovakia ). In a few decades after the establishment of the Duchy of Teschen, roughly at the same time it became a fee of the Kingdom of Bohemia (1327), written documents began to be produced in the local ducal chancellery. They closely followed patterns set by the capital of

15120-518: The most prestigious at that time official language, was so riddled with mistakes, that some researchers ( Leon Derlich  [ pl ] , Robert Mrózek  [ pl ] , Zbigniew Greń) consider it to be written de facto in a local variety of Polish, thus the very first Polish document in the region. The vernacular language especially seeped into half-official and unofficial written documents, like diaries ( zapiśniki dlo pamięci ) or even chronicles written by local rural authors ( piśmiorze ) from

15260-466: The neighbouring Lachian dialects and, more recently, Common Czech . In the early 19th century Jerzy Samuel Bandtkie was the first Polish researcher (of German descent) trying to argue in the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment that Silesian has Polish and not Czech roots. In his dissertation Wiadomości o języku polskim w Szląsku i o polskich Szlązakach Bandtkie [wrongly] placed the border of Polish along

15400-460: The new Polish authorities was different but similar in nature to that of the Czechoslovak ones before 1938. Two political factions appeared: socialists (the opposition) and rightists (loyal to the new Polish national authorities). Leftist politicians and sympathizers were discriminated against and often fired from work. The Polish political system was artificially implemented in Trans-Olza. The local Poles continued to feel like second-class citizens and

15540-495: The northern part of the area: Bohumín , Orlová , etc.) declined numerically at the end of the 19th century, assimilating with the prevalent Polish population. This process shifted with the industrial boom in the area. Cieszyn Silesia was claimed by both Poland and Czechoslovakia: the Polish Rada Narodowa Księstwa Cieszyńskiego made its claim in its declaration "Ludu śląski!" of 30 October 1918, and

15680-548: The opening type of lenition, the articulation becomes more open with each step. Opening lenition involves several sound changes: shortening of double consonants, affrication of stops, spirantization or assibilation of stops or affricates, debuccalization , and finally elision . The sonorization type involves voicing. Sonorizing lenition involves several sound changes: voicing, approximation, and vocalization. Sonorizing lenition occurs especially often intervocalically (between vowels). In this position, lenition can be seen as

15820-486: The other end of the duchy emerged the Bielsko state country , dominated by German-speaking Lutherans. From the 16th century onward, more and more text was produced outside of the ducal chancellery in Teschen. Many of the inhabitants of the region were not proficient in Czech and wrote in a more idiosyncratic manner which reflected the vernacular language. A bill of a locksmith from Fryštát , who in 1589 tried to issue it in

15960-712: The part of the Silesia that remained in the Habsburg Empire , with the Duchy of Teschen and the neighbouring but separate state countries, in 1783 administratively became part of the Moravian Governorship, which, contrary to the Prussian Silesia, led to strengthening of the influence of Czech. For example, the text books for local schools were produced in Brno in the standard form of Czech, which

16100-411: The recently annexed Cieszyn region. The earliest linguistically scientific modern subdivision of the Silesian dialects in Poland dates to Stanisław Bąk (1974), inspired by early 19th century work by Jerzy Samuel Bandtkie . He recognised the Cieszyn Silesian dialect as a distinct subgroup of Silesian, followed by other linguists (Zaręba, Wyderka), who occasionally omitted the Czech part of the region from

16240-519: The region, which was crossed by important international routes. From 950 to 1060 it was under the rule of Bohemia, and from 1060 it was part of the Piast Kingdom of Poland . The written history explicitly about the region begins on 23 April 1155 when Cieszyn/Těšín was first mentioned in a written document, a letter from Pope Adrian IV issued for Walter, Bishop of Wrocław , where it was listed amongst other centres of castellanies . The castellany

16380-405: The right in the above table. In other cases, sounds are lenited and normalized at the same time; examples would be direct changes [b] → [v] or [d] → [z] . L -vocalization is a subtype of the sonorization type of lenition. It has two possible results: a velar approximant or back vowel, or a palatal approximant or front vowel. In French , l -vocalization of the sequence /al/ resulted in

16520-421: The rise of grammaticalised initial consonant mutations in modern Celtic languages through the loss of endings. A Scottish Gaelic example would be the lack of lenition in am fear /əm fɛr/ ("the man") and lenition in a’ bhean /ə vɛn/ ("the woman"). The following examples show the development of a phrase consisting of a definite article plus a masculine noun (taking the ending -os ) compared with

16660-463: The rules of blocked lenition can be invoked by lost historical consonants, for example, in the case of the past-tense copula bu , which in Common Celtic had a final -t. In terms of blocked lenition, it continues to behave as a dental-final particle invoking blocked lenition rules: In Brythonic languages, only fossilized vestiges of lenition blocking occur, for example in Welsh no s d

16800-510: The sole exception of Nuorese , offer an example of sandhi in which the rule of intervocalic lenition applying to the voiced series /b d g/ extends across word boundaries. Since it is a fully active synchronic rule, lenition is not normally indicated in the standard orthographies. A series of synchronic lenitions involving opening, or loss of occlusion, rather than voicing is found for post-vocalic /p t k/ in many Tuscan dialects of Central Italy . Stereotypical Florentine , for example, has

16940-427: The suffix -er are pronounced [ˈɹeɪ̯ɾɚ] . The Italian of Central and Southern Italy has a number of lenitions, the most widespread of which is the deaffrication of /t͡ʃ/ to [ʃ] between vowels: post-pausal cena [ˈt͡ʃeːna] 'dinner' but post-vocalic la cena [laˈʃeːna] 'the dinner'; the name Luciano , although structurally /luˈt͡ʃano/ , is normally pronounced [luˈʃaːno] . In Tuscany, /d͡ʒ/ likewise

17080-483: The territory awarded to Poland. Historian Richard M. Watt writes, "On 5 November 1918, the Poles and the Czechs in the region disarmed the Austrian garrison (...) The Poles took over the areas that appeared to be theirs, just as the Czechs had assumed administration of theirs. Nobody objected to this friendly arrangement (...) Then came second thoughts in Prague . It was observed that under the agreement of 5 November,

17220-477: The territory of the Silesian dialects. Cieszyn Silesian has the following vowel phonemes: This system has been attested on both sides of the border, but some speakers on the Czech side do not have the close-mid vowel /o/ . Unlike in Standard Polish, there are no nasal vowels , and the vowel /ɨ/ can appear soft ( palatalized ) consonants, as well as hard ones. Unlike in Czech and Slovak, vowel length

17360-420: The territory on 19 May 1920. The situation in the area remained very tense, with mutual intimidation, acts of terror, beatings and even killings. A plebiscite could not be held in this atmosphere. On 10 July both sides renounced the idea of a plebiscite and entrusted the Conference of Ambassadors with the decision. Eventually, on 28 July 1920, by a decision of the Spa Conference , Czechoslovakia received 58.1% of

17500-449: The war. Mass killings, executions, arrests, taking locals to forced labour and deportations to concentration camps all happened on a daily basis. The most notorious war crime was a murder of 36 villagers in and around Żywocice on 6 August 1944. This massacre is known as the Żywocice tragedy ( Polish : Tragedia Żywocicka ). The resistance movement , mostly composed of Poles, was fairly strong in Trans-Olza. So-called Volksliste –

17640-583: Was a result of a historical evolution, shaped by the territory's geographical location, affected by political affiliation and migrations of people. The region was almost always peripheral—at the south-eastern edge of Silesia and the Diocese of Wrocław , in Poland under the Piast dynasty , and as a fee of the Kingdom of Bohemia —however it is located near the wide, northern opening of the Moravian Gate , on

17780-421: Was divided in 1920 by these two states. After that division the dialect in the Czech part of the region was and still is strongly influenced mainly by Czech (mainly lexicon and syntax), with most new vocabulary, aside from English loanwords, borrowed from Czech. On the other hand, in the Polish part it was and still is influenced by standard Polish. The Cieszyn Silesian dialect is spoken by around 200,000 people in

17920-470: Was important for the Czechs as the crucial railway line connecting Czech Silesia with Slovakia crossed the area (the Košice–Bohumín Railway , which was one of only two railroads that linked the Czech provinces to Slovakia at that time). The area is also very rich in black coal . Many important coal mines, facilities and metallurgy factories are located there. The Polish side based its claim to

18060-546: Was indicated by the postposed h ; lenition of other letters was not indicated consistently in the orthography. Voicing lenition is represented by a simple letter switch in the Brythonic languages , for instance carreg , "stone" → y garreg , "the stone" in Welsh. In Irish orthography , it is shown by writing the "weak" consonant alongside the (silent) "strong" one: peann , "pen" → ár bpeann "our pen", ceann , "head" → ár gceann "our head" (sonorization

18200-412: Was initiated by Paweł Stalmach  [ pl ] , who issued the first Polish-speaking newspaper ( Tygodnik Cieszyński ), but the majority of the population remained nationally indifferent for a few decades. The situation began to change in the 1860s and 1870s. In 1860 Polish and Czech were recognised as the local auxiliary languages in the province. This led to unprecedented, unfettered development of

18340-536: Was murdered during World War II by Nazi Germany . In addition to the Polish, Czech and German national orientations there was another group of Silesians , who claimed to be of a distinct national identity. This group enjoyed popular support throughout Cieszyn Silesia , though its strongest supporters were among the Protestants in the eastern part of Cieszyn Silesia (now part of Poland ), not in Trans-Olza itself. The Polish term Zaolzie (meaning "lands beyond

18480-540: Was offered 700 fighter planes if room for them could be found on the Czech airfields. On 28 September, all the military districts west of the Urals were ordered to stop releasing men for leave. On 29 September 330,000 reservists were up throughout the western USSR. Nevertheless, the Polish Foreign Minister, Colonel Józef Beck , believed that Warsaw should act rapidly to forestall the German occupation of

18620-483: Was prohibited. The Roman Catholic parishes in the area belonged either to the Archdiocese of Breslau (Archbishop Bertram ) or to the Archdiocese of Olomouc (Archbishop Leopold Prečan), respectively, both traditionally comprising cross-border diocesan territories in Czechoslovakia and Germany. When the Polish government demanded after its takeover that the parishes there be disentangled from these two archdioceses,

18760-494: Was prohibited. Katowice's Bishop Adamski was deposed as apostolic administrator for the Catholic parishes in Trans-Olza and on 23 December 1939 Cesare Orsenigo , nuncio to Germany, returned them to their original archdioceses of Breslau or Olomouc, respectively, with effect of 1 January 1940. The German authorities introduced terror into Trans-Olza. The Nazis especially targeted the Polish intelligentsia, many of whom died during

18900-477: Was quite different. Local Czech authorities made it more difficult for local Poles to obtain citizenship, while the process was expedited when the applicant pledged to declare Czech nationality and send his children to a Czech school. Newly built Czech schools were often better supported and equipped, thus inducing some Poles to send their children there. Czech schools were built in ethnically almost entirely Polish municipalities. This and other factors contributed to

19040-439: Was raided and burned, most probably by an army of Svatopluk I of Moravia , and afterwards the area could have been subjugated by Great Moravia , which is however questioned by historians like Zdeněk Klanica, Idzi Panic , Stanisław Szczur. After the fall of Great Moravia in 907 the area could have been under the influence of Bohemian rulers. In the late 10th century Poland , ruled by Bolesław I Chrobry , began to contend for

19180-505: Was retained by the Habsburg Monarchy ( Austrian Silesia ). Up to the mid-19th century members of the local Slav population did not identify themselves as members of larger ethnolinguistic entities. In Cieszyn Silesia (as in all West Slavic borderlands) various territorial identities pre-dated ethnic and national identity. Consciousness of membership within a greater Polish or Czech nation spread slowly in Silesia. From 1848 to

19320-657: Was strongly opposed by Eduard Suess , who called the local language not Polish, but Wasserpolnisch, a Polish-Czech mixture, not used in books . From the 19th century up to World War II the dialect, like all Silesian dialects, was strongly influenced mainly by German, which at that time gained the most prestigious status, and increasing proportion of the urban population, not just in Bielsko and Teschen, but also in smaller towns were German speakers. After World War I two new nation states emerged: Poland and Czechoslovakia, followed by Polish–Czechoslovak border conflicts . The region

19460-457: Was then a part of Duchy of Silesia . In 1172 it became a part of Duchy of Racibórz , and from 1202 of Duchy of Opole and Racibórz . In the first half of the 13th century the Moravian settlement organised by Arnold von Hückeswagen from Starý Jičín castle and later accelerated by Bruno von Schauenburg , Bishop of Olomouc , began to press close to Silesian settlements. This prompted signing of

19600-462: Was together with the dialect commonly referred to as " Moravian " (" moravski / po moravsku "), even though Leopold Szersznik , the local overseer of Catholic schools from the year 1804 strove to replace it with Polish textbooks. His petitions were generally ignored/left unanswered by the education office in Brno. In 1849 Austrian Silesia regained administrative independence, the Polish national movement

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