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100-724: Initially called Halbstadt ( Half-city ), Molotschna was founded in 1804 by Mennonite settlers from West Prussia and consisted of 57 villages. Known as the New Colony, it was the second and largest Mennonite settlement in the Russian Empire . In the late 19th century, thousands of people left this colony to settle in North America, and later relocated to Latin America, where Mennonites settled in several countries. After many Mennonites left or were deported during and after

200-605: A Low German plural: Burrasch , Wratschen . The pure Low German words Äsel and Schlorr are seldom used in Mexico. The spelling of Plautdietsch has also been controversial. The main criteria for spelling systems have been: One problem has been what letters to use for sounds that do not exist in German, such as the palatal /c/ and /ʝ/ sounds, which are both pronounced and spelled differently in various dialects of Plautdietsch. Old Colony speakers pronounce these sounds by striking

300-788: A Polish fief , which it remained until the First Partition of Poland . East Prussia around Königsberg , on the other hand, remained with the State of the Teutonic Knights , who were reduced to vassals of the Polish kings. Their territory was secularised to become the Lutheran Duchy of Prussia according to the 1525 Treaty of Kraków and the Prussian Homage . The duchy was later ruled in personal union with

400-710: A day with rations over a period of three years beginning in 1922, with a peak of 40,000 servings during August of that year. Fifty Fordson tractor and plow combinations were sent to Mennonite villages to replace horses that had been stolen and confiscated during the war. The cost of this relief effort was $ 1.2 million. The residents of Molotschna shared the fate of the Chortitza settlers. They were evacuated to Nazi Reichsgau Wartheland in 1943, and from there marched into Germany, under its national government plans to reunite people considered to be ethnic Germans, even though neither they nor their ancestors had ever resided in what

500-593: A democratic state, enjoying freedoms beyond those of ordinary Ukrainian peasants living in Southern Ukraine. At a time when compulsory education was unknown in Europe, the Mennonite colonies formed an elementary school in each village. Students learned practical skills such as reading and writing German ( Plautdietsch dialect), and arithmetic. Religion was included, as was singing in many schools. The teacher

600-543: A lamentable condition." Frederick invited German immigrants to redevelop the province. Many German officials also regarded the Poles with contempt. According to the Polish historian Jerzy Surdykowski, Frederick the Great introduced 300,000 German colonists. According to Christopher Clark , 54 percent of the annexed area and 75 percent of the urban population were German-speaking Protestants. Further Polish areas were annexed in

700-487: A large herd of thoroughbred cattle, 8000 merino sheep and four hundred horses. As the population of the colony grew and land became scarce, new areas for resettlement were sought. Starting in 1862 settlers from Molotschna formed daughter settlements in the peninsula of Crimea . By 1926 this colony had 25 villages with a total population of 5000. In 1871 the Molotschna colony purchased 240 km (59,000 acres) to form

800-402: A letter to his brother Henry , Frederick wrote about the province that "it is a very good and advantageous acquisition, both from a financial and a political point of view. In order to excite less jealousy I tell everyone that on my travels I have seen just sand, pine trees, heath land and Jews. Despite that there is a lot of work to be done; there is no order, and no planning and the towns are in

900-520: A population of about 3500, occupying 100 km (25,000 acres). Through influence of the short German occupation of Ukraine in 1918 , some young men of Molotschna abandoned their pacifist principles and formed a self-defense group ( Selbstschutz ) for protection of the villages. German soldiers provided training and left weapons and ammunition behind when they retreated. Together with a neighboring Lutheran colony, some Mennonites formed twenty companies totalling 2700 infantry and 300 cavalry, which held back

1000-579: A raiding party, the imperial government banned the Tatars' spiked and weighted polearm which they frequently used on hunting expeditions. Later Mennonites and their neighbors coexisted peacefully. Mennonite colonies were self-governing with little intervention from the central authorities in Moscow. The village, the basic unit of government, was headed by an elected magistrate who oversaw village affairs. Each village controlled its own school, roads and cared for

1100-608: A three case system with the definite articles, without much consistency. The system looks somewhat like this, some might use the dative neuter articles, others might not: All possessives (see under pronouns) are declined like in this way. With the form äa (her/their) an r has to be reinserted before adding endings ( äaren, äare ). Mennonite Low German nouns inflect into two numbers: singular and plural , three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter, but only two cases, nominative and oblique . The historical dative and accusative have merged, even though some writers try to maintain

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1200-586: A three cases distinction, which has been lost for most speakers, perhaps centuries ago. The oblique case is distinct from the nominative only in 1) personal pronouns: ekj froag am , hee auntwuat mie (I ask him, he answers me) 2) articles and demonstrative and possessive adjectives in the singular masculine gender: de Voda halpt dän Sän (the father helps the son) (observe: nouns are not inflected themselves) and 3) proper names, i. e. traditional Mennonite names: Peeta frajcht Marie -en , Marie auntwuat Peet ren (Peter asks Mary, Mary answers Peter) Plural formation

1300-405: A wide, flat plain, with adjacent escarpments sometimes exceeding 60 meters in height above the river valley. This area includes the fertile Chełmno Land ( German : Kulmerland ), with historic cities such as Chełmno ( German : Kulm ), Toruń ( German : Thorn ), and Grudziądz ( German : Graudenz ). The Chełmno Land stretched eastward to the border with East Prussia, partially bound on

1400-543: Is a Low Prussian dialect of East Low German with Dutch influence that developed in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Vistula delta area of Royal Prussia . The word Plautdietsch translates to "flat (or low) German" (referring to the plains of northern Germany or the simplicity of the language). In other Low German dialects, the word for Low German is usually realised as Plattdütsch/Plattdüütsch [ˈplatdyːtʃ] or Plattdüütsk [ˈplatdyːtsk] , but

1500-424: Is a heavy tendency to shift /o/ sound up to [u] . Pronunciation of certain vowels and diphthongs varies from some speakers to others; the diphthong represented by ee for instances is pronounced [oi] or even [ei] by some. Likewise the long vowels represented by au and ei might have a diphthong glide into [ʊ] and [ɪ] , respectively. Low German grammar resembles High German, as the syntax and morphology

1600-548: Is nearly the same as High German's. Over the years, Plautdietsch has lost some inflection. It is, however, still moderately inflectional, having two numbers, three genders, two cases, two tenses, three persons, two moods, two voices, and two degrees of comparison. Even though Plautdietsch has three genders, in the nominative case it has only two definite articles (like Dutch and Low German); masculine and feminine articles are homophonous. However, masculine and feminine indefinite articles are still different (like German) and thus,

1700-684: Is now Germany. When the Red Army entered Germany, it forcibly repatriated these people to the Soviet Union . They were considered politically suspect and exiled to primitive camps in Siberia and Kazakhstan . About 57 villages were founded: 47°11′51″N 35°37′56″E  /  47.19750°N 35.63222°E  / 47.19750; 35.63222 West Prussia The Province of West Prussia ( German : Provinz Westpreußen ; Kashubian : Zôpadné Prësë ; Polish : Prusy Zachodnie )

1800-416: Is palatalized as the voiced palatal stop /ɟ/ , written gj or dj. (A similar event occurred with English, but not as generalized). Where an /e/ or /i/ has been sunken to /a/ , the palatalized sound is retained. Also where German has a palatalization (of the shifted /ç/ consonant), Plautdietsch retains the palatalization (of /k/ ) even after lowering a front vowel. Most Anabaptists that settled in

1900-678: Is spoken by about 400,000 Russian Mennonites , most notably in the Latin American countries of Mexico, Peru , Bolivia, Paraguay, Belize, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay , along with the United States and Canada (notably Manitoba , Saskatchewan , and Ontario ). Today, Plautdietsch is spoken in two major dialects that trace their division to what is now Ukraine. These two dialects are split between Chortitza Colony and Molotschna . Today, many younger Russian Mennonites in Canada and

2000-418: Is still retained in the infinitive of verbs, after short vowels, and sometimes after back vowels as seen in the example Huarn, Hieena. All words with a /ɡ/ or /k/ preceding or following a front vowel ( /e/ or /i/ , not counting schwa ) have been shifted to /j/ and /c/ (the latter has been written as kj or tj), even if there is another consonant between the vowel and the consonant. An intervocalic /ɡ/

2100-502: Is today Poland, where they used to live until 1945. Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church is a Low German Mennonite Church, in Goessel , Kansas, US. Some of the major differences between the two (major) varieties are: A few other differences sometimes related to this issue are the exact pronunciation of the IPA c sound and words as jenau/jeneiw. According to some studies, those might be due to

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2200-808: The Black Sea in an area that Russia had recently acquired in one of the Russo-Turkish Wars . This is now part of Ukraine as well as other countries. Beginning in 1873, many Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites migrated from the Russian Empire to the United States and Canada. In 1922, Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from Canada started to settle in Mexico, and in 1927 in Paraguay. In the 1930s, Mennonites emigrated mainly from Soviet Ukraine directly to Brazil. The first Mennonite settlement in Bolivia

2300-573: The Chełmno Land , forming altogether around 36% of the population of the province as a whole. There were also sizeable minorities of Mennonites and Jews settling in the region. The landscape of West Prussia consisted of the lower reaches of the Vistula River ( German : Weichsel , Polish : Wisła ) near its mouth on the Baltic Sea , and neighboring lands to the west and east. In

2400-614: The Mennonite Central Committee in an effort to coordinate aid. The new organization planned to provide aid to Mennonites in Ukraine via existing Mennonite relief work in Istanbul . The Istanbul group, mainly Goshen College graduates, produced three volunteers, who at great risk entered Ukraine during the ongoing Ukrainian Civil War. They arrived in the Mennonite village of Halbstadt just as General Wrangel of

2500-457: The Region of West Prussia district. West Prussia's provincial capital alternated between Marienwerder (present-day Kwidzyn, Poland ) and Danzig (Gdańsk, Poland) during its existence. West Prussia was notable for its ethnic and religious diversity due to immigration and cultural changes, with the population becoming mixed over the centuries. Since the early Middle Ages the bulk of the region

2600-434: The Russian Empire . Johann Cornies was perhaps Molotschna's most noted resident. His large estate, Jushanlee , was considered a model farm and showplace of Southern Ukraine. Crown princes of Russia, Alexander I and Alexander II , as well as other government officials visited the estate. His holdings were expanded by gifts from the government for his services and totaled 100 km (25,000 acres) at his death. He owned

2700-603: The Second Partition of Poland in 1793, now including the cities of Danzig ( Gdańsk ) and Thorn ( Toruń ). After the defeat of Prussia by the Napoleonic French Empire at the 1806 Battle of Jena-Auerstedt followed by the Treaties of Tilsit , West Prussia lost its southern territory in the vicinity of Thorn and Kulm (Chełmno) to the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw ; it also lost Danzig, which

2800-730: The Treaty of Versailles in 1919, most of pre-war West Prussia's territory (62%) and population (57%, the majority of whom were Polish) was granted to the Second Polish Republic or the Free City of Danzig (8% of territory, 19% of population), while parts in the west (18% of territory, 9% of population) and east (12% of territory, 15% of population) of the former province remained in Weimar Germany . The western remainder formed Grenzmark Posen-West Prussia in 1922, while

2900-589: The Tuchola Forest , were located in this part of the province. Further north near the sea is the Kashubian Lake District , where the highest point of the former province, Wieżyca ( German : Turmberg ), reaches 329 meters above sea level. The headwaters of Pomeranian rivers such as the Słupia ( German : Stolpe ) and Łeba ( German : Leba ) are located in these uplands. In the north

3000-554: The 1772 First Partition of Poland the Prussian king Frederick the Great took the occasion to annex most of Royal Prussia. The addition gave Prussia a land connection between the Province of Pomerania and East Prussia , cutting off the Polish access to the Baltic Sea and rendering East Prussia more readily defensible in the event of war with the Russian Empire . The annexed voivodeships of Pomerania (i.e. Pomerelia ) excluding

3100-583: The Catholic Church and the kingdom's Polish subjects by granting amnesty to imprisoned Polish bishops and by re-establishing Polish instruction in schools in districts having Polish majorities. With rise of nationalism , the Hohenzollern-ruled territory increasingly became a target of aggressive Germanisation efforts , German settlement, anti-Catholic campaigns ( Kulturkampf ), as well as disfranchisement and expropriations of Poles, and

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3200-537: The City of Danzig, Malbork (German: Marienburg ) and Chełmno (German: Kulm ) excluding the City of Thorn (Polish: Toruń ) were incorporated into the Province of West Prussia the following year, along with the formerly East Prussian Marienwerder Kreis . Ermland (Polish: Warmia ) became part of East Prussia while the annexed parts of Greater Poland and Kuyavia formed a separate Netze District located to

3300-702: The German state, with their fate being slavery and extermination, the latter in particular during Intelligenzaktion Pommern , as well as in the Stutthof concentration camp . Later in the war, many West Prussian Germans fled westward as the Red Army advanced on the Eastern Front . All of the areas occupied by Nazis were restored to Poland according to the post-war Potsdam Agreement in 1945, along with further neighbouring areas of former Nazi Germany and areas that had been part of Germany before. The vast majority of

3400-574: The Great) looked askance upon many of his new citizens. In a letter from 1735, he calls them "dirty" and "vile apes". He had nothing but contempt for the szlachta , the numerous Polish nobility, and wrote that Poland had "the worst government in Europe with the exception of Ottoman Empire ". He considered West Prussia less civilized than Colonial Canada and compared the Poles to the Iroquois . In

3500-596: The Imperial Margraviate of Brandenburg from 1618. The Hohenzollern rulers of Brandenburg-Prussia were able to remove the Polish suzerainty by the 1657 Treaty of Wehlau , taking advantage of the Russo-Swedish Deluge , shortly thereafter transforming their possessions into a kingdom. This development turned out to be fatal to the Polish monarchy, as the two parts of the rising Kingdom of Prussia were separated by Polish land. Subsequently,

3600-459: The Mennonites. In 1800, Paul I of Russia enacted a Privilegium (official privileges) for Mennonites, granting them exemption from military service "for all time". In West Prussia, King Frederick William III was making it difficult for Mennonites to acquire land, because of their refusal to serve in the military due to their pacifist religious beliefs. Another reason to immigrate was fear of

3700-692: The Molochna River in the Taurida Governorate . The next year, an additional group of about the same size arrived. Each family received 0.7 km (170 acres) of land. In contrast to the settlement of Chortitza, wealthy Mennonites also immigrated to Molotschna. They sold their farms in Germany, paid a 10 percent emigration tax, and brought the remainder into the Russian Empire. Arriving with superior farming skills and more wealth, they developed new farms and businesses more easily than had been

3800-588: The Old Colony dialect, as seen in their verb endings, while the other three use the Plautdietsch as spoken by the descendants of the Bergthal Colony, i. e. the Old Colony dialect with a loss of -n endings. Mennonite Low German has many sounds, including a few not found in other varieties of Low German. Where symbols for consonants occur in pairs, the left represents the voiceless consonant and

3900-605: The Old Colony version, but drop the final -n as the Molotschna speakers do. Plautdietsch has a Low German base, and as such, it does not show the effects of the High German consonant shift . This distinguished the High German dialects from the Low German dialects and all other Germanic languages. The basic distinctions between High German and Low German are: Like Dutch, Frisian and Low German, Plautdietsch only shows

4000-650: The Russian Imperial White Army was retreating. Two of the volunteers withdrew with the Wrangel army, while Clayton Kratz , who remained in Halbstadt as it was overrun by the Red Army, was never heard from again. A year passed before the Soviet government gave official permission for the international Mennonites to conduct relief work among the villages of Ukraine. Kitchens provided 25,000 people

4100-506: The Teutonic Knights were ordered by the Pope to return Pomerelia and other lands back to Poland, but did not comply. These events resulted in a series of Polish–Teutonic Wars throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. Under the Teutonic rule, an influx of western, mainly German-speaking farmers, traders and craftsmen was encouraged. Subsequent rebellions organized by the local population against

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4200-678: The Teutonic state, initially by the Lizard Union and later by the Prussian Confederation , both pledging allegiance to the Polish king, caused the Thirteen Years' War which ultimately led to the Second Peace of Thorn , when most of the region and was reclaimed by Poland and henceforth formed Royal Prussia , consisting of the originally Polish Pomerelia and Chełmno Land , expanded by the addition of parts of

4300-529: The United States speak only English. For example, Homer Groening —the father of Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons )—spoke Plautdietsch as a child in a Mennonite community in Saskatchewan in the 1920s, but Matt never learned the language. In 2007, Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas directed the film Stellet Licht ( Silent Light ), set in a Mennonite community in Chihuahua , Mexico. Most of

4400-531: The Vistula Delta were of Dutch or northern German origins, and were joined by refugees from different parts of Germany and Switzerland, who influenced their developing language. After almost two centuries in West Prussia, German replaced Dutch as church, school and written language and has become a source from where words are borrowed extensively, especially for religious terms. Many of these words show

4500-584: The Zagradovka colony in Kherson Oblast . By 1918 Zagradovka was made up of 16 villages with 6000 residents. In the 1870s, the population pressure was eased somewhat when a significant portion of the colony migrated to North America, with many settling in Saskatchewan , Canada. The next daughter colony was formed at Memrik in the Dnipropetrovsk region in 1885. By 1926, this settlement had

4600-469: The absence of an official orthography, there are quite a few written texts in the Plautdietsch language. A significant example is the Bible, whose New Testament was published in 1987 and the complete version subsequently published in 2005. It shares grammatical and lexical similarities with other varieties of Low German, and in general it is intelligible to other Low German speakers after some acquaintance. On

4700-496: The aristocracy and urban burghers initially highly Germanised as a result of earlier Teutonic policies, but gradually Polonized in the later years, while the peasantry continued as predominantly Kashubian- and Polish-speaking. A small area in the west of Pomerelia, the Lauenburg and Bütow Land , was granted to the rulers of Pomerania as a Polish fief before it was reintegrated with Poland in 1637, and later again transformed into

4800-745: The case for early settlers in Chortitza. The seaport city of Taganrog provided a convenient market for their dairy products in the early years. Wheat later became the predominant commodity crop. Between 1803 and 1806, 365 families came to Molotschna. Further immigration was prevented during the Napoleonic Wars . Another 254 families came from 1819 to 1820. After 1835 immigration to Molotschna ended, with about 1200 families, totaling some 6000 people, having moved from Prussia. The settlement consisted of 1,750 km (432,000 acres) of land with 46 villages and total population of about 10,000. A part of this

4900-527: The changes brought about by the French Revolution . Refuge in Russia was seen as a more secure alternative. The first settlers, 162 families, emigrated in 1803 to the existing Chortitza settlement and spent the winter there. They founded the first new villages near the Molochna River in 1804. The central Russian government set aside a 1,200 km (297,000 acres) tract of land for the settlers along

5000-660: The dialect of that writer. The most famous Plautdietsch writer, Arnold Dyck , wrote in the Molotschna dialect, though his origins were from the Old Colony. During his life, he made many changes in his spelling system. His developments are a basis for the various spellings used today. In the following table, only his final system is taken into account, as used in his famous Koop enn Bua series, along with Herman Rempel ( Kjenn Jie noch Plautdietsch? ), Reuben Epp ( Plautdietsche Schreftsteckja ), Jack Thiessen ( Mennonite Low German Dictionary ), J. J. Neufeld ( Daut niehe Tastament ) and Ed Zacharias ( De Bibel ). The latter two claim to write in

5100-505: The earliest estimations on ethnic or national structure of West Prussia are from 1819. At that time West Prussia had 630,077 inhabitants, including 327,300 Poles (52%), 290,000 Germans (46%) and 12,700 Jews (2%). Karl Andree , " Polen: in geographischer, geschichtlicher und culturhistorischer Hinsicht " (Leipzig 1831), gives the total population of West Prussia as 700,000 – including 50% Poles (350,000), 47% Germans (330,000) and 3% Jews (20,000). The population more than doubled during

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5200-576: The eastern remainder became part of Regierungsbezirk West Prussia within East Prussia . The 1920 East Prussian plebiscite was also held in the eastern part of West Prussia, which was known as the Marienwerder Plebiscite Area, and included partially or fully, the districts of Marienwerder , Stuhm , Rosenberg and Marienburg . The residents of this region voted by a majority of 92.4% to remain with Germany. In 1939,

5300-401: The effects of the High German consonant shift, even though they are otherwise adapted into Plautdietsch phonetics. Compare: This is the case particularly on nouns made out of verbs. The verb normally shows the unshifted consonant, whereas the noun has a shifted Germanized consonant: schluten, Schluss; bräakjen, Bruch (to close, closure; to break, a break) The first half of the 16th century was

5400-475: The film's dialogue is in Plautdietsch, which some of the actors had to learn phonetically. Other parts were played by people of the local community. Plautdietsch speakers today are mostly the descendants of Mennonites who fled in the 16th century to escape persecution and resettled in the Vistula delta . These refugees were Frisians and Saxons from East Frisia, people from Flanders (now part of Belgium) and central Europeans. They settled in West Prussia mostly in

5500-444: The forces of the Ukrainian anarchist-communist leader Nestor Makhno until March 1919. When the Russian communist Red Army combined with Makhno, the self-defense group was forced to retreat to Halbstadt and disband. This attempt to defend the villages departed from the Mennonites' traditional teaching of nonresistance , and many colonists disapproved of it. However, in the absence of effective governmental authority and when faced with

5600-407: The former Ducal Prussia and those territories gained during the partitions of Poland. This included both predominantly Polish- or Kashubian-speaking areas (former Greater Poland and Pomerelia within West Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Posen ) and German-speaking areas ( Malbork Land within West Prussia and most of East Prussia ). A failed attempt to include these lands in the German Empire (1848–49)

5700-424: The formerly Old Prussian territories of Pomesania , Pogesania and Warmia . The region had initially a degree of autonomy with an own local legislature, the Prussian Estates , and maintaining its own laws, customs and rights, but was ultimately re-absorbed directly into the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland , following the Union of Lublin in 1569 . The locally spoken language differed among social classes, with

5800-444: The horrific atrocities committed by anarchist partisans, others came to believe in the necessity of self-defense . Later church conferences and delegations officially condemned this action as a "grave mistake". Mennonites of Molotschna sent a commission to North America in the summer of 1920 to alert American Mennonites of the dire conditions of war-torn Ukraine . Their plight succeeded in uniting various branches of Mennonites to form

5900-427: The last days of World War II, this area became populated largely by Ukrainians . After the first Mennonite colony within the Russian Empire , Chortitza , was founded in 1789, Mennonite visitors found the freedom in Southern Ukraine an attractive alternative in view of restrictions placed on them in West Prussia . The imperial Russian government wanted more settlers with the valuable agricultural and craft skills of

6000-420: The level of education of the speaker, as well as the influence of Russian and standard German. The distinctive features of Chortitza-Plautdietsch as opposed to Molotschna-Plautdietsch include: Some Plautdietsch speakers might speak a mixture of both dialects. For instance, those who trace their origin to the Bergthal Colony in New Russia—a daughter colony of the Old Colony—show all the phonetic distinction of

6100-619: The middle of the 19th century the most numerous ethnic group in West Prussia as a whole, remaining as such until the dissolution of the province in 1920, though their distribution was uneven: their majority was concentrated in Danzig, the western lands of the province, along the Vistula river, and in the Pomesanian and Pogesanian portion of the province located east of the Vistula, with a small admixture of Poles (Gedanians and Powiślans). Meanwhile, Poles (Kociewians, Borowians and Chełminians) as well as Kashubians continued to predominate in parts of Pomerelian territories west of Vistula and in parts of

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6200-602: The middle of the tongue against the palate. Others, especially speakers of the Molotschna dialect, instead strike the tongue against the alveolar ridge and spell them ⟨tj⟩ and ⟨dj⟩ . Most Plautdietsch speakers' ears are not accustomed to realize these subtle, if not trivial, differences, and will often confuse one with the other. Other problematic areas: use or non-use of ⟨v⟩ for some words with /f/ sound, use or non-use of Dehnungs-h , when to double consonants and when not to. When comparing different writers, one must take into account

6300-480: The more Low German form Brams ), spark plugs (pluralized Ploggen ), but also words like peanuts , belt , tax . Plautdietsch speakers living in Spanish-speaking countries use many Spanish words in daily speech, especially in business and communication (telephone, for instance) vocabulary. Two examples of words that are completely adapted into Mennonite Low German are Burra (Mexican Spanish burro , donkey) and Wratsch (Mexican Spanish huarache , sandal). Both have

6400-403: The most conservative fraction maintaining use of the Plautdietsch dialect. Plautdietsch is primarily a spoken language, and does not have an official orthography. However, there have been attempts to create a written form of the language. One of the main issues facing the development of an official orthography is the variation in pronunciation among various speech communities. Another hindrance to

6500-574: The mutation of ⟨th⟩ into ⟨d⟩ . As shown, while Dutch, English and German have experienced similar vowel shifts, Plautdietsch has only merged the old Germanic /yː/ sound with /iː/ , while long /uː/ is retained in the Molotschna dialect. The Old Colony variety has fronted it to the now vacant /yː/ . Not only has Plautdietsch undergone vowel shift, various dialects of Plautdietsch have also had their own shifts. The deletion of r has been completed in most final positions, after front vowels and before alveolar consonants, but

6600-416: The names for those technologies. For Mennonites who had settled in North America in the 1870s, all new words were borrowed from English. Even though many of those settlers left for South America only 50 years after their arrival, they kept and sometimes adapted these words into the Mennonite Low German Phonetics: In particular, words for auto parts are taken from English: hood , fender , brakes (along with

6700-466: The newly established kingdom entered into an alliance with Austria and Russia, invading Polish territories. Even though some German authors viewed the establishment of West Prussia as a historic reunification of the lands of the Teutonic State , officially, the Prussian government shunned from justifying the annexation by such argument. The reason was that the Teutonic Order still called for reestablishment of their rule over East- and West Prussia. In

6800-408: The next seven decades, reaching 1,433,681 inhabitants (including 1,976 foreigners) in 1890. According to the German census of 1910, in areas that became Polish after 1918, 42% of the populace were Germans (including German military, officials and colonists ), while the Polish census of 1921 found 19% of Germans in the same territory. Contemporary sources in late 19th and early 20th centuries gave

6900-424: The nominal leadership of Austrian Empire , as a replacement for the dissolved Holy Roman Empire . Its boundaries largely followed those of its predecessor, the Holy Roman Empire, defining the territory of Germany for much of the 19th century. Except for the Lauenburg and Bütow Land and the former Starostwo of Draheim , the Prussian lands which had been outside the Empire remained outside the Confederation, namely

7000-461: The number of Kashubians between 80,000–200,000. Note: Prussian provinces were subdivided into districts called Kreise (singular Kreis , abbreviated Kr. ). Cities would have their own Stadtkreis (urban district) and the surrounding rural area would be named for the city, but referred to as a Landkreis (rural district). Plautdietsch Plautdietsch ( pronounced [ˈplaʊt.ditʃ] ) or Mennonite Low German

7100-432: The onset of the rule of terror by the Duke of Alba in the Spanish Low Countries during the Dutch Revolt (a.k.a. Eighty Years' War ), that was centered on religious freedom for the Protestants . As a result, many Mennonites and Reformed left the country. This continued in the 17th century, when the Dutch Reformed Church became the official religion, being less than indulgent to other types of Protestantism, let alone

7200-402: The other hand, it has several developments and sound shifts not found in any other Low German dialect. Regional differences of the language have developed. This is common in spoken languages that have historically lacked a consistent writing system, and have been carried to territories where other languages prevail. Major differences seem to have originated in the beginning of the 19th century in

7300-499: The poor. Male landowners decided local matters at village assemblies. Villages were grouped into districts. Molotschna was divided into two districts: Halbstadt and Gnadenfeld. A district superintendent headed a regional bureau that could administer corporal punishment and handle other matters affecting the villages in common. Insurance and fire protection were handled at the regional level, as well as dealing with delinquents and other social problems . The Mennonite colonies functioned as

7400-443: The population of West Prussia was put at 1,703,474, of whom around 64 percent listed their first language as German, 28 percent Polish and 7 percent Kashubian. According to Polish authors the real share of Poles and Kashubians was 43% (rather than 35.5% as in official figures), but many of them were counted as Catholic Germans by Prussian census clerks. In 1910, ethnic Poles were between 36% and 43% of West Prussia's populace. After

7500-585: The pretext of helping the King Władysław I Łokietek to quell a rebellion, with subsequent Teutonic atrocities against the Polish population, such as the Slaughter of Gdańsk . The possession of Danzig and Pomerelia by the Teutonic Order was questioned consistently by the Polish kings Władysław I and Casimir the Great in legal suits in the papal court in 1320 and 1333. Both times, as well as in 1339,

7600-598: The region was invaded, then included in the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia within Nazi Germany during World War II and settled with 130,000 German colonists, while between 120,000 and 170,000 Poles and Jews were removed by the Germans through expulsion , massacres, enslavement or killed in extermination camps . As in all other areas, Poles and Jews were classified as " Untermenschen " by

7700-485: The remaining German population of the region that had not fled was subsequently expelled westward. Many German civilians were deported to labor camps like Vorkuta in the Soviet Union , where a large number of them perished or were later reported missing. In 1949, the refugees established the non-profit Landsmannschaft Westpreußen to represent West Prussians in the Federal Republic of Germany . ] Perhaps

7800-420: The right represents the voiced consonant . Observations: According to the spelling system of De Bibel these sounds are spelled as follows: The vowel inventory of Plautdietsch is large, with 13 simple vowels, 10 diphthongs and one triphthong. The /u/ sound has been shifted to /y/ in the Old Colony dialect, leaving the sound only as part of the ua diphthong. However, in certain areas and age groups, there

7900-401: The south by the path of the river Drwęca ( German : Drewenz ), which formed part of the province's southeastern border with Congress Poland and the Russian Empire . The region of Pomerelia or Gdańsk Pomerania , historically Polish and never inhabited by Old Prussians , was forcibly occupied by the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights in 1308, following an invasion of Poland under

8000-559: The south. The Partition Sejm ratified the cession on 30 September 1773, complemented by renouncement by the Polish king of his royal title in regard to Prussia. Thereafter, Frederick finally started to style himself "King of Prussia" rather than "King in Prussia." Both abovementioned exempted cities were ultimately captured by the Kingdom of Prussia upon the Second Partition of Poland in 1793 . The Polish administrative and legal code

8100-570: The spelling Plautdietsch is used to refer specifically to the Vistula variant of the language. Plautdietsch was a Low German dialect like others until it was taken by Mennonite settlers to the southwest of the Russian Empire starting in 1789. From there it evolved and subsequent waves of migration brought it to North America, starting in 1873. In Latin America the first settlement occurred in Argentina in 1877 coming from Russia. Plautdietsch

8200-434: The three genders can still be perfectly established. In the oblique case , the masculine has a special definite article, making it once more different from the feminine, which, like the neuter, does not change. In the plural number, all gender identification is lost (as in German, Dutch and Low German); all plural determiners and adjective endings are homophonous with the feminine singular. Some Plautdietsch writers try to use

8300-544: The three local areas of Nehrung (on the Baltic Sea), Werder (islands in the Vistula delta) and Niederung (south of the Werder), where they adopted the respective local Low German dialect as their everyday language. As Mennonites they kept their own (primarily Dutch and Low German) identity, using Standard Dutch as the language of the church well into the 18th century. As a written language, they took up High German. At

8400-594: The time of their migration to the Russian Empire, their spoken language resembled the dialects of the region with only some few Dutch elements. Their East Low German dialect is still classified as Low Prussian. Russian Mennonites trace their genealogical roots mostly to the Low Countries . Beginning in the late 18th century, the expanding Russian Empire invited Germans and many from the Kingdom of Prussia , including many Mennonites, to create new colonies north of

8500-599: The two major Mennonite settlements in Ekaterinoslav, also known as Novorossiya , or New Russia, which lies in modern-day Ukraine. The colonies were Chortitza (Old Colony) and Molotschna (New Colony), as noted above. There was a third variety spoken by Groningen Old Flemish Mennonites in Waldheim, Gnadenfeld  [ uk ] , and Alexanderwohl, which traced its origin from Przechovka . From Przechovka some moved to Brenkenhoffswalde and Franztal , in what

8600-589: The types perceived as radical (non-violent, no bearing of arms, no recognition of worldly authorities). In Low German area, they left their language traces in particular at the lower Vistula , around Danzig and Elbing , and up the river towards Toruń . Wherever Mennonites settled, they found new foods and other items with which they were not familiar with. When that happened, they took the name that local people used for those items. The following words are of Russian or Ukrainian origin: As Mennonites came into contact with new technology, they often adopted and adapted

8700-411: The unification of the language is the fact that most Plautdietsch speaking people are not found in one geographical region, being spread across North America (Canada, the United States, Mexico), Central America and South America. Noteworthy attempts at an orthography include those done by Fast (1982), Reimer (1982), Reimer et al. (1983), Epp (1996), Loewen (1996, 1998), and Heinrichs et al. (2001). Despite

8800-589: The west, the province shared a border with easternmost Brandenburg , and comprised those lands between the provinces of Posen and Pomerania . This region of the province was characterized by the Baltic Uplands , with southward flowing rivers joining the Noteć ( German : Netze ). The Brda ( German : Brahe ) drains much of this area, joining the Vistula after passing through Bydgoszcz ( German : Bromberg ). Numerous large expanses of woodland, including

8900-844: Was a Free City from 1807 until 1814. After the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Danzig, Kulm, and Thorn were returned to West Prussia by resolution of the Vienna Congress . Some of the areas of Greater Poland annexed in 1772 that had formed the Netze District were added to West Prussia as well (the remainder became part of the Grand Duchy of Posen ). The Congress of Vienna established the German Confederation (German: Deutscher Bund ), an association of 39 German-speaking states in Central Europe under

9000-477: Was a province of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and 1878 to 1919. West Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1773, formed from Royal Prussia of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth annexed in the First Partition of Poland . West Prussia was dissolved in 1829 and merged with East Prussia to form the Province of Prussia , but was re-established in 1878 when the merger

9100-568: Was finally annexed into Germany following the North German Confederation Treaty (1866). The Polish historian Andrzej Chwalba cites Germanization measures that included: At the time of German Unification in 1871, the Kingdom of Prussia was the largest and dominant part of the North German Confederation , the predecessor of the newly-formed German Empire . In the German census of 1910,

9200-592: Was found at the northwestern end of the delta. The Nogat river, a distributary of the Vistula, flows to the northeast past the city of Malbork ( German : Marienburg ) and into the Vistula Lagoon . Further east near Elbląg ( German : Elbing ), the border with East Prussia crossed the Vistula Spit , Vistula Lagoon, and the Elbląg Upland . In the southeast, the course of the Vistula river forms

9300-836: Was founded in 1957 by Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from Paraguay. Soon, conservative Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from Canada, Mexico, and Belize also relocated to Bolivia, settling together. In 1986/7, a settlement was founded in Argentina by Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from other Latin American countries. Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites have also recently begun colonies in the jungle of Peru . Plautdietsch-speaking communities in Latin America have mostly maintained their language, while also learning Standard German and local languages. In North America, many Mennonites have adopted English as their common language. In Germany, many Mennonites have shifted to Standard German, with only

9400-596: Was inhabited by West Slavic Lechitic tribes ( Pomeranians in the Pomerelia region and Masovians in Kulmerland ), while the actual Old Prussians ( Pomesanians and Pogesanians ) populated only the remaining part of the territory lying to the east of the Vistula River . The Teutonic Order's conquest of the region resulted in German colonization in the 14th century. As a result of Germanisation , Germans became in

9500-564: Was not divided but reserved for future generations, to care for the growing number of families. As the population outgrew the available land, daughter colonies such as Neu Samara Colony were formed. The settlement was located near the Russian Empire's southern frontier. It was subject to raids by nomadic Crimean Tatars , who had been deported from the Molotschna Valley by the Russian government. After four Mennonites were killed by

9600-527: Was replaced by the Prussian system, and 750 schools were built from 1772-1775. Both Protestant and Roman Catholic teachers taught in West Prussia, and teachers and administrators were encouraged to be able to speak both German and Polish. Frederick II of Prussia also advised his successors to learn Polish, a policy followed by the Hohenzollern dynasty until Frederick III decided not to let William II learn Polish. Despite this, Frederick II (Frederick

9700-569: Was reversed and became part of the German Empire . From 1918, West Prussia was a province of the Free State of Prussia within Weimar Germany , losing most of its territory to the Second Polish Republic and the Free City of Danzig in the Treaty of Versailles . West Prussia was dissolved in 1920, and its remaining western territory was merged with Posen to form Posen-West Prussia , and its eastern territory merged with East Prussia as

9800-630: Was the Baltic coast, consisting of a graded shoreline with landmarks such as the Hel Peninsula stretching 35 kilometers into the Gdańsk Bay , and the Vistula Fens where that river meets the sea. The Vistula delta encompasses a heavily cultivated area of approximately 2,000 square kilometers of land, much of it below sea level. Gdańsk ( German : Danzig ), the largest city of the province,

9900-484: Was typically a craftsperson or herder, untrained in teaching, who fit class time around his main work. In 1820, the Molotschna colony started a secondary school at Ohrloff, bringing a trained teacher from Prussia. A school of commerce was started in Halbstadt, employing a faculty with full graduate education. Those who wanted to pursue post-secondary education attended universities in Switzerland, Germany, as well as

10000-547: Was undertaken by the Frankfurt Parliament . In 1815, the province was administratively subdivided into the Regierungsbezirke Danzig and Marienwerder . From 1829 to 1878, West Prussia was combined with East Prussia to form the Province of Prussia , after which they were re-established as separate provinces. In 1840, King Frederick William IV of Prussia sought to reconcile the state with

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