Prussia ( Polish : Prusy [ˈprusɨ] ; Lithuanian : Prūsija ; Russian : Пруссия [ˈprusʲ(ː)ɪjə] ; Prussian : Prūsa ; German : Preußen [ˈpʁɔʏsn̩] ; Latin : Pruthenia / Prussia / Borussia ) is a historical region in Central Europe on the south-eastern coast of the Baltic Sea , that ranges from the Vistula delta in the west to the end of the Curonian Spit in the east and extends inland as far as Masuria , divided between Poland , Russia and Lithuania . This region is often also referred to as Old Prussia .
154-530: The Castle of the Teutonic Order in Malbork , commonly known as Malbork Castle ( Polish : Zamek w Malborku ; German : Ordensburg Marienburg ), is a brick gothic castle complex located in the town of Malbork , Poland , built in 13th and significantly expanded in 14th century. It is the largest castle in the world measured by land area and a UNESCO World Heritage Site . It was constructed by
308-452: A war criminal sentenced after the war by a Polish court to death, albeit with his penalty later commuted to life imprisonment . Following the example of earlier German policies, there was a short-lived initiative in the Polish post-World War II government to rename the newly acquired original Prussia to an invented name of Masovian Pomerania ; it was, however, quickly abandoned. In 1995,
462-499: A / (spelled a ), / ɔ / (spelled o ) and / u / (spelled u and ó as separate letters). The nasal vowels are / ɛ w̃ / (spelled ę ) and / ɔ w̃ / (spelled ą ). Unlike Czech or Slovak, Polish does not retain phonemic vowel length — the letter ó , which formerly represented lengthened /ɔː/ in older forms of the language, is now vestigial and instead corresponds to /u/. The Polish consonant system shows more complexity: its characteristic features include
616-554: A Nazi political stronghold whose existence as an exclave resulted in German irredentist demands towards Poland, blamed as one of the primary causes of the calamity of World War II and the ensuing German atrocities. An important factor was also West Germany 's rejection of the validity of the postwar Polish Western border on the Oder–Neisse line (until 1972 total, 1972-1991 de iure ) rendering any attempts of Poles to remind or maintain
770-574: A bearer of militarism and reaction in Germany . In line with this assessment and the ideological justification of Recoverred Territories , the use of Prussia as a geographic designation was discouraged by the postwar authorities of Poland and the Soviet Union. The Polish region of Pomerelia (Gdansk Pomerania and the Chełmno Land) reverted to its original name already prior to World War II, as
924-529: A centre of learning and printing through the establishment of the Albertina University in 1544 for not only the dominant German culture, but also the thriving Polish and Lithuanian communities as well. It was in Königsberg that the first Lutheran books in Polish, Lithuanian, and Prussian languages were published. Rulership of Ducal Prussia passed to the senior Hohenzollern branch,
1078-673: A constituent part of the German Weimar Republic , following the 1920 East Prussian plebiscite . The democratic government of the Free State was removed as a result the 1932 Prussian coup d'état which also facilitated the Nazi takeover of government . In the March 1933 German federal election , the last pre-war German elections, the local population of East Prussia voted overwhelmingly for Adolf Hitler 's Nazi Party . After
1232-771: A dialect of Polish. Many Silesians consider themselves a separate ethnicity and have been advocating for the recognition of Silesian as a regional language in Poland . The law recognizing it as such was passed by the Sejm and Senate in April 2024, but has been vetoed by President Andrzej Duda in late May of 2024. According to the last official census in Poland in 2011, over half a million people declared Silesian as their native language. Many sociolinguists (e.g. Tomasz Kamusella , Agnieszka Pianka, Alfred F. Majewicz, Tomasz Wicherkiewicz ) assume that extralinguistic criteria decide whether
1386-669: A few culturally and linguistically related tribes from the basins of the Vistula and Oder before eventually accepting baptism in 966. With Western Christianity , Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet , which made it possible to write down Polish, which until then had existed only as a spoken language . The closest relatives of Polish are the Elbe and Baltic Sea Lechitic dialects ( Polabian and Pomeranian varieties). All of them, except Kashubian , are extinct. The precursor to modern Polish
1540-733: A further German attempt to expand the meaning of the designation of Prussia was undertaken, when the westernmost portion of Soviet Belarus (which, until 1939, belonged to the Polish state ), was placed under the German Civilian Administration ( Zivilverwaltungsgebiet ) as the Bialystok District , an entity in association with (but not part of) East Prussia, nevertheless it was also denoted on some Nazi maps as South East Prussia , with both territories remaining under common management and leadership of Erich Koch ,
1694-467: A large number of branches in all of these areas) offers services available in Polish at all of their cash machines in addition to English and Spanish . According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England and Wales who consider Polish to be their "main" language. In Canada , there is a significant Polish Canadian population : There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to
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#17327755848861848-543: A lect is an independent language or a dialect: speakers of the speech variety or/and political decisions, and this is dynamic (i.e. it changes over time). Also, research organizations such as SIL International and resources for the academic field of linguistics such as Ethnologue , Linguist List and others, for example the Ministry of Administration and Digitization recognized the Silesian language. In July 2007,
2002-472: A military and Christianizing mission. Adalbert, accompanied by armed guards, attempted to convert the Prussians to Christianity. He was killed by a Prussian pagan priest in 997. In 1015, Bolesław sent soldiers again, with some short-lived success, gaining regular paid tribute from some Prussians in the border regions, but it did not last. Polish rulers sent invasions to the territory in 1147, 1161–1166, and
2156-587: A missionary bishop appointed for Prussia in 1216. In the beginning of the 13th century, Konrad of Mazovia had called for Crusades and tried unsuccessfully to conquer Prussia for years. Bishop Christian of Oliva established the Order of Dobrzyń in order to defend Masovia against the raids of Old Prussians. However, the rather innumerous order (initially 15 knights, with 35 knights at its highest) did not prove effective in countering Prussians in battle. Christian achieved subjugation and conversion of Prussians only in
2310-454: A nasal consonant, rather than a nasal vowel. For example, ą in dąb ("oak") is pronounced [ɔm] , and ę in tęcza ("rainbow") is pronounced [ɛn] (the nasal assimilates to the following consonant). When followed by l or ł (for example przyjęli , przyjęły ), ę is pronounced as just e . When ę is at the end of the word it is often pronounced as just [ɛ] . Depending on
2464-657: A new campaign against them. Learning that the Order's Bohemian mercenaries had not been paid, Stibor convinced them to leave. He reimbursed them with money raised in Danzig. Following the departure of the mercenaries, King Casimir IV Jagiellon entered the castle in triumph in 1457, and in May, granted Danzig several privileges in gratitude for the town's assistance and involvement in the Thirteen Years' War (1454–66) as well as for
2618-514: A number of times in the early 13th century. While these were repelled by the Prussians, the Chełmno Land became exposed to their frequent raids. At that time, Pomerelia belonged to the diocese of Włocławek . Chełmno Land (including Michałów Land and later Lubawa Land) belonged in turn to the diocese of Płock , since 1223 governed in the name of the Bishop of Płock by Christian of Oliva ,
2772-766: A part of the Province of Pomerania , as well as the Regierungsbezirk Westpreussen which was made part of East Prussia ), while its bulk was awarded to the recreated Polish state . On the other hand, only minor part of East Prussia around Działdowo was transferred to Poland, the Klaipėda Region formed a free city supervised by the League of Nations , annexed following the Klaipėda Revolt by Lithuania but reclaimed by Germany in 1939, while
2926-557: A part of the kingdom remaining outside of Germany until the creation of the North German Confederation in 1866 during the unification of Germany . The merged territory was, however, again split into East and West Prussia in 1878. East Prussia , West Prussia , the Province of Posen and the Starostwo of Draheim were annexed by Germany upon the formation of North German Confederation in 1866 and became
3080-694: A replacement for the dissolved Holy Roman Empire from 1815 to 1866, only those of the territories of the kingdom which were previously included in the HRE as well as the Lauenburg and Bütow Land and the former Starostwo of Draheim (both integrated into the Province of Pomerania) became part of the Confederation, while the Grand Duchy of Posen (later demoted to an ordinary Province of Posen following
3234-402: A reversed diacritic hook called an ogonek . Polish is a synthetic and fusional language which has seven grammatical cases . It has fixed penultimate stress and an abundance of palatal consonants . Contemporary Polish developed in the 1700s as the successor to the medieval Old Polish (10th–16th centuries) and Middle Polish (16th–18th centuries). Among the major languages, it
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#17327755848863388-491: A single word. This applies in particular to many combinations of preposition plus a personal pronoun, such as do niej ('to her'), na nas ('on us'), prze ze mnie ('because of me'), all stressed on the bolded syllable. The Polish alphabet derives from the Latin script but includes certain additional letters formed using diacritics . The Polish alphabet was one of three major forms of Latin-based orthography developed for Western and some South Slavic languages,
3542-798: A small part of Hither Pomerania were also transferred to Poland as part of the territories recovered from Germany, following World War II . As agreed upon in the Treaty of Versailles , most of the Pomerelian part of the Province of West Prussia that had belonged to the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire since the Partitions of Poland was retroceded to the Second Polish Republic , becoming its Pomeranian Voivodeship ,
3696-517: A statue of Mary, mother of Jesus, while the rest of the column can be found supporting a Saint Christopher statue in a monastery garden near St. John's church. A severe fire in 1959 caused further damage to the castle. In 1961 the Castle Museum ( Muzeum Zamkowe ) was founded, and in 1965 an amber exhibition was opened. In a restoration ongoing since 1962, most of the castle has been reconstructed. A significant 21st-century restoration
3850-423: A target of aggressive Germanization, German settlement, anti-Catholic campaigns ( Kulturkampf ), as well as disfranchisement and expropriations of Poles. After the Treaty of Versailles , only the predominantly German-speaking western and eastern rim of the former West Prussia remained a part of Germany, forming part of the rump province of Posen-West Prussia (except for the Lauenburg and Bütow Land remaining
4004-405: A verse by Jan Brzechwa ) is W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie [fʂt͡ʂɛbʐɛˈʂɨɲɛ ˈxʂɔw̃ʂt͡ʂ ˈbʐmi fˈtʂt͡ɕiɲɛ] ('In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reed'). Unlike languages such as Czech, Polish does not have syllabic consonants – the nucleus of a syllable is always a vowel. The consonant /j/ is restricted to positions adjacent to a vowel. It also cannot precede
4158-478: A vowel when it precedes another vowel (it represents /j/ , palatalization of the preceding consonant, or both depending on analysis). Also the letters u and i sometimes represent only semivowels when they follow another vowel, as in autor /ˈawtɔr/ ('author'), mostly in loanwords (so not in native nauka /naˈu.ka/ 'science, the act of learning', for example, nor in nativized Mateusz /maˈte.uʂ/ 'Matthew'). Some loanwords , particularly from
4312-659: Is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group within the Indo-European language family written in the Latin script . It is primarily spoken in Poland and serves as the official language of the country, as well as the language of the Polish diaspora around the world. In 2024, there were over 39.7 million Polish native speakers. It ranks as the sixth most-spoken among languages of the European Union . Polish
4466-550: Is a classic example of a medieval fortress and, upon its completion in 1406, was the world's largest brick castle. UNESCO designated the "Castle of the Teutonic Order in Malbork" and the Malbork Castle Museum a World Heritage Site in December 1997. It is one of two World Heritage Sites in the region (north-central Poland), together with the "Medieval Town of Toruń ", which was founded in 1231. Malbork Castle
4620-627: Is also one of Poland's official national Historic Monuments ( Pomnik historii ), as designated on 8 September 1994. Its listing is maintained by the National Heritage Board of Poland . The castle was built by the Teutonic Order after the conquest of Old Prussia . Its main purpose was to strengthen their own control of the area following the Order's 1274 suppression of the Great Prussian Uprising of
4774-419: Is also spoken as a second language in eastern Germany , northern Czech Republic and Slovakia , western parts of Belarus and Ukraine as well as in southeast Lithuania and Latvia . Because of the emigration from Poland during different time periods, most notably after World War II , millions of Polish speakers can also be found in countries such as Canada , Argentina , Brazil , Israel , Australia ,
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4928-427: Is most closely related to Slovak and Czech but differs in terms of pronunciation and general grammar. Additionally, Polish was profoundly influenced by Latin and other Romance languages like Italian and French as well as Germanic languages (most notably German ), which contributed to a large number of loanwords and similar grammatical structures. Extensive usage of nonstandard dialects has also shaped
5082-751: Is of the castle's principal church, which is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This had been restored just before the Second World War and then largely destroyed in the fighting of 1945. It remained in a state of disrepair until a new restoration was completed in April 2016. Malbork Castle remains the largest brick complex in Europe. Polish language Polish ( endonym : język polski , [ˈjɛ̃zɘk ˈpɔlskʲi] , polszczyzna [pɔlˈʂt͡ʂɘzna] or simply polski , [ˈpɔlskʲi] )
5236-447: Is possible to say ko goście zoba czy li? – here kogo retains its usual stress (first syllable) in spite of the attachment of the clitic. Reanalysis of the endings as inflections when attached to verbs causes the different colloquial stress patterns. These stress patterns are considered part of a "usable" norm of standard Polish - in contrast to the "model" ("high") norm. Some common word combinations are stressed as if they were
5390-595: Is subdivided into regional dialects and maintains strict T–V distinction pronouns, honorifics , and various forms of formalities when addressing individuals. The traditional 32-letter Polish alphabet has nine additions ( ą , ć , ę , ł , ń , ó , ś , ź , ż ) to the letters of the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet , while removing three (x, q, v). Those three letters are at times included in an extended 35-letter alphabet. The traditional set comprises 23 consonants and 9 written vowels , including two nasal vowels ( ę , ą ) defined by
5544-524: Is the Old Polish language . Ultimately, Polish descends from the unattested Proto-Slavic language. The Book of Henryków (Polish: Księga henrykowska , Latin : Liber fundationis claustri Sanctae Mariae Virginis in Heinrichau ), contains the earliest known sentence written in the Polish language: Day, ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai (in modern orthography: Daj, uć ja pobrusza, a ti pocziwaj ;
5698-529: Is the most widely-used minority language in Lithuania's Vilnius County , by 26% of the population, according to the 2001 census results, as Vilnius was part of Poland from 1922 until 1939. Polish is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. In Ukraine, it is most common in the western parts of Lviv and Volyn Oblasts , while in West Belarus it is used by the significant Polish minority, especially in
5852-430: The kropka (superior dot) over the letter ż , and the ogonek ("little tail") under the letters ą, ę . The letters q, v, x are used only in foreign words and names. Polish orthography is largely phonemic —there is a consistent correspondence between letters (or digraphs and trigraphs ) and phonemes (for exceptions see below). The letters of the alphabet and their normal phonemic values are listed in
6006-401: The ś in święty ("holy") all represent the sound / ɕ / . The exceptions to the above rule are certain loanwords from Latin, Italian, French, Russian or English—where s before i is pronounced as s , e.g. sinus , sinologia , do re mi fa sol la si do , Saint-Simon i saint-simoniści , Sierioża , Siergiej , Singapur , singiel . In other loanwords
6160-1020: The 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania , the Klaipėda region was integrated again into East Prussia. During World War II , the Polish ethnic minorities of Catholic Warmians and Powiślans , as well as Lutheran Masurians were persecuted by the Nazi German government, which wanted to erase all aspects of Polish culture and Polish language in Warmia , Masuria and Powiśle The Jews who remained in East Prussia in 1942 were shipped to concentration camps, including Theresienstadt in occupied Czechoslovakia , Kaiserwald in occupied Latvia , and camps in Minsk in occupied Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic . The Soldau concentration camp and Hohenbruch concentration camp [ de ] were operated in
6314-496: The Baltic tribes . No contemporary documents survive relating to its construction, so instead the castle's phases have been worked out through the study of architecture and the Order's administrative records and later histories. The work lasted until around 1300, under the auspices of Commander Heinrich von Wilnowe . The castle is located on the southeastern bank of the river Nogat . It was named Marienburg after Mary, patron saint of
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6468-507: The Balts as the speakers of the Baltic languages . The Balts would have become differentiated into Western and Eastern Balts in the late 1st millennium BC. The region was inhabited by ancestors of Western Balts – Old Prussians , Sudovians / Jotvingians , Scalvians , Nadruvians , and Curonians while the eastern Balts settled in what is now Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus. The Greek explorer Pytheas (4th century BC) may have referred to
6622-596: The Brest and Grodno regions and in areas along the Lithuanian border. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries. In the United States , Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. According to the 2000 United States Census , 667,414 Americans of age five years and over reported Polish as
6776-660: The Chełmno and the Michałów Lands, as well as sometimes the Lubawa Land), resulting in its increasing usage in this context in the Polish scientific historical publications. Powiśle , Warmia and Masuria are now in Poland (most of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship , and the four counties of Pomeranian Voivodeship east of Vistula ), the former Memelland or Klaipėda region is now divided between
6930-694: The Chełmno Land formed part of the Duchy of Warsaw following the Treaties of Tilsit , and Danzig was granted a status of a Free City . However, after the Congress of Vienna , the Polish duchy was again partitioned between Russia and Prussia, with Prussia annexing the Free City and the Chełmno Land into the reconstituted West Prussia . The annexation was associated with another attempt to artificially expand
7084-764: The Early Middle Ages , was forcibly occupied by the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights in 1308, following an invasion of Poland under the pretext of aiding the King Władysław I Łokietek to quell a rebellion against him, incited by a conspiracy of the Margraviate of Brandenburg with the local Swienca family . Teutonic atrocities against the Polish population followed, such as the Slaughter of Gdańsk . The Teutonic Knights took control of
7238-472: The First Partition of Poland in 1772. From then on, the castle was under German rule for over 170 years until 1945, albeit largely falling into disrepair as military technological advances rendered the castle a mere historical point of interest. The construction period is a point of debate, but most historians generally accept the 132 years between 1274 and 1406 as the construction time. The castle
7392-662: The First Partition of Poland , the King in Prussia gained majority of the territory of Royal Prussia including the Lauenburg and Bütow Land (but excluding Danzig and Toruń which were captured along with the region of Greater Poland in the Second Partition of Poland ), as well as the Starostwo of Draheim . The former Royal Prussia was divided in 1773. Its bulk which included the historically Prussian Malbork Land (northern parts of Pomesania and Pogesania ) but also
7546-563: The Greater Poland Province ) of the Kingdom of Poland , while the eastern part of the monastic state became a fief and protectorate of Poland, also considered an integral part of the "one and indivisible" Kingdom of Poland, initially called Monastic Prussia or Teutonic Prussia , secularised in 1525 to become Ducal Prussia. At the same time, the Polish monarchs assumed the title of the King of Prussia. After Pomerelia
7700-761: The Hanseatic League in 1340, thus connecting Prussia to the European trade network spanning via the North Sea and the Baltic Sea . In 1492, a life of Saint Dorothea of Montau , published in Marienburg (Malbork), became the first printed publication in Prussia. "Prussian land was my father's land and I will claim its territory till Osa river [ pl ] i.e. all the Prussian lands until
7854-435: The Hanseatic League in 1361. 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 the Teutonic state, initially by the Lizard Union and later by the Prussian Confederation , both pledging allegiance to
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#17327755848868008-403: The Lubawa Land. Therefore, the pope set up further crusades. The Duke finally invited the Teutonic Knights in 1226, expelled by force of arms by King Andrew II of Hungary in the previous year following their attempts to build their own state within Transylvania. The Knights were expected to fight the inhabitants of Prussia in exchange for a fief of Chełmno Land . Prussia was conquered by
8162-414: The Malbork Land comprising northern parts of Pomesania and Pogesania ) forming (along with the northern part of Greater Poland detached from the Grand Duchy of Posen ) the Province of West Prussia , while Warmia was assigned to East Prussia , with both West and East Prussia remaining outside the German Confederation . In contrast, the Lauenburg and Bütow Land was annexed in 1777 immediately into
8316-488: The Malbork Land comprising northern parts of Pomesania and Pogesania . These were the only actual Prussian territories of Royal Prussia. Initially enjoying broad autonomy including an own local legislature, the Prussian Estates , and maintaining its own laws, customs and rights, Royal Prussia 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
8470-598: The Monastic Prussia thereafter, formed a part of Poland as a fief, finally secularised in 1525 to become the Lutheran Ducal Prussia . Brandenburg Electors obtained the separation of the Duchy of Prussia from Poland in 1660, taking advantage of the Russo-Swedish Deluge , and merged it with the Electorate of Brandenburg to form Brandenburg-Prussia , shortly thereafter becoming the Kingdom of Prussia . Subsequently, it entered into an alliance with Austria and Russia, invading Polish territories of Royal Prussia, annexing and dividing it, with its bulk (including Pomerelia and
8624-416: The Nazi Germany during the invasion of Poland in 1939, as well as renamed Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreussen , with numerous German atrocities against the local population . Nazi Germany also undertook another attempt to artificially expand the meaning of the designation of Prussia, this time by enlarging the territory of the province of East Prussia through annexation into it of parts of Northern Masovia under
8778-414: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth 's influence gave Polish the status of lingua franca in Central and Eastern Europe . The process of standardization began in the 14th century and solidified in the 16th century during the Middle Polish era. Standard Polish was based on various dialectal features, with the Greater Poland dialect group serving as the base. After World War II , Standard Polish became
8932-411: The Pomeranian Voivodeship (Gdańsk Pomerania) and the Chełmno Voivodeship , while Royal Prussia was used as the name of the wider province, which, however, also included the Malbork Voivodeship and the Prince-Bishopric of Warmia , covering the Prussian historical areas of Pomesania , Pogesania and Warmia , the only actual Prussian territories of the province, while the rump Teutonic state, called
9086-402: The Province of Pomerania , but remained outside the Holy Roman Empire and was incorporated in 1815 only into its successor, the German Confederation , continuing to be a part of the Diocese of Chełmno . The Province of East Prussia (the original Prussia) and the annexed Polish territories turned into the Province of West Prussia were merged in 1829 to form a single Province of Prussia ,
9240-426: The Prussian Lithuanians in Lithuania Minor , a part of the Soviet share of the former East Prussia. The government of the Lithuanian SSR followed Soviet policy and viewed the Prussian Lithuanians as Germans. About 8,000 persons were repatriated from DP camps during 1945–50. However, their homes and farms were not returned as either Russians or Lithuanians had already occupied their property. Prussians who remained in
9394-418: The Russian SFSR . The part assigned to Poland was organized as the provisional Masurian District , later reduced by the annexation of its northern strip with the towns of Gierdawy and Iławka by the Soviet Union, and transferring its westernmost counties to Gdańsk Voivodeship and easternmost counties to Białystok Voivodeship , and finally transformed into Olsztyn Voivodeship in 1946. The Klaipėda Region
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#17327755848869548-450: The Starostwo of Draheim were annexed in 1777 immediately into the Province of Pomerania . The annexation of Royal Prussia allowed the Prussian king to assume the title of King of Prussia thereafter. Further attempts to expand the meaning of the designation of Prussia was undertaken following the Second Partition of Poland , when Greater Poland and Northern Masovia were annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia and renamed South Prussia , and
9702-421: The Teutonic Knights during the Prussian Crusade and administered within their State of the Teutonic Order , which begins the process of Germanization in the area. Bishop Christian had to deal with the constant cut-back of his autonomy by the Knights and asked the Roman Curia for mediation. In 1243, the Papal legate William of Modena divided the Prussian lands of the Order's State into four dioceses, whereby
9856-515: The Teutonic Order , a German Catholic religious order of crusaders , in the form of an Ordensburg fortress and named Marienburg in honour of Mary, mother of Jesus . In 1457, during the Thirteen Years' War , the castle was sold by Bohemian mercenaries to King Casimir IV of Poland in lieu of indemnities . It then served as one of several Polish royal residences and the seat of Polish offices and institutions, interrupted by several years of Swedish occupation, fulfilling this function until
10010-407: The Third Partition of Poland , when Prussia annexed parts Masovia , Podlachia , Trakai Voivodeship and Samogitia under the name of New East Prussia . Both invented names were eventually abandoned, following the Napoleonic Wars . All the annexed Polish lands remained outside of the Holy Roman Empire until its dissolution in 1806. During the Napoleonic era the Greater Polish territories and
10164-406: The United Kingdom and the United States . Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. At the time, it was a collection of dialect groups with some mutual features, but much regional variation was present. Mieszko I , ruler of the Polans tribe from the Greater Poland region, united
10318-426: The Vistula River during the Migration Period , adjacent to the Aesti , who lived further to the east. The region's inhabitants of the Middle Ages were first called Bruzi in the brief text of the Bavarian Geographer and have since been referred to as Old Prussians , who, beginning in 997 AD, repeatedly defended themselves against conquest attempts by the newly created Duchy of the Polans . The territories of
10472-427: The Vistula River , including Pamede , because this is my inheritance" — Vytautas the Great 's statement in no uncertain terms in 1413, long after the Battle of Grunwald , during the negotiations with the Teutonic Knights . Moreover, in 1421, the Lithuanian representatives emphasized the territorial and cultural links between Lithuanians , Sudovia , and old Yotvingian lands, but the Order continued to enjoy
10626-474: The classical languages , have the stress on the antepenultimate (third-from-last) syllable. For example, fizyka ( /ˈfizɨka/ ) ('physics') is stressed on the first syllable. This may lead to a rare phenomenon of minimal pairs differing only in stress placement, for example muzyka /ˈmuzɨka/ 'music' vs. muzyka /muˈzɨka/ – genitive singular of muzyk 'musician'. When additional syllables are added to such words through inflection or suffixation ,
10780-505: The flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–50) , as well as the expulsion of Ukrainians and Operation Vistula , the 1947 migration of Ukrainian minorities in the Recovered Territories in the west of the country, contributed to the country's linguistic homogeneity. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak Polish somewhat differently, although the differences between modern-day vernacular varieties and standard Polish ( język ogólnopolski ) appear relatively slight. Most of
10934-404: The standard language ; considerable colloquialisms and expressions were directly borrowed from German or Yiddish and subsequently adopted into the vernacular of Polish which is in everyday use. Historically, Polish was a lingua franca , important both diplomatically and academically in Central and part of Eastern Europe . In addition to being the official language of Poland, Polish
11088-624: The unification of Germany . The merged territory was, however, again split into East and West Prussia in 1878. As agreed upon in the Treaty of Versailles , East Prussia, minus the Memelland , expanded by addition of the Regierungsbezirk Westpreussen (the only part of former West Prussia containing originally Prussian territory) remained within the Free State of Prussia , a successor of the Kingdom of Prussia and
11242-423: The (originally Prussian) territory of Regierungsbezirk Westpreussen east of Vistula remained with Germany as a part of East Prussia, while the western rim of Pomerelia became part of the German province of Posen-West Prussia , named so in spite of containing no originally Prussian territory. Danzig became a free city under the protection of the League of Nations . The area was occupied and illegally annexed by
11396-416: The 16th century, which is also regarded as the " Golden Age of Polish literature". The orthography was modified in the 19th century and in 1936. Tomasz Kamusella notes that "Polish is the oldest, non-ecclesiastical, written Slavic language with a continuous tradition of literacy and official use, which has lasted unbroken from the 16th century to this day." Polish evolved into the main sociolect of
11550-486: The 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto (91,810 speakers) and Montreal . The geographical distribution of the Polish language was greatly affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II and Polish population transfers (1944–46) . Poles settled in the " Recovered Territories " in the west and north, which had previously been mostly German -speaking. Some Poles remained in
11704-501: The Duchy of Prussia, Brandenburg-Prussia and the Kingdom of Prussia), the former Province of East Prussia , or to the territory of Old Prussians , but almost never when referring to contemporary geographic region. Since 1991, the name Prussia has, however, been re-acknowledged among Polish historians as the proper designation for the historic region, understood as defined by its original borders (excluding Pomerelia with Gdańsk Pomerania ,
11858-579: The Germans as forced labour in the region. There was also a camp for Romani people in Königsberg (see Romani Holocaust ). The Polish resistance movement was active in the region, with activities including distribution of Polish underground press , infiltration of the German arms industry, sabotage actions, executions of Nazis, theft of German weapons, ammunition and equipment, smuggling data on German concentration camps and prisons, and organization of transports of POWs who escaped German POW camps via
12012-485: The Great launched several expeditions against the Prussians. They destroyed many areas in Prussia, including Truso and Kaup, but failed to dominate the population totally. A Viking ( Varangian ) presence in the area was "less than dominant and very much less than imperial." According to a legend, recorded by Simon Grunau , the name Prussia is derived from Pruteno (or Bruteno), the chief priest of Prussia and brother of
12166-583: The Henryków monastery, noted that "Hoc est in polonico" ("This is in Polish"). The earliest treatise on Polish orthography was written by Jakub Parkosz [ pl ] around 1470. The first printed book in Polish appeared in either 1508 or 1513, while the oldest Polish newspaper was established in 1661. Starting in the 1520s, large numbers of books in the Polish language were published, contributing to increased homogeneity of grammar and orthography. The writing system achieved its overall form in
12320-816: The Nogat in the Vistula Delta. As with most cities of the time, the new centre was dependent on water for transportation. The castle was expanded several times to house the growing number of Knights. Soon, it became the largest fortified Gothic building in Europe, on a nearly 21-hectare (52-acre) site. The castle has several subdivisions and numerous layers of defensive walls. It consists of three separate castles – the High, Middle and Lower Castles, separated by multiple dry moats and towers. The castle once housed approximately 3,000 "brothers in arms". The outermost castle walls enclose 21 ha (52 acres), four times
12474-525: The Old Prussians and the neighboring Curonians and Livonians were politically unified in the 1230s under the State of the Teutonic Order . The former kingdom and later state of Prussia (1701–1947) derived its name from the region. The Teutonic Knights invaded and annexed the region of Pomerelia from Poland into their monastic state , which already included historical Prussia, located east of
12628-528: 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 the bulk of Royal Prussia . With the Second Peace of Thorn (1466) , the territory of the Monastic State was divided into eastern and western parts. The western part became the province of Royal Prussia (later also part of
12782-470: The Prussian public to "rediscover" the castle and the history of the Teutonic Knights. Johann Dominicus Fiorillo published another edition of the engravings on 12 February 1803, also wanting to encourage public interest. Max von Schenkendorf was critical of the defacing of the castle. Throughout the Napoleonic Wars , the Prussian army used the castle as a hospital and arsenal. Napoleon visited
12936-444: The Prussian regional identity an easy target for the Polish authorities, interpreted as undermining future security and territorial integrity of Poland. The policy achieved its goals, and the name Prussia is nowadays used in Polish official documents and colloquial language almost exclusively in historical context, when referring to Royal Prussia , the Free State of Prussia and its preceding entities (the (post-1466) Monastic Prussia ,
13090-671: The Silesian language was recognized by ISO , and was attributed an ISO code of szl. Some additional characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include: Polish linguistics has been characterized by a strong strive towards promoting prescriptive ideas of language intervention and usage uniformity, along with normatively-oriented notions of language "correctness" (unusual by Western standards). Polish has six oral vowels (seven oral vowels in written form), which are all monophthongs , and two nasal vowels . The oral vowels are / i / (spelled i ), / ɨ / (spelled y and also transcribed as /ɘ/ or /ɪ/), / ɛ / (spelled e ), /
13244-517: The Slavic Poles. 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, the Teutonic Knights were ordered by the Pope to return Pomerelia and other lands back to Poland, but did not comply. The conquered Danzig (Gdańsk) joined
13398-609: The State of Prussia was perceived as a primary driving force for the Partitions of Poland with subsequent persecution and attempted Germanization of Poles , politically dominated by the Prussian Junkers with strong anti-Polish sentiment , and finally, the German Province of East Prussia was regarded as an area of persecutions against Polish-speaking minority (Warmians, Masurians, Powiślans), but most importantly as
13552-585: The Teutonic Knights , Siegfried von Feuchtwangen , who arrived in Marienburg from Venice, undertook the next phase of the fortress' construction. In 1309, in the wake of the papal persecution of the Knights Templar and the Teutonic takeover of Danzig , Feuchtwangen relocated his headquarters to the Prussian part of the Order's monastic state . He chose the site of Marienburg conveniently located on
13706-421: The aristocracy and urban burghers initially highly Germanised as a result of earlier Teutonic policies, but gradually shifting towards Polish in the later years, while the peasantry continued as predominantly Kashubian- and Polish-speaking West of Vistula ; the part East of Vistula was predominantly German-speaking, with decreasing number of Old Prussian and increasing number of Polish minorities. A small area in
13860-644: The armies of Władysław II Jagiełło and Vytautas the Great (Witold) at the Battle of Grunwald . Heinrich von Plauen successfully led the defence in the Siege of Marienburg (1410) , during which the city outside was razed. In 1456, during the Thirteen Years' War , the Order – facing opposition from its cities for raising taxes to pay ransoms for expenses associated with its wars against Kingdom of Poland – could no longer manage financially. Meanwhile, Polish General Stibor de Poniec of Ostoja raised funds from Danzig for
14014-643: The beginning of the Second World War. With the rise of Adolf Hitler to power in the early 1930s, the Nazis used the castle as a destination for annual pilgrimages of both the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls . The Teutonic Castle at Marienburg served as a blueprint for the Order Castles of the Third Reich built under Hitler's reign. In 1945 during fighting in the area, more than half
14168-599: The bishops retained the secular rule over about one third of the diocesan territory: all suffragan dioceses under the Archbishopric of Riga . Christian was supposed to choose one of them, but did not agree to the division. He possibly retired to the Cistercians Abbey in Sulejów , where he died before the conflict was solved. The city of Königsberg (modern Kaliningrad ) was founded in 1255, and joined
14322-593: The bulk (including entire Warmia and most of Masuria) remained within the Free State of Prussia , a successor of the Kingdom of Prussia and a constituent part of the German Weimar Republic , following the 1920 East Prussian plebiscite . Since its conquest by the Soviet Army with evacuation and expulsion of the German-speaking inhabitants in 1945 in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement ,
14476-485: The cases mentioned above, the letter i if followed by another vowel in the same word usually represents / j / , yet a palatalization of the previous consonant is always assumed. The reverse case, where the consonant remains unpalatalized but is followed by a palatalized consonant, is written by using j instead of i : for example, zjeść , "to eat up". The letters ą and ę , when followed by plosives and affricates, represent an oral vowel followed by
14630-669: The castle in 1807 and 1812. After the War of the Sixth Coalition , the castle became a symbol of Prussian history and national consciousness. In 1816, Theodor von Schön , governor of West Prussia, began the restoration of the castle. In 1910, the Naval Academy Mürwik in Flensburg was built, and the Marienburg was used as a model for this new Red Castle . The restoration of the Marienburg was undertaken in stages until
14784-495: The castle was destroyed. In memory of the town's residents voting in favor of remaining part of Germany, after the First World War, a monument of a knight on a tall column was erected in front of the castle. The town was transferred to Poland in 1945, and most of its inhabitants fled or were expelled . In the course of Polonization, the column was cut in half. The upper part remains at the original location and now carries
14938-701: The castle. From 1568 the castle housed the Polish Admiralty ( Komisja Morska ) and in 1584 one of the Polish Royal Mints was established here. Also, the largest arsenal of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was located in the castle. By the decision of King John II Casimir Vasa of 1652, Jesuits took care of the castle chapels of Mary and St. Anne. During the Thirty Years' War , in 1626 and 1629 Swedish forces occupied
15092-533: The castle. They invaded and occupied it again from 1656 to 1660 during the Deluge . Then the castle was visited by Swedish kings Gustav Adolf (in 1626) and Charles X Gustav (in 1656). After Prussia and the Russian Empire made the First Partition of Poland in 1772, the town was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia and in 1773 it became part of the newly established province of West Prussia . At that time,
15246-713: The corresponding sentence in modern Polish: Daj, niech ja pomielę, a ty odpoczywaj or Pozwól, że ja będę mełł, a ty odpocznij ; and in English: Come, let me grind, and you take a rest ), written around 1280. The book is exhibited in the Archdiocesal Museum in Wrocław, and as of 2015 has been added to UNESCO 's " Memory of the World " list. The medieval recorder of this phrase, the Cistercian monk Peter of
15400-479: The disappearance of yers . Polish can have word-initial and word-medial clusters of up to four consonants, whereas word-final clusters can have up to five consonants. Examples of such clusters can be found in words such as bezwzględny [bɛzˈvzɡlɛndnɨ] ('absolute' or 'heartless', 'ruthless'), źdźbło [ˈʑd͡ʑbwɔ] ('blade of grass'), wstrząs [ˈfstʂɔw̃s] ('shock'), and krnąbrność [ˈkrnɔmbrnɔɕt͡ɕ] ('disobedience'). A popular Polish tongue-twister (from
15554-430: The distinction between regular penultimate and exceptional antepenultimate stress. Another class of exceptions is verbs with the conditional endings -by, -bym, -byśmy , etc. These endings are not counted in determining the position of the stress; for example, zro biłbym ('I would do') is stressed on the first syllable, and zro bi libyśmy ('we would do') on the second. According to prescriptive authorities ,
15708-544: The early medieval period, but these populations would probably have undergone Slavicization before the 10th century. The territory was identified as Brus in the 8th-century map of the Bavarian Geographer and Bruzze/Pruzze/Przze in the Dagome iudex . Adam of Bremen mentions Prussians as Prusos/Pruzzi in 1072., while Gallus Anonymous mentions Prussia in his Gesta principum Polonorum in 1113. In
15862-427: The eastern part of the region, and initiated German colonization to change the region's ethnic composition. The Province of East Prussia (the original Prussia) and the annexed Polish territories turned into the Province of West Prussia were merged in 1829 to form a single Province of Prussia , a part of the kingdom remaining outside of Germany until the creation of the North German Confederation in 1866 during
16016-531: The eastern parts of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth wrote Polish in the Arabic alphabet. The Cyrillic script is used to a certain extent today by Polish speakers in Western Belarus , especially for religious texts. The diacritics used in the Polish alphabet are the kreska (graphically similar to the acute accent ) over the letters ć, ń, ó, ś, ź and through the letter in ł ;
16170-414: The enclosed area of Windsor Castle . The developed part of the property designated as a World Heritage Site is 18.038 ha (44.57 acres). The favourable position of the castle on the river Nogat allowed easy access by barges and trading ships arriving from the Vistula and the Baltic Sea . During their governance, the Teutonic Knights collected river tolls from passing ships, as did other castles along
16324-420: The end of words (where devoicing occurs) and in certain consonant clusters (where assimilation occurs). For details, see Voicing and devoicing in the article on Polish phonology. Most Polish words are paroxytones (that is, the stress falls on the second-to-last syllable of a polysyllabic word), although there are exceptions. Polish permits complex consonant clusters, which historically often arose from
16478-476: The entire country. Polish has traditionally been described as consisting of three to five main regional dialects: Silesian and Kashubian , spoken in Upper Silesia and Pomerania respectively, are thought of as either Polish dialects or distinct languages , depending on the criteria used. Kashubian contains a number of features not found elsewhere in Poland, e.g. nine distinct oral vowels (vs.
16632-540: The failed Greater Poland uprising (1848) ), the Provinces of West Prussia and East Prussia (merged in the years 1829 to 1878 to form a single Province of Prussia ) remained outside of the German Confederation (thus of Germany) until the creation of the North German Confederation in 1866 at the start of the unification of Germany . Outside of the Kingdom of Prussia and later Germany, Pomerelia
16786-665: The first half of the 13th century, Bishop Christian of Prussia recorded the history of a much earlier era. In Neo-Latin the area is called Borussia and its inhabitants Borussi . After the Christianisations of the West Slavs in the 10th century, the state of the Polans was established and there were first attempts at conquering and baptizing the Baltic peoples. Bolesław I Chrobry sent Adalbert of Prague in 997 on
16940-467: The following table. The following digraphs and trigraphs are used: Voiced consonant letters frequently come to represent voiceless sounds (as shown in the tables); this occurs at the end of words and in certain clusters, due to the neutralization mentioned in the Phonology section above. Occasionally also voiceless consonant letters can represent voiced sounds in clusters. The spelling rule for
17094-604: The former East Prussia. The designation of Kaliningrad Oblast was promoted by the Soviet authorities in the case of the Russian part of the territory, instead. The policy was embraced by the Polish population who had hardly any sympathy for the legacy of Prussia, partially due to numerous attempts throughout history to annex various Polish territories with their subsequent artificial renaming as another part of Prussia in order to imply their originally Prussian history (see above), while
17248-527: The former Klaipėda Region were fired from their jobs and otherwise discriminated against. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, some Prussian Lithuanians and their descendants did not regain lost property in the Klaipėda region. Prussia as a political entity was abolished on 25 February 1947 by decree of the Allied Control Council . The decree declared that Prussia from early days had been
17402-540: The funds collected for the mercenaries that left. The mayor of the town around the castle, Bartholomäus Blume, resisted the Polish forces for three more years, but the Poles captured and sentenced him to death in 1460. A monument to Blume was erected in 1864. In 1466 both castle and town became part of the Polish Malbork Voivodeship in the province of Royal Prussia . Since 1457 it served as one of
17556-438: The governments of Berlin and Brandenburg proposed to merge the states in order to form a new state with the name of "Berlin-Brandenburg", though some suggested calling the proposed new state "Prussia", in spite of the territories being located far away from the region of Prussia. The merger was rejected in a plebiscite in 1996 – while West Berliners voted for a merger, East Berliners and Brandenburgers voted against it. In 1525,
17710-400: The historically Polish Pomerelia (Vistula Pomerania) formed the newly established province of West Prussia , while the name Pomerania/Pomerelia was avoided by Prussian and later German authorities in relation to this region, aiming to eradicate its usage completely. The historically Prussian Warmia was in turn integrated into East Prussia . In contrast, the Lauenburg and Bütow Land and
17864-698: The king's officers used the rather neglected castle as a barracks for the Prussian Army and also as a poorhouse. The last Jesuits left the castle in 1780. In 1794 David Gilly , a Prussian architect and head of the Royal Office of Works, made a structural survey of the castle, to recommend on its future use or demolition. Gilly's son, Friedrich Gilly , produced several engravings of the castle and its architecture, which he exhibited in Berlin. These were published by Friedrich Frick between 1799 and 1803 and led
18018-548: The language spoken at home, which is about 1.4% of people who speak languages other than English , 0.25% of the US population, and 6% of the Polish-American population. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census (over 50%) were found in three states: Illinois (185,749), New York (111,740), and New Jersey (74,663). Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services (which has
18172-603: The last Grand Master reigning in the State of the Teutonic Order , Albert of Brandenburg , a member of a cadet branch of the House of Hohenzollern , adopted the Lutheran faith, resigned his position, and assumed the title of " Duke of Prussia ". In a deal partially brokered by Martin Luther , the Duchy of Prussia became the first Protestant state and a vassal of Poland. The ducal capital of Königsberg , now Kaliningrad , became
18326-578: The leader of the city's anti-Elector opposition Hieronymus Roth . In 1663, the city burghers, forced by Elector Frederick William , swore an oath of allegiance to him, however, in the same ceremony they still also pledged allegiance to Poland. Taking advantage of the fact that Ducal Prussia lay outside of the Holy Roman Empire , Frederick I achieved the elevation of the duchy to a kingdom in 1701, styling himself King in Prussia , because his kingdom included only part of historic Prussia, and
18480-530: The legendary king Widewuto , who lived in the 6th century. The regions of Prussia and the corresponding tribes are said to bear the names of Widewuto's sons — for example, Sudovia is named after Widewuto's son Sudo. The Old Prussians spoke a variety of languages, with Old Prussian belonging to the Western branch of the Baltic language group . Old Prussian, or related Western Baltic dialects, may have been spoken as far southeast as Masovia and even Belarus in
18634-439: The letter y . The predominant stress pattern in Polish is penultimate stress – in a word of more than one syllable, the next-to-last syllable is stressed. Alternating preceding syllables carry secondary stress, e.g. in a four-syllable word, where the primary stress is on the third syllable, there will be secondary stress on the first. Each vowel represents one syllable, although the letter i normally does not represent
18788-495: The meaning of the designation of Prussia by transferring the northern part of Netze District , a fragment of Greater Poland detached from its bulk (the Grand Duchy of Posen ), to West Prussia , while the district's easternmost fragment was awarded to the Russian-ruled Congress Poland . Though the Kingdom of Prussia was a member of the German Confederation established by the Congress of Vienna as
18942-431: The middle aged and young speak vernaculars close to standard Polish, while the traditional dialects are preserved among older people in rural areas. First-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty recognizing the regional and social differences. The modern standard dialect , often termed as "correct Polish", is spoken or at least understood throughout
19096-460: The most widely spoken variant of Polish across the country, and most dialects stopped being the form of Polish spoken in villages. Poland is one of the most linguistically homogeneous European countries; nearly 97% of Poland's citizens declare Polish as their first language . Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in areas which were once administered or occupied by Poland, notably in neighboring Lithuania , Belarus , and Ukraine . Polish
19250-570: The name Tarzan . Prussia (region) Tacitus 's Germania (98 AD) is the oldest known record of an eyewitness account on the territory and its inhabitants. Pliny the Elder had already confirmed that the Romans had navigated into the waters beyond the Cimbric peninsula ( Jutland ). Suiones , Sitones , Goths and other Germanic people had temporarily settled to the east and west of
19404-476: The name West Prussia was always regarded in Poland as an artificial German invention. In the case of East Prussia (the original Prussia), Polish authorities promoted using the designations of Powiśle in the case of Pomesania and Pogesania, approximately translated in English: “Vistula Plains” , Warmia in the case of the former Prince-Bishopric of Warmia and Masuria in the case of the remainder of Polish share of
19558-641: The name of Regierungsbezirk Zichenau , as well as of the Suwałki Region , both referred to as South East Prussia , in relation to the New East Prussia of the times of Polish Partitions (see above). At the same time, the Regierungsbezirk Westpreussen was separated from East Prussia and integrated into Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreussen . In the aftermath of the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941,
19712-536: The nobles in Poland–Lithuania in the 15th century. The history of Polish as a language of state governance begins in the 16th century in the Kingdom of Poland . Over the later centuries, Polish served as the official language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , Congress Poland , the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria , and as the administrative language in the Russian Empire 's Western Krai . The growth of
19866-673: The others being Czech orthography and Croatian orthography , the last of these being a 19th-century invention trying to make a compromise between the first two. Kashubian uses a Polish-based system, Slovak uses a Czech-based system, and Slovene follows the Croatian one; the Sorbian languages blend the Polish and the Czech ones. Historically, Poland's once diverse and multi-ethnic population utilized many forms of scripture to write Polish. For instance, Lipka Tatars and Muslims inhabiting
20020-401: The palatal sounds / ɕ / , / ʑ / , / tɕ / , / dʑ / and / ɲ / is as follows: before the vowel i the plain letters s, z, c, dz, n are used; before other vowels the combinations si, zi, ci, dzi, ni are used; when not followed by a vowel the diacritic forms ś, ź, ć, dź, ń are used. For example, the s in siwy ("grey-haired"), the si in siarka ("sulfur") and
20174-593: The ports of Gdańsk and Gdynia to neutral Sweden . Beginning in 1944 with the East Prussian offensive of Soviet troops, the German-speaking population was evacuated . The province of East Prussia ceased to exist in 1945, following the Potsdam Agreement , when it was divided between Poland and the Soviet Union , with the latter dividing its part further between the Lithuanian SSR and
20328-520: The previously Polish-ruled territories in the east that were annexed by the USSR , resulting in the present-day Polish-speaking communities in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, although many Poles were expelled from those areas to areas within Poland's new borders. To the east of Poland, the most significant Polish minority lives in a long strip along either side of the Lithuania - Belarus border. Meanwhile,
20482-401: The region from Poland, integrating it into their monastic state , which already included historical Prussia, located east of the region. After the acquisition of Pomerelia in 1308–1310, the meaning of the term Prussia was widened in the German terminology to include areas west of the Vistula , including Vistula/Eastern Pomerania, although it was never inhabited by Baltic Prussians but by
20636-577: The region mostly for Polish prisoners, as well as several subcamps of the Stutthof concentration camp , and several prisoner-of-war camps for Allied POWs, including Polish, Belgian, British, French , Dutch, Serbian, Italian, Soviet, Australian, Canadian, New Zealander, South African, such as Stalag I-A , Stalag I-B , Stalag I-C , Stalag I-D, Stalag XX-B , Stalag Luft VI and Oflags 52, 53, 60 and 63 with numerous forced labour subcamps. Many expelled Poles from German-occupied Poland were enslaved by
20790-465: The region of Prussia remains divided between northern Poland (most of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship , and the four counties of Pomeranian Voivodeship east of Vistula ), Russia 's Kaliningrad exclave , and southwestern Lithuania (former Klaipėda Region ). Indo-European settlers first arrived in the region during the 4th millennium BC, which in the Baltic would diversify into the satem Balto-Slavic branch which would ultimately give rise to
20944-407: The region. After the acquisition of Pomerelia in 1308–1310, the meaning of the term Prussia was widened in the German terminology to include areas west of the Vistula , including Vistula/Eastern Pomerania, although it was never inhabited by Baltic Prussians but by the Slavic Poles. After the area was reintegrated with Poland in 1466 both names were in use: Pomerania was used when referring to
21098-462: The religious Order. The Order had been created in Acre (present-day Israel). When this last stronghold of the Crusades fell to Muslim Arabs, the Order moved its headquarters to Venice before arriving in Prussia. Malbork became more important in the aftermath of the Teutonic Knights' conquest of Gdańsk (Danzig) and Eastern Pomerania in 1308. The Order's administrative centre was moved to Marienburg from Elbing (now Elbląg ). The Grand Master of
21252-404: The rivers. They controlled a monopoly on the trade of amber . When the city became a member of the Hanseatic League , many Hanseatic meetings were held there. In 1361, the future Grand Duke of Lithuania Kęstutis was briefly imprisoned in the castle. In 1365, Polish King Casimir III the Great visited the castle. In the summer of 1410, the castle was besieged following the Order's defeat by
21406-418: The ruling Electors of Brandenburg , in 1618, and Polish sovereignty over the duchy ended in 1657 with the Treaty of Wehlau . There was strong opposition to the separation of the region from Poland, especially in Königsberg. A confederation was formed in the city to maintain Poland's sovereignty over the city and region. The Brandenburg Elector and his army, however, entered the city and abducted and imprisoned
21560-540: The same applies to the first and second person plural past tense endings -śmy, -ście , although this rule is often ignored in colloquial speech (so zro bi liśmy 'we did' should be prescriptively stressed on the second syllable, although in practice it is commonly stressed on the third as zrobi li śmy ). These irregular stress patterns are explained by the fact that these endings are detachable clitics rather than true verbal inflections: for example, instead of ko go zoba czy liście? ('whom did you see?') it
21714-410: The series of affricate and palatal consonants that resulted from four Proto-Slavic palatalizations and two further palatalizations that took place in Polish. The full set of consonants, together with their most common spellings, can be presented as follows (although other phonological analyses exist): Neutralization occurs between voiced – voiceless consonant pairs in certain environments, at
21868-426: The several Polish royal residences, fulfilling this function for over 300 years until the First Partition of Poland in 1772. During this period the Tall Castle served as the castle's supply storehouse, while the Great Refectory was a place for balls, feasts, and other royal events. Polish Kings often stayed in the castle, especially when travelling to the nearby city of Gdańsk/Danzig . Local Polish officials resided in
22022-447: The six of standard Polish) and (in the northern dialects) phonemic word stress, an archaic feature preserved from Common Slavic times and not found anywhere else among the West Slavic languages . However, it was described by some linguists as lacking most of the linguistic and social determinants of language-hood. Many linguistic sources categorize Silesian as a regional language separate from Polish, while some consider Silesian to be
22176-405: The southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea in the 7th and 8th centuries. The largest trade centres of the Prussians, such as Truso and Kaup , seem to have absorbed a number of Norse people . Prussians used the Baltic Sea as a trading route, frequently travelling from Truso to Birka (in present-day Sweden ). At the end of the Viking Age , the sons of Danish kings Harald Bluetooth and Cnut
22330-494: The stress normally becomes regular. For example, uniwersytet ( /uɲiˈvɛrsɨtɛt/ , 'university') has irregular stress on the third (or antepenultimate) syllable, but the genitive uniwersytetu ( /uɲivɛrsɨˈtɛtu/ ) and derived adjective uniwersytecki ( /uɲivɛrsɨˈtɛt͡skʲi/ ) have regular stress on the penultimate syllables. Loanwords generally become nativized to have penultimate stress. In psycholinguistic experiments, speakers of Polish have been demonstrated to be sensitive to
22484-438: The support of the Holy Roman Empire , and the Western nobility (e.g. French, English). The Teutonic Knights soon turned against their Polish benefactors in the same way, as they earlier did in Hungary. The Polish region of Pomerelia (including Gdańsk Pomerania and the city of Gdańsk as its parts) which was never inhabited by the Old Prussians , and which was called Pomorze ('Pomerania') in Polish language since
22638-464: The territory as Mentenomon and to the inhabitants as Guttones (neighbours of the Teutones , probably referring to the Goths ). A river to the east of the Vistula was called the Guttalus , perhaps corresponding to the Nemunas , the Łyna , or the Pregola . In AD 98 Tacitus described one of the tribes living near the Baltic Sea ( Latin : Mare Suebicum ) as Aestiorum gentes and amber -gatherers. The Vikings started to penetrate
22792-536: The title King of Prussia was still held by the Polish monarchs. Lithuanian culture thrived in the part of the region known as Lithuania Minor , while the Kursenieki lived along the coast in the vicinity of the Curonian and Vistula Spits . The Old Prussian language had mostly disappeared by 1700. The last speakers may have died in the plague and famine that ravaged Prussia in 1709 to 1711. In 1724, King Frederick William I of Prussia prohibited Poles , Samogitians and Jews from settling in Lithuania Minor in
22946-563: The vowel i is changed to y , e.g. Syria , Sybir , synchronizacja , Syrakuzy . The following table shows the correspondence between the sounds and spelling: Digraphs and trigraphs are used: Similar principles apply to / kʲ / , / ɡʲ / , / xʲ / and /lʲ/ , except that these can only occur before vowels, so the spellings are k, g, (c)h, l before i , and ki, gi, (c)hi, li otherwise. Most Polish speakers, however, do not consider palatalization of k, g, (c)h or l as creating new sounds. Except in
23100-507: The west of Pomerelia, the Lębork and Bytów Land, was granted to the rulers of the Duchy of Pomerania as a Polish fief before it was reintegrated with Poland in 1637, and later again transformed into a Polish fief , which it remained along the Starostwo of Draheim until the First Partition of Poland . The realm of the King in Prussia established in 1701 from the former Ducal Prussia subsequently entered into an alliance with Austria and Russia, invading Polish territories of Royal Prussia. In
23254-443: The word, the phoneme / x / can be spelt h or ch , the phoneme / ʐ / can be spelt ż or rz , and / u / can be spelt u or ó . In several cases it determines the meaning, for example: może ("maybe") and morze ("sea"). In occasional words, letters that normally form a digraph are pronounced separately. For example, rz represents /rz/ , not / ʐ / , in words like zamarzać ("freeze") and in
23408-424: Was reintegrated with Poland in 1466, the designation Pomerania was restored and used when referring to the Pomeranian Voivodeship (Gdańsk Pomerania) and the Chełmno Voivodeship , while the entire territory conquered by the Kingdom of Poland from the Teutonic Order was known as Royal Prussia . The latter also included, however, also the truly Prussian historical areas of Prince-Bishopric of Warmia , as well as
23562-413: Was returned to the Lithuanian SRR, while the remaining territory, annexed by the Russian FSSR, was in turn named the Kaliningrad Oblast in 1946. The inhabitants not evacuated during the war were expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement, with the exception of Polish minorities of Powiślans , Warmians and Masurians , considered to be of Polish descent. The situation was different, however, for
23716-415: Was termed Polish Pomerania ( Pomorze Polskie ) since at least the 18th century to distinguish it from Hither and Farther Pomerania , territories long outside of Polish rule. In the late 19th century this term was used in order to underline Polish claims to that area that was then ruled by the German Kingdom of Prussia . The designation of Polish Pomerania became obsolete since Farther Pomerania and
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