Sasna or Sassen ( German : Sassen ; Latin : terra Sossinensia ; Lithuanian : Sasna ; Polish : ziemia sasińska or Saska ) was one of the regions of ancient Prussia . It is now located in northern Poland .
79-465: Variations of the region's name include Sasna, Sassen, Sasno, Soysim, Sossen, Sassen, Szossen, and Czossin. Its name is traditionally derived from sasnis the Old Prussian word for hare . It is first mentioned as terra Soysim in a 1267 document written by King Ottokar II of Bohemia . It was a small and scarcely inhabited territory roughly between Galindia and Lubavia . Before the arrival of
158-413: A -stems, i -stems, u -stems), of which only the first agreed with the noun in gender. There was a comparative and a superlative form. When it comes to verbal morphology present, future and past tense are attested, as well as optative forms (used with imperative or permissive forms of verbs), infinitive, and four participles (active/passive present/past). The orthography varies depending on
237-416: A dialect of German or even Dutch has been a point of contention. Although Low German is mostly regarded as an independent language linguistics offers no simple, generally accepted criterion to decide the question. Scholarly arguments have been put forward for classifying Low German as a German dialect. As stated above, the arguments are not linguistic but rather sociopolitical and revolve mainly around
316-593: A dual identifiable in the existent corpus. There is no consensus on the number of cases that Old Prussian had, and at least four can be determined with certainty: nominative, genitive, accusative and dative, with different suffixes . Most scholars agree, that there are traces of a vocative case , such as in the phrase O Deiwe Rikijs 'O God the Lord', reflecting the inherited PIE vocative ending * -e , differing from nominative forms in o-stem nouns only. Some scholars find instrumental forms, while
395-456: A few borrowings from Germanic , including from Gothic (e.g., Old Prussian ylo 'awl' as with Lithuanian ýla , Latvian īlens ) and from Scandinavian languages . The Low German language spoken in Prussia (or West Prussia and East Prussia ), called Low Prussian (cf. High Prussian , High German ), preserved a number of Baltic Prussian words, such as Kurp , from
474-409: A following among the more rurally oriented inhabitants, launching Low Saxon as a sub-culture. They inspired contemporary dialect artists and rock bands, such as Daniël Lohues [ nl ] , Mooi Wark [ Nl ] , Jovink en de Voederbietels [ Nl ] , Hádiejan [ Nl ] Nonetheless, the position of the language is vulnerable according to UNESCO. Low Saxon
553-816: A good little comrade if you want to drink (but) do not want to give a penny! This jocular inscription was most probably made by a Prussian student studying in Prague ( Charles University ); found by Stephen McCluskey (1974) in manuscript MS F.V.2 (book of physics Questiones super Meteororum by Nicholas Oresme ), fol. 63r, stored in the Basel University library. The longest texts preserved in Old Prussian are three Catechisms printed in Königsberg in 1545, 1545, and 1561 respectively. The first two consist of only six pages of text in Old Prussian –
632-597: A historian of the Teutonic Knights , encompasses 100 words (in strongly varying versions). He also recorded an expression: sta nossen rickie, nossen rickie ('This (is) our lord, our lord'). The vocabulary is part of the Preussische Chronik written c. 1517–1526 . The second one is the so-called Elbing Vocabulary, which consists of 802 thematically sorted words and their German equivalents. Peter Holcwesscher from Marienburg copied
711-622: A language for its computer desktop environment, as does the GNOME Desktop Project. Open-source software has been translated into Low German; this used to be coordinated via a page on SourceForge, but as of 2015, the most active project is that of KDE. In the early 20th century, scholars in the Netherlands argued that speaking dialects hindered language acquisition, and it was therefore strongly discouraged. As education improved, and mass communication became more widespread,
790-593: A low degree of mutual intelligibility . Eastern Low German and Plautdietsch are classified as part of Greater East Low German, while Eastphalian, Westphalic, and the North Low Saxon languages, German Northern Low Saxon and Gronings, are classified as part of West Low German. Low German has been recognized by the Netherlands and by Germany (since 1999) as a regional language according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . Within
869-636: A manuscript of the Logica Parva by Paul of Venice . Low German language [REDACTED] Germany [REDACTED] Bolivia (70,000) [REDACTED] Paraguay (30,000) Low German is a West Germanic language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands . The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide. Low German
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#1732781189790948-585: A part of western Lithuania , and the German communities in Estonia and Latvia, most notably their Hanseatic cities. German speakers in this area fled the Red Army or were forcibly expelled after the border changes at the end of World War II. The language was also formerly spoken in the outer areas of what is now the city-state of Berlin , but in the course of urbanisation and national centralisation in that city,
1027-757: A phonological merger of dentialveolar and postalveolar sibilants in many Polish dialects – states that it originated as a feature of Polonized Old Prussians in Masuria (see Masurian dialects ) and spread from there. In addition to Prussia proper, the original territory of the Old Prussians may have included eastern parts of Pomerelia (some parts of the region east of the Vistula River ). The language may also have been spoken much further east and south in what became Polesia and part of Podlasie , before conquests by Rus and Poles starting in
1106-588: A scientific project and a humanitarian gesture. Some enthusiasts thereafter began to revive the language based on their reconstruction. Most current speakers live in Germany, Poland, Lithuania and Kaliningrad (Russia). Additionally, a few children are native in Revived Prussian. Today, there are websites, online dictionaries, learning apps and games for Revived Prussian, and one children's book – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 's The Little Prince –
1185-419: A strong cultural and historical value and was the native language of students in northern Germany, it had a place in the classroom. On the other hand, High German was considered the language of education, science, and national unity, and since schools promoted these values, High German was seen as the best candidate for the language of instruction. Initially, regional languages and dialects were thought to limit
1264-461: Is a West Germanic language . It is documented from the 9th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into Middle Low German . It was spoken on the north-west coast of Germany by Saxon peoples . It is closely related to Old Anglo-Frisian ( Old Frisian , Old English ), partially participating in the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law . Only a few texts survive, predominantly in baptismal vows
1343-684: Is a distinction between the German and the Dutch Low Saxon/Low German situation. After mass education in Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries, the slow decline which Low German had been experiencing since the end of the Hanseatic League turned into a free fall. The decision to exclude Low German in formal education was not without controversy, however. On one hand, proponents of Low German advocated that since it had
1422-584: Is a part of the continental West Germanic dialect continuum . To the West, it blends into the Low Franconian languages , including Dutch . A distinguishing feature between the Low Franconian varieties and Low German varieties is the plural of the verbs. Low German varieties have a common verbal plural ending, whereas Low Franconian varieties have a different form for the second person plural. This
1501-661: Is an extinct West Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European languages , which was once spoken by the Old Prussians , the Baltic peoples of the Prussian region . The language is called Old Prussian to avoid confusion with the German dialects of Low Prussian and High Prussian and with the adjective Prussian as it relates to the later German state. Old Prussian began to be written down in
1580-549: Is based on the phonological analysis by Schmalstieg: Schmalstieg proposes three native diphthongs: With other remains being merely word lists, the grammar of Old Prussian is reconstructed chiefly on the basis of the three Catechisms. Old Prussian preserved the Proto-Baltic neuter. Therefore, it had three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter). Most scholars agree that there are two numbers, singular and plural, in Old Prussian, while some consider remnants of
1659-534: Is complicated in that in most Low Franconian varieties, including standard Dutch , the original second-person plural form has replaced the singular. Some dialects, including again standard Dutch, innovated a new second-person plural form in the last few centuries, using the other plural forms as the source. To the South, Low German blends into the High German dialects of Central German that have been affected by
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#17327811897901738-490: Is due in part to the grouping stretching mainly across two different countries and to it being a collection of varieties rather than a standardised language. There are different uses of the term "Low German": In Germany, native speakers of Low German call their language Platt , Plattdütsch , Plattdüütsch , Plattdütsk , Plattdüütsk , Plattduitsk (South-Westphalian), Plattduitsch (Eastphalian), Plattdietsch (Low Prussian), or Nedderdüütsch . In
1817-893: Is final devoicing of obstruents, as exemplified by the words 'good' and 'wind' below. This is a characteristic of Dutch and German as well and involves positional neutralization of voicing contrast in the coda position for obstruents (i.e. t = d at the end of a syllable.) This is not used in English except in the Yorkshire dialect , where there is a process known as Yorkshire assimilation . For instance: water [wɒtɜ, ˈwatɜ, ˈwætɜ] , later [ˈlɒːtɜ, ˈlaːtɜ, ˈlæːtɜ] , bit [bɪt] , dish [dis, diʃ] , ship [ʃɪp, skɪp, sxɪp] , pull [pʊl] , good [ɡou̯t, ɣɑu̯t, ɣuːt] , clock [klɔk] , sail [sɑi̯l] , he [hɛi̯, hɑi̯, hi(j)] , storm [stoːrm] , wind [vɪˑnt] , grass [ɡras, ɣras] , hold [hoˑʊl(t)] , old [oˑʊl(t)] . The table below shows
1896-475: Is known as Germania Slavica , where the former Slavic influence is still visible in the names of settlements and physiogeographical features. It has been estimated that Low German has approximately 2–5 million speakers in Germany, primarily Northern Germany (ranging from well to very well), and 2.15 million in the Netherlands (ranging from reasonable to very well). It has been estimated that Low German has approximately two to five million speakers (depending on
1975-526: Is mainly a word-for-word translation, and Will phonetically recorded Megott's oral translation. Because of this, the Enchiridion exhibits many irregularities, such as the lack of case agreement in phrases involving an article and a noun , which followed word-for-word German originals as opposed to native Old Prussian syntax. The "Trace of Crete" is a short poem added by a Baltic writer in Chania to
2054-596: Is more often found in Pomesianan than in Sambian. Others argue that the Catechisms are written in a Yatvingized Prussian. The differences noted above could therefore be explained as being features of a different West Baltic language Yatvingian/Sudovian . The Prussian language is described to have the following consonants: There is said to have existed palatalization (i.e. [tʲ] , [dʲ] ) among nearly all of
2133-587: Is most closely related to Frisian and English , with which it forms the North Sea Germanic group of the West Germanic languages. Like Dutch , it has historically been spoken north of the Benrath and Uerdingen isoglosses , while forms of High German (of which Standard German is a standardized example) have historically been spoken south of those lines. Like Frisian, English, Dutch and
2212-756: Is spoken in the Western hemisphere, including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Belize, Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. In some of these countries, the language is part of the Mennonite religion and culture. There are Mennonite communities in Ontario , Saskatchewan , Alberta , British Columbia , Manitoba , Kansas and Minnesota which use Low German in their religious services and communities. These Mennonites are descended from primarily Dutch settlers that had initially settled in
2291-611: Is still spoken more widely than in Northern Germany. Efforts are made in Germany and in the Netherlands to protect Low German as a regional language . As with the Anglo-Frisian and North Germanic languages , Low German has not been influenced by the High German consonant shift except for old /ð/ having shifted to /d/ . Therefore, a lot of Low German words sound similar to their English counterparts. One feature that does distinguish Low German from English generally
2370-474: Is tenuous in many places, and has died out in many places where assimilation has occurred. Members and friends of the Historical Society of North German Settlements in western New York ( Bergholz, New York ), a community of Lutherans who trace their immigration from Pomerania in the 1840s, hold quarterly "Plattdeutsch lunch" events, where remaining speakers of the language gather to share and preserve
2449-676: The Elbe ) as either Low German or Low Saxon, and those spoken in northeastern Germany ( Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Brandenburg , and Saxony-Anhalt east of the Elbe) mostly as Low German, not being part of Low Saxon. This is because northwestern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands were the area of settlement of the Saxons ( Old Saxony ), while Low German spread to northeastern Germany through eastward migration of Low German speakers into areas with an originally Slavic-speaking population. This area
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2528-797: The High German consonant shift . The division is usually drawn at the Benrath line that traces the maken – machen isogloss . To the East, it abuts the Kashubian language (the only remnant of the Pomeranian language ) and, since the expulsion of nearly all Germans from the Polish part of Pomerania following the Second World War, also by the Polish language . East Pomeranian and Central Pomeranian are dialects of Low German. To
2607-556: The Italian ones (with only Venetian communities in areas of highly Venetian presence conserving Talian , and other Italian languages and dialects fading out elsewhere). The language grouping of Low German is referred to, in the language itself as well as in its umbrella languages of German and Dutch, in several different ways, ranging from official names such as Niederdeutsche and Nederduits to more general characterisations such as "dialect". The proliferation of names or characterisations
2686-515: The Latin alphabet in about the 13th century, and a small amount of literature in the language survives. In modern times, there has been a revival movement of Old Prussian, and there are families which use Old Prussian as their first language. Old Prussian is an Indo-European language belonging to the Baltic branch. It is considered to be a Western Baltic language. Old Prussian was closely related to
2765-602: The North Germanic languages , Low German has not undergone the High German consonant shift , as opposed to Standard High German , which is based on High German dialects . Low German evolved from Old Saxon (Old Low German) , which is most closely related to Old Frisian and Old English (Anglo-Saxon) . The Low German dialects spoken in the Netherlands are mostly referred to as Low Saxon , those spoken in northwestern Germany ( Lower Saxony , Westphalia , Schleswig-Holstein , Hamburg , Bremen , and Saxony-Anhalt west of
2844-615: The Protestant Reformation and thereafter. Old Prussian ceased to be spoken probably around the beginning of the 18th century, because many of its remaining speakers died in the famines and the bubonic plague outbreak which harrowed the East Prussian countryside and towns from 1709 until 1711. In the 1980s, linguists Vladimir Toporov and Vytautas Mažiulis started reconstructing the Prussian language as
2923-609: The Sudovian Book in the middle of the 16th century. Palmaitis regards them as Sudovian proper. In addition to the texts listed beneath, there are several colophons written by Prussian scriptors who worked in Prague and in the court of Lithuanian duke Butautas Kęstutaitis . The so-called Basel Epigram is the oldest written Prussian sentence (1369). It reads: Kayle rekyse thoneaw labonache thewelyse Eg koyte poyte nykoyte pênega doyte Cheers, Sir! You are no longer
3002-621: The Vistula delta region of Prussia in the 16th and 17th centuries before moving to newly acquired Russian territories in Ukraine in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and then to the Americas in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The types of Low German spoken in these communities and in the Midwest region of the United States have diverged since emigration. The survival of the language
3081-464: The palatalization and assibilation of / k / (compare palatalized forms such as English cheese , Frisian tsiis to non-palatalized forms such as Low German Kees or Kaise , Dutch kaas , German Käse but Low German Sever/Sebber while German Käfer ) However, since Anglo-Frisian features occur in Low German and especially in its older language stages, there is a tendency to prefer
3160-530: The 10th century and the German colonisation of the area starting in the 12th century. With the conquest of the Old Prussian territory by the Teutonic Knights in the 13th century, and the subsequent influx of Polish, Lithuanian and especially German speakers, Old Prussian experienced a 400-year-long decline as an "oppressed language of an oppressed population". Groups of people from Germany, Poland , Lithuania , Scotland , England , and Austria (see Salzburg Protestants ) found refuge in Prussia during
3239-488: The Catechisms display systematical differences in phonology, vocabulary and grammar. Some scholars postulate that this is due to them being recordings of different dialects: Pomesanian and Sambian. Phonetical distinctions are: Pom. ē is Samb. ī ( sweta- : swīta- 'world'); Pom. ō , Samb. ū after a labial ( mōthe [mōte] : mūti 'mother') or Pom. ō , Samb. ā ( tōwis : tāws 'father'; brōte : brāti 'brother'), which influences
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3318-465: The German authorities and Nedersaksisch (Nether or Low Saxon) by the Dutch authorities. Plattdeutsch , Niederdeutsch and Platduits , Nedersaksisch are seen in linguistic texts from the German and Dutch linguistic communities respectively. In Danish it is called Plattysk , Nedertysk or, rarely, Lavtysk . Mennonite Low German is called Plautdietsch . "Low" refers to
3397-527: The Ingvaeonic classification instead of the Anglo-Frisian one, which also takes Low German into account. Because Old Saxon came under strong Old High German and Old Low Franconian influence early on and therefore lost many Ingvaeonic features that were to be found much more extensively in earlier language states. The question of whether today's Low German should be considered a separate language or
3476-408: The Low German dialects of Denmark can be considered moribund at this time. Dialects of Low German are spoken in the northeastern area of the Netherlands ( Dutch Low Saxon ) by approximately 1.6 million speakers. These dialects are written with an unstandardized orthography based on Standard Dutch orthography. The position of the language is, according to UNESCO, vulnerable. Between 1995 and 2011
3555-520: The Low Saxon dialects further declined, although decline has been greater in urban centres of the Low Saxon regions. When in 1975 dialect folk and rock bands such as Normaal and Boh Foi Toch [ nl ] became successful with their overt disapproval of what they experienced as "misplaced Dutch snobbery" and the Western Dutch contempt for (speakers of) Low Saxon dialects, they gained
3634-583: The Netherlands, native speakers refer to their language as dialect , plat , Nedersaksisch , or the name of their village, town or district. Officially, Low German is called niederdeutsche Sprache or plattdeutsche Sprache (Nether or Low German language), Niederdeutsch or Plattdeutsch (Nether or Low German) in High German by the German authorities, nedderdüütsche Spraak (Nether or Low German language), Nedderdüütsch or Plattdüütsch (Nether or Low German) in Low German by
3713-634: The North and Northwest, it abuts the Danish and the Frisian languages . In Germany, Low German has replaced the Danish and Frisian languages in many regions. Saterland Frisian is the only remnant of East Frisian language and is surrounded by Low German, as are the few remaining North Frisian varieties, and the Low German dialects of those regions have influences from Frisian substrates. Most linguists classify
3792-541: The Old Prussian kurpe , for shoe in contrast to common Low German : Schoh (Standard German Schuh ), as did the High Prussian Oberland subdialect . Until the 1938 changing of place names in East Prussia , Old Prussian river- and place-names, such as Tawe and Tawellningken , could still be found. One of the hypotheses regarding the origin of mazurzenie –
3871-615: The Saxons were required to perform at the behest of Charlemagne . The only literary texts preserved are Heliand and the Old Saxon Genesis . The Middle Low German language ( Mittelniederdeutsch ) is an ancestor of modern Low German. It was spoken from about 1100 to 1600. The neighbouring languages within the dialect continuum of the West Germanic languages were Middle Dutch in the West and Middle High German in
3950-648: The South, later substituted by Early New High German . Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League , spoken all around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea . It had a significant influence on the Scandinavian languages and other languages around the Baltic Sea. Based on the language of Lübeck , a standardized written language was developing, though it was never codified. There
4029-626: The Teutonic Knights, it was plundered by Masovians and its inhabitants moved northward. It was first governed from Dzierzgoń before its own administrative center was set up at Ostróda . Sasna was included within the Duchy of Prussia in 1525 and later composed the Kreise Osterode and Neidenburg of East Prussia . In 1945, following World War II , the region became part of Poland. Old Prussian Old Prussian
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#17327811897904108-412: The adage, however, has been argued to be genuinely West Baltic, only an otherwise unattested dialect ): Additionally, there is one manuscript fragment of the first words of the Pater Noster in Prussian, from the beginning of the 15th century: Towe Nüsze kås esse andangonsün swyntins Vytautas Mažiulis lists another few fragmentary texts recorded in several versions by Hieronymus Maletius in
4187-420: The author. As the authors of many sources were themselves not proficient in Old Prussian, they wrote the words as they heard them using the orthographical conventions of their mother tongue. For example, the use of ⟨s⟩ for both /s/ and /z/ is based on German orthography. Additionally, the writers misunderstood some phonemes and, when copying manuscripts, they added further mistakes. There
4266-408: The consonant sounds except for /j/ , and possibly for /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ . Whether or not the palatalization was phonemic remains unclear. Apart from the palatalizations Proto-Baltic consonants were almost completely preserved. The only changes postulated are turning Proto-Baltic /ʃ, ʒ/ into Prussian /s, z/ and subsequently changing Proto-Baltic /sj/ into /ʃ/ . The following description
4345-456: The definition of 'native speaker') in Germany, primarily in Northern Germany. Variants of Low German are spoken in most parts of Northern Germany , for instance in the states of Lower Saxony , North Rhine-Westphalia , Hamburg , Bremen , Schleswig-Holstein , Mecklenburg-Vorpommern , Saxony-Anhalt , and Brandenburg . Small portions of northern Hesse and northern Thuringia are traditionally Low Saxon-speaking too. Historically, Low German
4424-406: The dialect. Mennonite colonies in Paraguay, Belize, and Chihuahua , Mexico, have made Low German a "co-official language" of the community. East Pomeranian is also spoken in parts of southern and southeastern Brazil, in the latter especially in the state of Espírito Santo , being official in five municipalities, and spoken among its ethnically European migrants elsewhere, primarily in
4503-541: The dialects of Low German together with English and Frisian as the North Sea Germanic or Ingvaeonic languages. However, most exclude Low German from the group often called Anglo-Frisian languages because some distinctive features of that group of languages are only partially preserved in Low German, for instance the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law (some dialects have us , os for "us" whereas others have uns , ons ), and because other distinctive features almost do not occur in Low German at all, for instance
4582-401: The fact that Low German has no official standard form or use in sophisticated media. The situation of Low German may thus be considered a "pseudo-dialectized abstand language " (" scheindialektisierte Abstandsprache "). In contrast, Old Saxon and Middle Low German are generally considered separate languages in their own right. Since Low German has strongly declined since the 18th century,
4661-600: The flat plains and coastal area of the northern European lowlands , contrasted with the mountainous areas of central and southern Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, where High German (Highland German) is spoken. The colloquial term Platt denotes both Low German dialects and any non- standard Western variety of German ; this use is chiefly found in northern and Western Germany and is not considered to be linguistically correct. The ISO 639-2 language code for Low German has been nds ( niedersächsisch or nedersaksisch, neddersassisch ) since May 2000. Low German
4740-424: The functional limits of the language that may still be cited as objective criteria for a mere dialect (such as the virtually complete absence from legal and administrative contexts, schools, the media, etc.). At the request of Schleswig-Holstein , the German government has declared Low German as a regional language . German offices in Schleswig-Holstein are obliged to accept and handle applications in Low German on
4819-715: The home, but not in formal schooling. In their opinion, it simply did not match the nationally unifying power of High German. As a result, while Low German literature was deemed worthy of being taught in school, High German was chosen as the language of scholarly instruction. With High German the language of education and Low German the language of the home and daily life, a stable diglossia developed in Northern Germany. Various Low German dialects are understood by 10 million people, but many fewer are native speakers . Total users of Low German (nds) are approximately 2.5 million, with 300,000 native speakers in Brazil and 1,000 in Germany as of 2016. The KDE project supports Low German (nds) as
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#17327811897904898-439: The intellectual ability of their speakers. When historical linguists illustrated the archaic character of certain features and constructions of Low German, this was seen as a sign of its "backwardness". It was not until the efforts of proponents such as Klaus Groth that this impression changed. Groth's publications demonstrated that Low German was a valuable language in its own right, and he was able to convince others that Low German
4977-511: The language has vanished (the Berlin dialect itself is a northern outpost of High German , though it has some Low German features). Today, there are still speakers outside Germany to be found in the coastal areas of present-day Poland (minority of ethnic German East Pomeranian speakers who were not expelled from Pomerania , as well as the regions around Braniewo ). In the Southern Jutland region of Denmark there may still be some Low German speakers in some German minority communities, but
5056-471: The manuscript around 1400; the original dates from the beginning of the 14th or the end of the 13th century. It was found in 1825 by Fr Neumann among other manuscripts acquired by him from the heritage of the Elbing merchant A. Grübnau; it was thus dubbed the Codex Neumannianus . There are separate words found in various historical documents. The following fragments are commonly thought of as Prussian, but are probably actually Lithuanian (at least
5135-488: The nationalism of their ancestors, being more likely to accept marriages of its members with Brazilians of origins other than a Germanic Central European one than to assimilate with Brazilians of Swiss , Austrian , Czech , and non-East Pomeranian-speaking German and Prussian heritage – that were much more numerous immigrants to both Brazilian regions (and whose language almost faded out in the latter, due to assimilation and internal migration) , by themselves less numerous than
5214-475: The nominative suffixes of feminine ā-stems ( crauyō [kraujō] : krawia 'blood'). The nominative suffixes of the masculine o-stems are weakened to -is in Pomesanian; in Sambian they are syncopated ( deywis : deiws 'god'). Vocabulary differences encompass Pom. smoy [zmoy] (cf. Lith. žmuo) , Samb. wijrs 'man'; Pom. wayklis , Samb. soūns 'son' and Pom. samien , Samb. laucks [lauks] 'field'. The neuter gender
5293-609: The numbers of parent speakers dropped from 34% in 1995 to 15% in 2011. Numbers of child speakers dropped from 8% to 2% in the same period. According to a 2005 study 53% speak Low Saxon or Low Saxon and Dutch at home and 71% could speak it in the researched area. The total number of speakers is estimated at 1.7 million speakers. There are speakers in the Dutch north and eastern provinces of Groningen , Drenthe , Stellingwerf (part of Friesland ), Overijssel , Gelderland , Utrecht and Flevoland , in several dialect groups per province. There are also immigrant communities where Low German
5372-431: The official terminology defined in the charter, this status would not be available to a dialect of an official language (as per article 1a), and hence not to Low German in Germany if it were considered a dialect of German. Advocates of the promotion of Low German have expressed considerable hope that this political development will at once lend legitimacy to their claim that Low German is a separate language, and help mitigate
5451-778: The other extinct West Baltic languages , namely Sudovian , West Galindian and possibly Skalvian and Old Curonian . Other linguists consider Western Galindian and Skalvian to be Prussian dialects. It is related to the East Baltic languages such as Lithuanian and Latvian , and more distantly related to Slavic . Compare the words for 'land': Old Prussian semmē [zemē], Latvian : zeme , Lithuanian : žemė , Russian: земля́ , ( zemljá ) and Polish : ziemia . Old Prussian had loanwords from Slavic languages (e.g., Old Prussian curtis [kurtis] 'hound', like Lithuanian kùrtas and Latvian kur̃ts , cognate with Slavic (compare Ukrainian : хорт , khort ; Polish : chart ; Czech : chrt )), as well as
5530-456: The perceived similarities with High German or Dutch may often be direct adaptations from the dominating standard language, resulting in a growing inability by speakers to speak correctly what was once Low German proper. Others have argued for the independence of today's Low German dialects, taken as continuous outflow of the Old Saxon and Middle Low German tradition. Glottolog classifies six varieties of Low German as distinct languages based on
5609-601: The relationship between Low German consonants which were unaffected by this chain shift and their equivalents in other West Germanic languages. Contemporary Swedish and Icelandic shown for comparison; Eastern and Western North Germanic languages, respectively. The table below shows the relationship between Low German consonants which were unaffected by this chain shift and their equivalents in other West Germanic languages. Contemporary Swedish and Icelandic shown for comparison; Eastern and Western North Germanic languages, respectively. Notes : Like English and Frisian, Low German
5688-490: The same footing as Standard High German applications. The Bundesgerichtshof ruled in a case that this was even to be done at the patent office in Munich , in a non–Low German region , when the applicant then had to pay the charge for a translator, because applications in Low German are considered not to be written in the German language. Old Saxon ( Altsächsisch ), also known as Old Low German ( Altniederdeutsch ),
5767-414: The second one being a correction of the first. The third catechism, or Enchiridion , consists of 132 pages of text, and is a translation of Luther's Small Catechism by a German cleric called Abel Will, with his Prussian assistant Paul Megott. Will himself knew little or no Old Prussian, and his Prussian interpreter was probably illiterate, but according to Will spoke Old Prussian quite well. The text itself
5846-568: The states of Rio de Janeiro and Rondônia . East Pomeranian-speaking regions of Southern Brazil are often assimilated into the general German Brazilian population and culture, for example celebrating the Oktoberfest , and there can even be a language shift from it to Riograndenser Hunsrückisch in some areas. In Espírito Santo , nevertheless, Pomeranian Brazilians are more often proud of their language, and particular religious traditions and culture, and not uncommonly inheriting
5925-529: The traditional view is that no instrumental case existed in Old Prussian. There could be some locative forms, e.g. bītai ('in the evening'). Declensional classes were a -stems (also called o -stems), (i)ja -stems (also called (i)jo -stems), ā -stems (feminine), ē -stems (feminine), i -stems, u -stems, and consonant-stems. Some also list ī / jā -stems as a separate stem, while others include jā -stems into ā -stems and do not mention ī -stems at all. There were three adjective stems (
6004-787: Was Prussian toponomy and hydronomy within the territory of (Baltic) Prussia. Georg Gerullis undertook the first basic study of these names in Die altpreußischen Ortsnamen ('The Old Prussian Place-names'), written and published with the help of Walter de Gruyter, in 1922. Another source are personal names. Further sources for Prussian words are Vernacularisms in the German dialects of East and West Prussia, as well as words of Old Curonian origin in Latvian and West-Baltic vernacularisms in Lithuanian and Belarusian. Two Prussian vocabularies are known. The older one by Simon Grunau (Simon Grunovius),
6083-513: Was also spoken in formerly German parts of Poland (e.g., Pomerania and Silesia ), as well as in East Prussia and the Baltic provinces (modern Estonia and Latvia . The Baltic Germans spoke a distinct Low German dialect, which has influenced the vocabulary and phonetics of both Estonian and Latvian. The historical sprachraum of Low German also included contemporary northern Poland, East Prussia (the modern Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia),
6162-400: Was suitable for literary arts and was a national treasure worth keeping. Through the works of advocates like Groth, both proponents and opponents of Low German in formal education saw the language's innate value as the cultural and historical language of northern Germany. Nevertheless, opponents claimed that it should simply remain a spoken and informal language to be used on the street and in
6241-732: Was translated into Revived Prussian by Piotr Szatkowski (Pīteris Šātkis) and published by the Prusaspirā Society in 2015. Moreover, some bands use Revived Prussian, most notably in the Kaliningrad Oblast by the bands Romowe Rikoito , Kellan and Āustras Laīwan, as well as in Lithuania by Kūlgrinda on their 2005 album Prūsų Giesmės ('Prussian Hymns'), and Latvia by Rasa Ensemble in 1988 and Valdis Muktupāvels in his 2005 oratorio "Pārcēlātājs Pontifex" featuring several parts sung in Prussian. The Elbing Vocabulary and
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