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47-583: The language is referred to as Yotvingian, Jatvingian or Sudovian. Those names are derived from the southern- and northernmost tribes living in the area. When the Germans learnt the name "Sudovian" from the Prussians, they got to know the name of the northernmost tribe only, while Poles in the south met a tribe calling itself Yatvingian. Both Germans and Poles generalized the terms for all the Baltic inhabitants of

94-413: 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

141-585: A 1418 memorandum Collatio Espiscopi Varmiensis sent by the Bishop of Warmia to Pope Martin V . The document reminded the Pope that the Teutonic Knights successfully Christianized pagan Prussians, who previously worshipped "demons" Perkūnas , Potrimpo and Peckols (and Patollo). Simon Grunau claimed that Potrimpo was a god of grain and together with thunder god Perkūnas and death god Peckols formed

188-626: A book of Catholic prayers from an old man from Novy Dvor village in the depths of Białowieża Forest , which held a small manuscript titled " Pagan Dialects from Narew  [ lt ; be-tarask ] " ( Pogańskie gwary z Narewu ). It was written partly in Polish , and partly in an unspecified, "pagan" language. However, Zinov's parents threw away the book. But, before the manuscript was destroyed, Zinov had made notes of it which he sent to Vilnius University in 1983. Even though Zinov's notes were riddled with errors, it has been proven beyond doubt that

235-448: A church ceremony book published in 1530, likened Potrimpo with Pollux and Autrimpo with Castor and Neptune , from Roman mythology . Later authors copied these descriptions, often merging Potrimpo and Autrimpo into one deity of earth and water. Jan Sandecki Malecki claimed that Prussians would pray to Potrimpo, pour hot wax into water, and predict the future based on the shapes of wax figures . Maciej Stryjkowski wrote that there

282-593: 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

329-456: 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

376-816: 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 –

423-531: 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

470-546: A manuscript of the Logica Parva by Paul of Venice . Patrimpas Potrimpo (also Potrimpus , Autrimpo , Natrimpe ) was a god of seas, earth, grain, and crops in the pagan Baltic , and Prussian mythology . He was one of the three main gods worshiped by the Old Prussians . Most of what is known about this god is derived from unreliable 16th-century sources. He was first mentioned (as Natrimpe ) in

517-402: A pagan trinity. He was depicted on the purported Flag of Widewuto as a young, merry man wearing a wreath of grain ears . Grunau further claimed that snakes, as creatures of Potrimpo, were worshipped and given milk (cf. žaltys ). The Sudovian Book (1520–1530) listed Potrimpo ( Potrimpus ) as god of running water and Autrimpo ( Autrimpus ) as god of the seas. The Constitutiones Synodales ,

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564-757: 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

611-588: 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 –

658-1160: Is " Kails naussen gnigethe. " form the Sudovian Book), accusative, genitive, dative and locative, and a complex morphology with a variety of moods . It was a frontier dialect of Old Baltic, which preserved many archaic features which had been lost in the Middle Baltic group. The Constit. Synod. Evangel. of 1530 contains the following list of deities who were still worshipped by the Sudavians in Samland: " Occopirmus, Sualxtix, Ausschauts, Autrympus, Potrympus , Bardoayts, Piluuytis, Parcunas , Pecols ,...". Toponyms from north-eastern Poland, north-western Belarus, and Lithuania also preserve words. The Yotvingian territories were later overrun and populated by Slavs around present-day Białystok and Suwałki in north-eastern Poland and nearby Hrodna (formerly Grodno) in Belarus . Some elements of Baltic speech are still retained in

705-652: 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

752-549: 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

799-526: 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

846-596: 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

893-681: Is printed in the Catechism, and they express themselves well and understand every word". In addition to similarities in the scarce material in the Western Baltic languages, this leads most linguists to the conclusion, that Sudovian belongs to the Western Baltic branch. Sudovian along with Old Prussian was later influenced by Gothic , while most of the East Baltic languages had more contact with Finnic languages. Sudovia and neighboring Galindia were two Baltic tribes or nations mentioned by

940-462: 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

987-615: 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

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1034-609: 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

1081-582: 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

1128-462: The Belarus and Ukraine territory, owing to the sparse indigenous populations and resettlements of refugees from Lithuania. The dialect of Zietela ( Belarusian : Дзятлава , Russian : Дятлово , Yiddish : Zietil , Polish : Zdzięcioł ) was of particular interest. Kazlauskas suggested that the word mėnas ("month") (dative singular mënui ) encountered in dialects (Zietela, Lazdijai ) and in

1175-488: 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

1222-466: The Greek geographer Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD as Galíndai and Soudinoí ( Γαλίνδαι , Σουδινοί ). Peter of Dusburg , in his 14th-century Chronicon terrae Prussiae , refers to Sudovia and to its inhabitants as Sudovites , listing them as one of the Prussian tribes. He attests, that between 1,500 and 1,600 Sudavians were forcefully relocated to Sambia in the late 13th century. After

1269-541: 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 –

1316-549: The Old Prussian language, but they used the term gentaras for amber, not the Sambian (Old Prussian) term. From him we learn that the Sudovians lived secluded from the Sambians, that they married within their own tribe, and did not allow intermarriage with the neighbouring Prussian population "even if begged". They stubbornly held to their own traditions, and wore finger and ear rings with bronze bells and silver belts. Nothing

1363-558: The Polish-Yotvingian Vocabulary (it is unsure, whether or not it represents Sudovian). Therefore, few can be said with certainty. The language seems to have preserved many archaic features, which have been lost in other Baltic languages. The language from the vocabulary retained the Proto-Baltic singular neuter case endings (as did Prussian), leaving the language with three genders. The language has six grammatical cases : nominative, vocative (The vocative example

1410-469: 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

1457-487: The area. The territory they lived in is referred to as Sudovia [Sunderland], Jotva [Jettwen], Dainavia, or Pollexia. Sudovian was an Indo-European language belonging to the Baltic branch. There are several proposals for the classification of the Sudovian language within the Baltic phylum. Historical sources state that Sudovian was very similar to and mutually intelligible with the archaic Old Prussian language , e.g. in

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1504-420: 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

1551-408: 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

1598-467: The district was conquered by the Teutonic Knights , the language died out and its speakers were gradually absorbed by German, Lithuanian and Slavic populations. John Poliander wrote in 1535 about the Sudovians living near Königsberg, Prussia, that 32 villages used Sudini speech in a 6–7 mile stretch of land of the Samland Corner that bears the name of Sudavia. They spoke a language similar to

1645-479: The introduction to the first Old Prussian Catechism (printed in Königsberg – 1545 – the first Baltic language book): Die Sudawen aber wiewol ihre rede etwas nyderiger wissen sich doch inn diese preüßnische sprach : wie sie alhie im Catechismo gedruckt ist auch wol zuschicken und vernemen alle wort. – "But the Sudovians, although their speech is somewhat lower, understand this Prussian language, as it

1692-589: 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

1739-410: The mid-16th century by Hieronymus Maletius. Most scholars view these texts as representing Old Prussian, while Norbertas Vėlius regards them as genuine Sudovian. Until the 1970s, Yotvingian was chiefly known from toponyms and medieval Russian sources. But in 1978, a monument with Yotvingian writing was discovered by accident. In Belarus , a young man named Viačasłaŭ Zinaŭ, an amateur collector, bought

1786-534: 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

1833-458: The notes are indeed a copy of an authentic Yotvingian text. According to the first person who analyzed the manuscript, Zigmas Zinkevičius , this short Yotvingian–Polish dictionary (of just 215 words), "Pagan Dialects from Narew", appears to have been written by a Catholic priest in order to preach to locals in their mother tongue. Concerning the language, Zinkevičius put forth three possible versions: Old Prussian language Old Prussian

1880-837: 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

1927-414: 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

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1974-529: 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 (

2021-541: The writings of Bretkūnas is a remnant of nouns with the stem suffix -s. The dialect of Druskininkai in Lithuania, too, was influenced by the Sudovian language. There are also some Sudovian language phrases in " Warhafftige Beschreibung der Sudawen auff Samland sambt ihren Bock heyligen und Ceremonien " – True Description of the Sudovians in Samland together with their goat sanctifications and ceremonies – written in

2068-787: 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),

2115-405: Was a copper idol (a twisted žaltys ) to Potrimpo in the temple of Romuva . Simonas Daukantas described Potrimpo as the god of spring, happiness, abundance, cattle and grain. According to Kazimieras Būga , the name was derived from the root trimp- , which is related to Lithuanian verb trempti (to trample, to stomp). Following this research, Vladimir Toporov believed that initially there

2162-468: Was imported from abroad, but everything was produced by local craftsmen. Christoph Hartknoch reported in 1684 that there were still Sudovians in Sambia. Based on onomastics, Sudovian is thought to have had the following consonants: Two diphthongs are attested: The few grammatical features proposed for the Sudovian languages are either based on supposed Sudovian substrate in other languages or based on

2209-675: 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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