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42-507: The 98 km long Curonian Spit is a thin sand peninsula, ranging from about 400 m to 4 km in width, that separates the Baltic Sea from the shallow Curonian Lagoon . It has several settlements along its length. It lies on a major migration route for birds following the coastline of the eastern Baltic. The richness of birdlife was first noticed by Friedrich Lindner who was a close friend of Johannes Thienemann. Thienemann first visited

84-413: 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

126-593: 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

168-456: 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

210-816: 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 –

252-597: 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

294-757: 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

336-588: 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 –

378-580: Is a freshwater lagoon separated from the Baltic Sea by the Curonian Spit . Its surface area is 1,619 square kilometers (625 sq mi). The Neman River ( Lithuanian : Nemunas ) supplies about 90% of its inflows; its watershed consists of about 100,450 square kilometres in Lithuania and Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast . In the 13th century , the area around the lagoon was part of

420-549: 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

462-526: 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

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504-596: 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

546-622: 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

588-745: 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 the Latin alphabet in about

630-457: The Kursenieki lived in the surrounding area. The Lagoon, formed about 7,000 years BCE , is a freshwater lagoon . Water depths average 3.8 metres (12 ft). It is highly biodiverse , although troubled by water pollution . The presence of algal blooms was confirmed in the 2000s. Prussian language Old Prussian is an extinct West Baltic language belonging to

672-615: 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

714-609: 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

756-582: 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

798-649: 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 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

840-488: 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

882-541: 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 –

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924-478: The Rossiten observatory to distribute German propaganda in 1943, an idea that was rejected successfully by Ernst Schüz . It was at first a one-man operation with Thienemann attempting to cover all areas of research. As it grew it focussed increasingly on the study of migration through banding , with roughly a million birds being banded during the 45 years of the observatory's existence. Its success stimulated

966-614: The Society to establish a bird observatory at Rossitten, as a cooperative project with the Prussian Government. Thienemann was given the job of setting it up, something accomplished when it opened on New Year's Day 1901, as well as serving as the founding director. The observatory operated under the auspices of the German Ornithological Society until 1923. From then until its dissolution in 1946

1008-469: 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

1050-643: The ancestral lands of the Curonians and Old Prussians . Later it bordered the historical region of Lithuania Minor . At the northern end of the Spit, the Klaipėda Strait connects the lagoon to the Baltic Sea , and the place was chosen by the Teutonic Knights in 1252 to found Memelburg Castle and the city of Klaipėda . In 1454, King Casimir IV Jagiellon incorporated the region to the Kingdom of Poland upon

1092-420: 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

1134-408: 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

1176-592: The establishment of similar organisations such as the Hungarian Ornithological Centre in 1908, Heligoland Bird Observatory in 1910, Sempach Bird Observatory in 1924 and Hiddensee Ornithological Centre in 1936. Thienemann's successor as head of the observatory was Ernst Schüz. Following Germany's loss of East Prussia at the end of the Second World War , the institutional inheritor of Rossitten's ornithological research program

1218-601: The fishing village of Rossitten there in 1896 where he experienced “a bird migration proceeding in a regular manner but more massive than had ever before been observed in Germany” and he “could not stop wondering whether something of permanent value might somehow be achieved here”. At the German Ornithological Society's 50th anniversary celebration in Leipzig in 1900 he gave a lecture that persuaded

1260-589: 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

1302-534: 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

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1344-598: The north passed to Lithuania (occupied by Germany in 1939–45), whereas the remainder fell to the Soviet Union following World War II . As the new interwar border, the river that flows into the Curonian Lagoon near Rusnė was chosen. The river's lower 120 km in Germany were called die Memel by Germans, while the upper part located in Lithuania was known as Nemunas River . The border also separated

1386-591: The observatory came under the management of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society , giving it a solid institutional framework. Its constitution was ambitious and broad, including nine main areas of bird research: migration , behaviour , moult , economic value, protection , the establishment of a bird collection , the procurement of research material for scientific state institutes, the expansion of research relevance to other kinds of animals, and public education. Heinrich Himmler sought to use storks bred in

1428-573: The peninsula near the small holiday resort of Nida, Lithuania . From 1939 to 1945, the Lithuanian part was occupied by Germany, and the southern part of the Spit and the Lagoon remained in Germany until 1945. This border is now the border between Lithuania and Russia, as after World War II, the southern end of the Spit and the German area south of the river became part an exclave of Russia called Kaliningrad Oblast . The nearly extinct ethnic group

1470-800: The renamed Russian settlement of Rybachy, the Rybachy Biological Station was founded in 1956, at the instigation of Russian ornithologist Lev Belopolsky , as a branch of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg . The station was set up following a special decision of the Board of the Academy of Sciences with the aim of studying bird migration, and of reestablishing

1512-675: The request of the anti-Teutonic Prussian Confederation . Following the peace treaty of 1466 , the lagoon became a part of Poland as a fief held by the Teutonic Knights, and thus located within the Polish–Lithuanian union , later elevated to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . From the 18th century, it formed part of the Kingdom of Prussia , and from 1871 also Germany . After 1923, the Klaipėda Region in

1554-650: The research tradition started by German ornithologists, after the ten-year hiatus. Viktor Dolnik was its director for 22 years, from 1967 until 1989. The station receives support from the Sielmann Foundation and works closely with western partners, including the Vogelwarte Radolfzell with which it operates a joint trapping and banding station. Curonian Lagoon The Curonian Lagoon (or Bay, Gulf; Prussian : Kursjanmari , Lithuanian : Kuršių marios , Russian : Куршский залив )

1596-414: 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

1638-529: 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 (

1680-728: 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),

1722-803: Was the establishment by the Max Planck Society (the renamed Kaiser Wilhelm Society) of the “Vogelwarte Radolfzell”, with the staff from the Rossitten observatory, at the town of Radolfzell am Bodensee at the western end of Lake Constance in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany, under the auspices of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology . In 1998 it became the Max Planck Research Centre for Ornithology. Meanwhile, at Rossiten, now

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1764-675: 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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