LL-L "History" 2008.01.18 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  17 January 2008 - Volume 04
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
 Subject: History

Dear Lowlanders,

Below are a few Lowlands tidbits regarding the area traditionally known as
"Prussia." This area is not that of Germany, despite the name. Western
Prussia is an area that is now in the northeastern part of Poland. Eastern
Prussia is roughly the area of today's Kaliningrad (Калининград, German *
Königsberg*) a neighboring Russian-administered enclave, and it extends a
bit into Poland. This area is one that came to be colonized by Germanic
speakers in the wake of or concurrent with Christianization. While farther
west Germanic varieties smothered local Slavic language varieties, in
Prussia both Germanic and Slavic varieties smothered Prussian.

The "original" population of these areas, as far as we know, are the (Old)
Prussian people (Latvian *Prūši*, Lithuanian *Prūsai*, Polish *Prusowie*,
German *Pruzzen, Prussen, Prußen*). I say "are" and avoid "Old" since
Prussian identity did not completely vanish with the death of the "Old"
Prussian language. The Prussian language is the westernmost member of the
Baltic group of Indo-European. It was first recorded in the 13th century and
for all intents and purposes became extinct at the end of the 16th century.

   - Prussian substrata exist in regional Slavic varieties: Masurian
   Polish, and the Belarusian varieties in and around Dzyatlava (Дзятлава)
   in neighboring Belarus. They also exist in the regional dialects of German
   and Low Saxon. As a result of ethnic cleansing at the end of World War II,
   speakers of these regional Germanic varieties ended up in the west (if they
   were not killed or died *en route*) so that these language varieties
   are now virtually extinct. This is in part so because the Polish and Soviet
   governments decided ethnic affiliation mostly by language. They therefore
   expelled also those people that were ethnically Prussian but had adopted Low
   Saxon as their first language, but they did not expel those Prussians that
   had adopted Slavic varieties. Some of these people that were expelled still
   spoke as their home language Modern Curonian (German *Kurländisch*),
   possibly a surviving variety of Prussian. Because they came to be settled in
   a scattered fashion in West Germany, they lost social cohesion and Curonian,
   thus Prussian, became extinct in the second half of the 20th century. A
   similar thing happened to Slovincian, a Slavic language that is closely
   related to Kashubian and therefore might be considered a Pomeranian group
   also. Most of its speakers spoke Low Saxon and/or German in public life and,
   like some Kashubians that suffered the same fate, many of them were
   Protestants. This made them "Germans" in Polish eyes; they were expelled and
   their language became extinct.
   - We know that at various times "Dutch," French (Huguenot) and
   Scottish people participated in settling what are now Eastern Germany,
   Poland and Kaliningrad. I assume that the descendants of most of these later
   came to be identified as "Germans" and were expelled also. Apparently, by
   the beginning of the 18th century, (most of?) these were still identifiable.
   I found an interesting bit of a 1708 census of Masuria and Eastern Prussia
   in which these as well as Prussians were still identified:
   http://tinyurl.com/397ph9

   - *Masuria (1708)*:
         - Masurians: 127.210 (85.0%)
         - Germans: 11.225 (7.5%)
         - Prussians: 11.224 (7.5%)
      - *Eastern Prussia (1708)*:
         - Prussians: 228.743 (33.8%)
         - Germans: 166.312 (24.6%)
         - Lithuanians: 142.972 (21.2%)
         - Masurians: 127.210 (18.8%)
         - Dutch, Scots, French: 10.599 (1.6%)

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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