Subject: LL-L: "Slavonica" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 06.JUN.1999 (04)

Sun Jun 6 22:54:42 UTC 1999

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From: "Piotr Suchomski" <piotrjs at friko6.onet.pl>
Subject: Slavonica

Hi!

Some time ago we were talking about endangered
languages and the Kashubian language was cited
among them as the one facing extinction. I hope,
however, that the people of the Kashubian
area will not allow it to perish as they are getting
more and more encouragement to
prevent their language  from extinction.

Yesterday Pope John Paul II delivered a
homily in Sopot, a picturesque seaside resort near
Gdansk. Over 700,000 people turned up
to meet the Pope, many of them were Kashubians.
Kashubians who are fishermen sailed
to Sopot on boats beautifully decorated with
flowers, and they wore their regional costumes.
They looked really amazing. After the homily
Pope turned to the Kashubians and asked
them personally to nurture their language and culture.
John Paul II' words were met with enthusiasm
and they gave the Kashubians the strenght to protect
their language.

There is not one Kashubian language, though.
Some sources say there are as many as
76 different Kashubian dialcts! Almost every
village has its own dialect - different vocabulary,
accent and pronuncation. But there are some
common elements:
- endings  -ki, -gi are pronounced like English
'chee',  'jee', for example "kro'tki" ("short")
is pronounced "krootchee"
(oo like in English "good")
- accent is movable
- there is the schwa sound - e" - where in Polish
it is 'i', 'y' or 'u', for example Polish 'cicho' ('quiet')
is 'ce"cho'  and Polish 'Kaszuby' is 'Kasze"be" '
-'o' and 'u' before or after some consonants
(I don't know exactly which ones) are pronounced
'uo' and 'ue', for example 'wojsko' ('army') is
pronounced 'uejskue' (something like weyskweh),
and 'pole' ('field') is proniounced 'puele' ('pweleh').

For a Polish speaker the Kashubian language
is too difficult to be understood, that's why
there were subtitles in Polish when a fisherman
from the Hel peninsula talked on TV about his
great joy of meeting the Pope.

Czes'c'!

Joanna 'Kicia' Suchomska
Gdansk, Poland

----------

From: "Piotr Suchomski" <piotrjs at friko6.onet.pl>
Subject: Slavonica

Dear Joanna and dear Lowlanders,

Thank you very much for sharing the news about this most recent symbolic boost
for the movement to preserve and strengthen the Kashubian (Cassubian) language
of Northern Poland, Joanna.

It would be a great tragedy if Kashubian heritage, of which the language is a
main pillar, were to disappear.  In my opinion, the situation of Kashubian under
Polish pressure is rather similar to that of Low Saxon (Low German) under German
and Dutch pressure.  It was only a short while ago that the de facto official
view was that they were not separate languages but parts of whatever "supreme"
language happened to overshadow them in the respective countries.  Low Saxon
varieties in Northern Germany used to (and in part continue to) be considered
German dialects.  Low Saxon varieties in the eastern provinces of the
Netherlands used to (and in part continue to) be considered Dutch dialects
(still referred to as "dialect" by Dutch speakers). Kashubian varieties are
still widely considered dialects of Polish, although, as you mentioned, Polish
speakers cannot understand them (at least not well) unless they learn them.

You seem to think that in the case of Kashubian this fragmentation is a matter
of more than one language.  Although it is not impossible that there are some
deep internal divisions, I doubt, on the basis of my reading, that these would
qualify as separate languages.  Perhaps these are dialect groups, each with a
multitude of member varieties.  Also in this regard the case of Kashubian is
rather similar to that of Low Saxon:

(1) There is a multitude of varieties, divided into groups.

(2) Many speakers have no real concept of their varieties being parts of a
certain language, and they tend to identify mostly with their home dialects.

(3) Due to non-recognition as a separate language (now or in the recent past),
there is so far no standard variety and no standard orthography (although there
are unofficial spelling conventions, and although there are long-standing
literary traditions).

In my opinion, this fragmentation without a common standard and a general
concept of "language" among the speakers is one of the greatest threats to the
survival of these languages.  Therefore, cross-border communication between
these minority/regional language communities ought to be beneficial for both of
them, especially since they are geographically neighbors.

To those subscribers who joined us recently please allow me to explain that
discussing Kashubian, a West Slavic language most closely related to Polish, is
not totally off-topic on Lowlands-L, as long as this is done within a Lowlandic
context.  We are dealing here with a geographic area that for a long time used
to be considered an eastern frontier to be conquered and Germanicized, that came
to be an extension of the Lowlands, and this has left its mark on the Slavic and
Germanic languages and cultures of the area.

(1) Kashubian has undergone strong "German" influences, and these are in fact
for the most part Low Saxon influences.

(2) In these eastern regions, Eastern Low Saxon (Low German) and also the
eastern varieties of North Saxon (as far west as Holsteen/Holstein,
Hamborg/Hamburg, Lüünborg/Lüneburg and Hannover) have replaced West Slavic
varieties, all of which are extinct on German-administered soil (though earlier
interactions between Southeastern Low Saxon and the surviving Lower
Sorbian/Lusatian language are a possibility).  Various types of substratal
Slavic influences played a role in the developments of these eastern Germanic
varieties, including the West Prussian varieties from which Mennonite Low Saxon
(Plautdietsch) developed.  Along the Baltic Sea coast of what is now Germany,
the West Slavic Pomeranian language is considered extinct and is virtually
unknown, having been replaced by Low Saxon and later for the most part by
German.  Some Slavicists assume that Kashubian is in fact a surviving group of
eastern varieties of Pomeranian, and they will even refer to it as "Pomeranian
or Kashubian."  Therefore, theoretically speaking, Kashubian might offer
valuable clues that help us better understand Slavic influences on the Low Saxon
dialects of the Baltic Sea coast region.  I do not think that this has been
seriously explored.

On a somewhat personal note, please allow me to mention that one of my brothers
just told me that the area in which our paternal grandmother was born -- in what
is now the Polish-Russian border region* of "Eastern Prussia" -- used to be
quite multiethnic and multilingual.  The populations is predominantly of Polish
and "German" descent (with the Polish, German and Low Saxon languages
predominating until World War II), but there are also many Kashubians,
descendants of immigrants from Dutch-speaking areas, "real" Prussians (i.e., not
Germans but a Baltic ethnicity whose language is now extinct), Lithuanians,
French (i.e., descendants of Huguenots), and Austrians.  The strong Lowlandic
contingent of the local population thus comprised of (descendants of) Low Saxon
and Dutch speakers.

(* Apparently, the specific place was called "Orschen" or "Orscheln" in German
and is situated on the Polish side of the border, but so far we have not been
able to determine what the Polish name is.  Does anyone know?)

Regards, Gröten, and Czczes'c',

Reinhard/Ron

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