Pomeranian language
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Image:Stefan Ramult-Pomeranian Dictionary.png
Pomeranian is a group of Lechitic dialects which were spoken in the Middle Ages on the territory of Pomerania, between the Odra and Vistula rivers. They are most closely related to Polabian dialects, which they bordered in the west, and to Polish dialects, which they bordered in the south.
Following the Germanization of Pomerania, the population switched to varieties of the Low German language and most of the Pomeranian dialects suffered extinction. The only living descendant of Pomeranian is the Kashubian language spoken in Eastern Pomerania (Pomeranian Voivodship), so these two names can be treated nowadays as synonyms. Another variety of Pomeranian, Slovincian became extinct in the beginning of the 20th century.
There are also other Slavic dialects used by indigenous groups in Pomerania, namely the Kociewiacy, Borowiacy and the Krajniacy. Their dialects, however, belong to the Polish language, but have a transitional character and share some common features with Pomeranian. Friedrich Lorentz assumes, that at least the dialects of the Kociewiacy and Borowiacy were originally Pomeranian, but became polonized due to Polish colonization of their territories. On the other hand, the dialect of the Krajniacy, according to Lorentz, was most probably originally Polish.
The Pomeranian language, and its only surviving form, Kashubian, traditionally haven't been recognized by the majority of Polish linguists and have been treated in Poland as "the most distinct dialect of Polish". Some Polish linguists ridiculed the attempts to create a standardized form of Kashubian/Pomeranian, and tried to discredit those Kashubian authors who worked on it. However, there have been also some Polish linguists who treated Pomeranian as a separate language. The most prominent of them was Stefan Ramułt, author of a Pomeranian-Polish dictionary from the late 19th century, and Alfred Majewicz who overtly called Kashubian a language in the 1980s. Following the collapse of Communism in Poland, the attitude in Poland towards the status of Pomeranian/Kashubian has been gradually changing. More and more often it is seen as a full-fledged language, it is taught in state schools and has some very limited access to the public radio and TV. The bill passed by the Polish parliament in 2005 recognizes Kashubian as the only regional language in the Republic of Poland and provides for its use in official contexts in 10 communes where Kashubian speakers constitute at least 20 percent of the population.
The name Pomeranian is also sometimes applied to East Low German dialects (German Pommersch or Pommersch Platt). Unlike German, English lacks a distinction between the Slavic and Germanic languages/ dialects of Pomerania. In German they are referred to as Pomoranisch and Pommersch respectively. Pommersch Platt is the dialect of the German Pomeranians (Pommern) in western Pomerania, which today is included in the Bundesland of Germany called Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It is a form of Low German possibly with some Polabian and Slavic Pomeranian influence. It was also spoken in the part of Pomerania east of the Odra river before the German population was expelled or left after World War II.
Pomeranian dialects of East Low German are also spoken in Brazil (see Pomerode, Santa Catarina, Brazil), (see Santa Maria de Jetibá, Espírito Santo, Brazil).
Literature
- Friedhelm Hinze, Wörterbuch und Lautlehre der deutschen Lehnwörter im Pomoranischen (Kaschubischen), Berlin 1965
- Friedrich Lorentz, Geschichte der Pomoranischen (Kaschubischen) Sprache, Berlin und Leipzig, 1925
- Friedrich Lorentz, Pomoranisches Wörterbuch, Band I-V, Berlin 1958-1983
- Stefan Ramułt, Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego, Kraków 1893
