Prussians

Domen · Apr 1, 2014

Germanization turned Prussians from relatively peaceful Balts into Germans:

daft · Apr 4, 2014

Prussian language still exists? amazing!, I thought the Teutonic Knights pretty much destroyed them all. Congratulations to you dear sir for knowing the history of your region of the world so well. I was trying to explain to others in the Ideas and Suggestions Forum/new civivlizations thread that Prussians were originally not a Germanic but a Baltic tribe but some people do not seem to believe it.

Gucumatz · Apr 4, 2014

Domen you love historical Germanization so much, what about historical polanization? I don't think I hear you talk about that as much - [although maybe you do and I sometimes tune you out]

Takhisis · Apr 9, 2014

daft said:
Prussian language still exists? amazing!, I thought the Teutonic Knights pretty much destroyed them all. Congratulations to you dear sir for knowing the history of your region of the world so well. I was trying to explain to others in the Ideas and Suggestions Forum/new civivlizations thread that Prussians were originally not a Germanic but a Baltic tribe but some people do not seem to believe it.

Call them Old Prussians, or 'Borussians'.

Terxpahseyton · Apr 9, 2014

Takhisis · Apr 9, 2014

Why not? They did get ruled by some Spaniards, amirite?

Domen · Apr 15, 2014

I've been suspended by the Divine Wind for 14 days so I couldn't reply to your questions.

I'll try to catch up with these questions, maybe by writing a short article on Prussians, where you will find responses.

Takhisis · Apr 15, 2014

Please make it a thousand words or less.

Domen · Apr 17, 2014

Gucumatz said:
Domen you love historical Germanization so much, what about historical polanization? I don't think I hear you talk about that as much - [although maybe you do and I sometimes tune you out]

For something about Polonization, check my recent posts in this thread (especially posts #86 and #87):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13177224#post13177224

When it comes to Lithuania Minor (Klein Litauen) in East Prussia:

Here a map showing linguistic composition of North-Eastern part of Ducal Prussia in the 16th century, during the Protestant Reformation:

We can also see also areas with majority of Old Prussian language speakers in Sambia - to the north of Konigsberg (Karaliaučius):

Check also (but this map shows the modern northern boundary of Polonized areas, not the historical one - before WW1 and before WW2 it was much larger):

Domen · Apr 18, 2014

Martin Luther's Catechism in Old Prussian language (16th century):

Here something about Prussian language from original sources as well:

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupid?key=ha008963228

http://shelf3d.com/i/Old Prussian language

# ''Beigeite beygeyte peckolle'' ("Run, run, devils!")

# ''Kails naussen gnigethe'' ("Hello our friend!")

# ''Kails poskails ains par antres'' – a drinking toast, reconstructed as ''Kaīls pas kaīls, aīns per āntran'' ("A healthy one after a healthy one, one after another!")

# ''Kellewesze perioth, Kellewesze perioth'' ("A carter drives here, a carter drives here!")

# ''Ocho moy myle schwante panicke'' – also recorded as ''O hoho Moi mile swente Pannike'', ''O ho hu Mey mile swenthe paniko'', ''O mues miles schwante Panick'' ("Oh my dear holy fire!")

==========================================

'''Lord's Prayer in Old Prussian''' (from the so-called "1st Catechism"):

: Thawe nuson kas tu asse Andangon,
: Swintits wirst twais Emmens;
: Pergeis twais Laeims;
: Twais Quaits audasseisin na Semmey, key Andangon;
: Nusan deininan Geittin deis numons schindeinan;
: Bha atwerpeis numans nuson Auschautins, kay mas atwerpimay nuson Auschautenikamans;
: Bha ny wedais mans Enperbandan;
: Sclait is rankeis mans assa Wargan. Amen

Domen · Apr 21, 2014

Attempt of reconstructing ethno-demographic history of East Prussia (text in German):

http://www.prussen.org/besiedelung-bevoelkerungsentwicklung-ostpreussen.htm

Domen · Jan 7, 2015

Link to study "Surnames of inhabitants of the Lidzbark District (1500-1772)" - in English:

http://www.uwm.edu.pl/human/duch/komornictwoang.pdf

Some examples of surnames of Prussian or possibly Prussian origin from this study:

Nadram
Naprat
Padelucke
Penquit
Same
Schaybott
Scodick
Tinger
Warskeit
Waskait
Wille
Woppain
Nenchen
Kadau
Sebirmann
Weller
Willen
Alshoff
Wellerstein
Anutta
Pobos
Grunaw
Konegen
Maraun(en)
Napratten
Worein
Neima
Dengel
Mazut
Moszal
Mykol
Proyke
Kersch
Reinick
Rose
Tidigk
Zin(g)k
Dettki
Kap
Kater
Welek
Vannegut

Prussian origin for some of these surnames is certain, but for some other it is only probable.

For example surname Kater is of either Prussian, Polish, or German origin:

Kater 1601 – the surname can be derived from German appellative Kat(h)er, ‘hut owner, petty farmer’ or from Old Prussian personal name *Kater T p. 43 or treated as a substitution of Polish Katar (‘rhinitis&#8217 Rosp 2 p. 275

Allshof and Wellerstein are surnames of certain Prussian origin, but Germanized (modified to sound German):

Alshoff 1700 – a Prussian and German hybrid, with the first element from the Old Prussian personal name Alsebut, cf. Alsaute, Alsune, Alsutte T p. 131 and the second from German Hoff ‘court’

Wellerstein 1724 – from Old Prussian Weller, Germanized with the element -stein.

1601, 1700, 1724 are years when documents recording people with these surnames were written.

===============================

Examples of surnames which did not imply any probable interpretative associations (some of them may be Prussian too):

Hempner
Nuntersche
Plohett
Rickgarbe
Sohm
Stapuch
Tondar

Takhisis · Jan 7, 2015

Are they including literal translations of Prussian names into German and/or Latin there, or only phonetic adaptations?

Domen · Jan 8, 2015

Literal translations of Prussian into German / Latin are also included, but are counted as German / Latin surnames.

And in most cases probably it is impossible to tell if a name was originally Prussian, but got translated.

Here some more Prussian surnames:

Alsut
Damreis
Dingel
Kantell
Kariot
Kunlig
Meisuw
Meling
Mille

Wisimir · Jan 8, 2015

Domen said:

On the map above, region of Sambia and adjoining territories are described as "Lithuanian areas lost to Germanization (1600s-1940s) and Soviet genocide (1940s)", but as far as I know Lithuanians settled there only after the 12-13th century, so there should be a note that area was Lithuanized first. Lithuanian and West Baltic (e.g. extinct Old Prussian *) languages were not mutually intelligible and were not closer than for example West Slavic languages (Czech, Slovak, Polish, Sorbian, etc.) in the Middle Ages, am I right?

* A 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.

WW1 monuments in the area of today's Kaliningrad Oblast...

Spoiler long list of names, images of WWI memorials :

Could you tell me what percentage of these names have German, Old Prussian, Lithuanian, Polish origin?

Probably it's something like...
German >50%
West Baltic ~25%
Lithuanian ~15% (more in the North East)
Polish ~10% (more in the southern areas of the Kaliningrad Oblast)

Moderator Action: In the future, please don't post very long lists of anything unless they are enclosed in spoiler tags. It makes posts hard to read. I edited your post to add them.

Domen · Jan 8, 2015

Huh, a lot of surnames. Well, it is possible that percentages are as you wrote. But let's note that percent of German surnames was significantly higher than percent of people with ethnic German origin, because German was the main language and German surnames - especially great majority of occupational surnames - were overrepresented. Many could be also Germanized through translation.

I will post some estimates on proportions of Old Prussian and other ancestries in East Prussia soon.

Early figures on languages are very useful, for example from 1825 census.

Domen · Jan 8, 2015

Wisimir said:
but as far as I know Lithuanians settled there only after the 12-13th century, so there should be a note that area was Lithuanized first. Lithuanian and West Baltic (e.g. extinct Old Prussian *) languages were not mutually intelligible and were not closer than for example West Slavic languages (Czech, Slovak, Polish, Sorbian, etc.) in the Middle Ages, am I right?

Yes, you are right - Lithuanian settlers immigrated to Prussia, and that's how the area got Lithuanized.

Previously it was believed that first Baltic and Slavic languages diverged from Balto-Slavic, and only later West Baltic and East Baltic from Baltic. But in more recent studies by linguists it is believed, that West Baltic, East Baltic and Slavic all differentiated directly from Balto-Slavic.

In such case East Baltic languages were not that much closer to West Baltic than West Slavic (though most likely still closer).

I will post some estimates on proportions of Old Prussian and other ancestries in East Prussia soon.

Early figures on languages are very useful, for example from 1825 census.

Let's start with a map:

Wisimir · Jan 8, 2015

Domen said:
Huh, a lot of surnames.

You'll find even more in the "Source" link.

Domen said:
Well, it is possible that percentages are as you wrote. But let's note that percent of German surnames was significantly higher than percent of people with ethnic German origin, because German was the main language and German surnames - especially great majority of occupational surnames - were overrepresented. Many could be also Germanized through translation.

I agree...

PS. The map above is much better than previous map which states that Sambia Peninsula = "Lithuanian areas lost to Germanization (1600s-1940s) and Soviet genocide (1940s)".

Domen · Jan 8, 2015

Takhisis said:
Are they including literal translations of Prussian names into German and/or Latin there, or only phonetic adaptations?

Good example of a person with a surname translated into German (but from Polish, not from Prussian) was general Nikolaus von Falkenhorst (1885 - 1968), who was born as von Jastrzembski and modified his surname to von Falkenhorst on 6 June 1911, in order to facilitate his military career.

=================================

According to the author of that study about surnames in the Lidzbark district in 1500-1772, occupational surnames were usually derived from German language (main language in this region), regardless of ethnicity of their bearers. Thus for example a Prussian-speaking or other Non-German woodcutter could still have surname "Holzhacker", etc. So occupational surnames are not necessarily the best indicator of ethnicity. Some types of surnames are not very good indicators of ethnic origin, some other types are much better indicators. Most likely surnames derived from given names are good indicators of ethnicity (provided that they are derived from given names typical for some ethnic group - for example typically Prussian, typically German, etc. given names).

But even when surnames are good indicators of ethnic origin, they still only indicate what ethnicity a family had at that particular period of time, when they adopted such a surname. Therefore if ethnic assimilation and change of language took place before common usage of surnames, then surnames will not reflect deep ("ancient") ethnic ancestry, from times before the adoption of new language. This was the case e.g. in East Tyrol.

Excerpts from a study tracing Roman ancestry of East Tyroleans:

With regard to the landscape's paramount role in human migration, settlement and occupation, East Tyrol can be considered a typical alpine region. However, unlike other European alpine regions, East Tyrol is unique in that members of the Romance, the Slavic and the Germanic speaking language groups simultaneously occupied this area for several centuries.

To gain a more complete understanding of the complex cultural and demographic processes that shaped the present-day East Tyrolean population, an examination of the sparse historical, archaeological, and linguistic facts is necessary.

At about 15 before Common Era the “Kingdom of Noricum”, to which the area of East Tyrol belonged, accepted the suzerainty of the Roman Empire [1]. The most important city in the study area was Aguntum, a pre-Roman settlement that received its town charter “Municipium Claudium Aguntum” at about 41/54 [2]. The time of first Roman settlement falls within this period as well. The first reference to Slavic and Germanic (Bavarian) presence in the area of East Tyrol is given by the Lombardic historian Paulus Diaconus, who reports a battle between these two ethnic groups in 610 [3]. The fighting took place near the city of Aguntum, which was completely destroyed and never rebuilt (its ruins are located ~4 km to the east of the town of Lienz). (...) Romance speaking inhabitants, however, remained in the more rural regions of East Tyrol.

The situation from the middle of the 7th century onward was characterized by a more or less peaceful coexistence of the three ethnic groups with steadily growing colonization pressure from the Bavarian people [4].

The point in time at which the Romance and Slavic languages were completely replaced by the Bavarian dialect of the Germanic language group can likely only be established with linguistic methods. Conversion of older field names into German and linguistic borrowings (foreign words) reveals that at the end of the 14th century Romance speaking people were restricted to very few isolated areas (especially in Kals and in the very south of East Tyrol at the Venetian border). The last traces of the Slavic speaking population can be found at about the same time in the north of East Tyrol (especially in the Virgen and Kals valleys, Figure 1). Since then, the entire East Tyrolean population has spoken only German, or more specifically, a Bavarian dialect. Neither a Slavic (Slovenian) minority language group like in the adjacent province of Carinthia (Austria) nor a Romance (Ladin) minority language group like in the adjacent province South Tyrol (Alto Adige, Italy) is to be found (Fig. 1).

This transition to a linguistically homogeneous population could be explained by either cultural diffusion or by the range expansion of the Germanic speaking people and replacement of the long-term resident Slavic and Romance speaking populations over time. In the case of cultural diffusion, genetic signatures of the originally non-Germanic speaking people might be still detectable in East Tyrol.

(...)

Here, we attempt to shed light on the significance of complex historical events on the present-day Y chromosome variation in the highly structured alpine area of East Tyrol by linking molecular genetic data with a linguistic perspective.

(...)

Onomastic analysis of the probands' family names revealed no indication of significant immigration to East Tyrol from the Romance speaking neighbouring areas since the common usage of surnames in the 14th century.

(...)

In East Tyrol the completion of the transition to an entirely Germanic speaking population took place before the utilization of surnames was custom in all social classes [34], [35]. As a result, the analysis of family names is unlikely to shed light on the early times of settlement. Accordingly, the examination of the blood-donors' family names revealed no names with Romance etymons. (...) all [at least 93% up to 100%] of the East Tyrolean blood-donors' surnames were adopted from the German speaking population.

(...)

The question of whether or not the segmentation of East Tyrol during its early history of settlement, as deduced by the frequency distribution of the Romance etymons of pasture names, still correlates with the Y-chromosomal landscape in present-day East Tyrol, can be positively answered for the region of ancient Roman main settlement (region A), even centuries after the Romance language was completely replaced by the Bavarian dialect brought to East Tyrol by the Germanic speaking people.

Our results suggest cultural diffusion rather than population replacement as the underlying mechanism for the complete transition from a Romance to a Germanic speaking population in the southwestern part of East Tyrol.

As you can see, East Tyroleans from the formerly Latin-speaking region are largely descendants of Latin-speaking ancient population, even though all of them have surnames of Germanic linguistic origin - because surnames in this region were not in use before the total linguistic shift from Latin-speaking population to German-speaking one.

When it comes to areas of East Tyrol formerly inhabited by Slavic-speaking Medieval Slovenes - results turned out to be unclear. The reason for this is most likely because the authors of this 2012 study failed to choose representative Slavic reference populations - as reference populations they chose only people from Croatia and Southern Poland, while no people from Slovenia, Slovakia, Bosnia, Serbia and Czech Republic were included - whereas a more recent study (from 2014) shows that Croats, Czechs and Southern Poles are very much different in terms of Y-chromosomal landscape than Slovenes (who cluster much more closely with Slovaks, Bosniaks, Serbs and Ukrainians from some regions):

http://www.plosone.org/annotation/listThread.action?root=85110

The main difference between the formerly Romance-speaking region of East Tyrol and the formerly Slavic-speaking region is, that in the formerly Romance-speaking region in the sample of blood-donors haplogroup R1a (R-M17) was completely absent, totally unlike in the formerly Slavic-speaking region (region B), where it amounted to 16%:

The western border of the geographic expansion of haplogroup R-M17 Y chromosomes is to be found in Central Europe and largely follows the political border separating present-day Poland (57% [but according to 2014 study by Underhill only 46%; so perhaps ~50% depending on sample]) and Germany (East: ~30%, South: ~14%, West: ~10%) (...) In South Italy and in West Europe R-M17 chromosomes are not present at informative frequencies. In this study (...) haplogroup R-M17 was completely absent in the East Tyrolean sub-sample from region A, but made up to 16% in region B. This result remained practically unchanged when assigning the probands to their respective fathers' or grandfathers' places of birth/residence (Fig. 3).

Carolus I · Jan 9, 2015

Domen said:
Germanization turned Prussians from relatively peaceful Balts into Germans:

Well, the Prussians were relatively peaceful:

This picture shows the execution of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalbert_of_Prague#Mission_and_martyrdom_in_Prussia who tried to christianize the Prussians.

Prussians

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The fargone

JS, secretly Rod Serling

¡Patria y vida!

Nobody

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¡Patria y vida!

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Chieftain

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