"Mysterious" Poles in Kreis Kalau, Provinz Brandenburg, German 1900 census

[Domen]

And below is the text of the "Statutes of Lithuania" from 1529 - it is perhaps in Old Belarussian language, I can also understand a lot from it:

Probably our Russian users would also understand a lot from it, though.

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

Edit:

According to English wikipedia, this is "Old Chancery Slavonic" (but maybe this is just another name for "Old Belarussian", who knows):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutes_of_Lithuania

When I clicked the link to "Old Chancery Slavonic", wikipedia article about "Ruthenian language" showed up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruthenian_language

Most actually speak mixed dialects

They are known under the collective name Surzhyk:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surzhyk

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

BTW - when it comes to Slavic languages.

Most of scholars assume that early in history - ca. year 400 AD - there was only one Slavic language (perhaps already with several dialects, but all of them very similar to each other). Later, with the expansion of Slavic tribes in all directions, Slavic language diversified and new languages and dialects emerged.

And of course later, as you wrote, national languages became standardized and many regional dialects disappeared, while some of them still exist.

However, most of Slavic languages are still quite similar to each other, even though not mutually intelligible.

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

Among the earliest written "artifcats" of Slavic are those in Glagolitsa (Old Church Slavonic), but also the Freising Manuscript, written in Latin alphabet.

Here one guy attempts to read fragments from the Freising Manuscript loudly (but we can't be sure that his pronunciation is correct):

BTW - the title of the video says "Old Pannonian", but in fact the Freising Manuscript is from the Alpine region of Slavia.

So this is in fact what we can call "Old Slovenian", spoken by Slavic tribes from the area of what is now Slovenia and southern Austria:


Link to video.

But this could as well be the "state language" of the Slavic state of Carantania, so already a very early example of an "elite construct":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carantania

 

[Pangur Bán]

The language was thought of as 'Russian', but you can't call it that now because Muscovy later expanded into this territory and marginalized its elite and population, replacing the 'Lithuanian' standard with their own.

 

[Domen]

if they had been doing so under the pan-Slav fantasy imagined in the 19th century rather than Communist world system, it is very possible Bulgarians could have been learning their own Slavic (properly spoke of course).

Well, the original Old Church Slavonic was based - as it is believed - on Slavic dialects from the area of Salonica.

So it was probably more similar to the language which is today spoken by Slavic Macedonians, than to Bulgarian language.

I don't know how much modern Macedonian language is similar to modern Bulgarian language, to be honest.

I know that Serbian and Croatian languages are very similar. It actually used to be classified as one, Serbo-Croatian language in the past.

The example of Serbs and Croats proves that speaking almost the same language is not an obstacle to being extremely hostile to each other...

 

[Pangur Bán]

Bulgarians will tell you Macedonian is glorified peasant speech.

Croatian and Serbian are definitely not distinct languages, they're not even different dialects ... just the same standard dialect with artificial variations of lexicon.

 

[Domen]

I know that Bulgarian nationalists claim that modern Macedonians are in fact Bulgarians (just like Russians claim that Ukrainians are Russians).

But what is funny is that the Kievan Rus had capital city in Kiev - which is now in Ukraine, not in Russia.

So Russians are perhaps angry at Ukrainians because they know that in fact Ukrainians "deserve" more of the original heritage of Kievan Rus.

So maybe Ukrainians are not Russians but Russians are Ukrainians instead? Or something like this.

Anyway, these historical arguments on "who was the original whom" are always kind of funny.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Early Ukrainian nationalists often denied that Muscovites were actually proper Russians, but Tartarised degenerations from the ancient Rus. Unfortunnately for them Muscowy was one of the great world powers and the world uses the name for the Muscovite state and its successors. Ukrainians had to be content with being Malorussians before casting off the label entirely.

 

[Domen]

All of them were descendants of inhabitants of Kievan Rus, but only those from Muscovy "stole" the name "Russia" for themselves.

 

[Domen]

deleted

 

[TheLastOne36]

I find the argument on both sides dumb.

The Rus' ended with the Mongol invasions. From that point on the various Rus' principalities and their descendants embarked on their own historical and cultural paths.

It is like suggesting that modern France should claim heritage to the Merovingians.

 

[Domen]

Indeed.

And actually S. H. Plater in a book from 1825 wrote interesting things about the Rusyns (Rusini).

He wrote for example that Rusyns were a "dialect continuum" because they inhabited huge territory. He wrote that language spoken by Belarussians, Rusyns from Grodno Governorate and Rusyns from Minsk Governorate*, was very similar to Polish. He counts this language as a dialect of Polish. On the other hand, he wrote that language of Rusyns from Volhynia, Podolia and Kiev Governorates of the Russian Empire was more similar to "Cossack language" than to Polish.

*Today Rusyns from all 3 regions are called Belarusians, but for Plater apparently Rusyns from Grodno Region and Minsk Region were not Belarusians?

Among what we call Eastern Slavs (but he didn't use this name in his book from 1825), Plater distinguished 3 groups:

Russians - 28 million people
Rusyns - 8 million people
Cossacks - 1 million people

But then he wrote what I already described above - that Rusyns were a "dialect continuum", and he counted some of them as dialects of Polish.

See also:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=522658

 

[warpus]

Incidentally, to help you with a misunderstanding, the name Allemania for Germany is an innovation of the central middle ages. Allemania then meant Swabia, and because Swabians ruled 'Germany' it was natural for the French to employ that term. Italian preserves the older Romance word for Germans.

Interesting, in Poland "Swabians" is (or was?) a perojative for "Germans"

 

[Traitorfish]

Damn Swabians. They ruined Swabia!

 

[Pangur Bán]

The Hohenstaufen must have given them a bad name, perhaps it was all that anti-pope stuff.

 

[Domen]

the name Allemania for Germany is an innovation of the central middle ages. Allemania then meant Swabia

Because Alemannic language was spoken by inhabitants of Swabia (in fact Old Swabian was just a dialect of Old Alemannic):

Our Father in Old Alemannic:

http://bitterscroll.podomatic.com/entry/2006-08-09T16_41_17-07_00

Fater unseer,
thu pist in himile,
uuihi namun dinan,
qhueme rihhi din,
uuerde uuillo din,
so in himile sosa in erdu.
prooth unseer emezzihic kip uns hiutu,
oblaz uns sculdi unseero,
so uuir oblazem uns sculdikem,
enti ni unsih firleiti in khorunka,
uzzer losi unsih fona ubile.

Map showing the area where Old Alemannic was spoken (yellow area):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language#Origins

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...g/549px-AlthochdeutscheSprachräume962_Box.jpg

https://www.google.pl/search?q=Old+...e_rd=ctrl&ei=k140U7zcKcKS_AaRhYHABw&gws_rd=cr

http://multitree.org/codes/goh-ale.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_Alemannic_German

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alemannic_German

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German

 

[Pangur Bán]

'Old Alemannic' is just a made-up modern name derived from that Latin name for Swabia. If you said 'Old Swabian' you might piss off some, for instance, Swiss Germans. These faux historic dialects with fixed borders are all nonsense, but doubtlessly some variant standardized tongues occurred across similar regions.

 

[Domen]

'Old Alemannic' is just a made-up modern name derived from that Latin name for Swabia.

I posted an actual prayer in this language (if you click the link, you can also listen to it), and you still deny its existence?

Old Swabian was a dialect of Old Alemannic.

So not all Alemannians were Swabians, but all Swabians were Alemannians.

These faux historic dialects with fixed borders are all nonsense

Did I ever claim that those dialects had FIXED BORDERS ???

Of course that borders of languages and dialects are quite fluent both in time and space, and I never claimed otherwise.

 

[Domen]

Regarding the Lusatian Sorbs.

There are also some communities of Sorbian-Americans, for example this one in Texas:


Link to video.

Apart from Sorbs (some of whom still speak their original language today), there were also several other communities deep inside Germany who preserved their Slavic language for a very long time, even until the 1800s. One of them were the Drevani:

Even as late as the 1800s, the Czechs, contrary to popular myth, were not the most westward Slavic-speaking group.

That goes to the Drevani (who lived in the region of Drawehn / Wendland - check the map below), whose language survived until the 1800s:

There are even Drevani dictionaries from the 1700s (at that time this language still had ca. 15,000 speakers) and the 1800s:

"Die Wendländische Bauernchronik und ein Kleines Wendisches Lexicon" by Johann Parum Schultze (whose native language was Drevani).

And:

"Vollständiges Lüneburgisch-Wendisches Wörterbuch" by Johann Heinrich Jugler (published in 1809).

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

BTW - those Drevani-speaking people were subjects of King George I of Great Britain in period 1698 - 1727:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_I_of_Great_Britain

Johann Parum Schultze even described in his chronicle the reaction of Drevani when George I became their King.

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

Drawehn (later called Wendland) was not the only region deep inside Germany where Slavic language survived until the Early Modern Era.

Other similar regions were, for example:

1) Dertzink Region (in South-Western Mecklenburg)

2) Prignitz Region (see the map below):

And 3) Altmark:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altmark

However, after circa year 1600 Slavic language practically ceased to be in use in these three regions.

So between years 1600 and 1800 Drawehn was the westernmost area of Germany where Slavic language was still in common use.

Traditional Drevani wedding (some customs survived for some time after Germanization):

Drevani village of Karmitz in 1865:

Modern view:

 

[Pangur Bán]

I posted an actual prayer in this language (if you click the link, you can also listen to it), and you still deny its existence?

Old Swabian was a dialect of Old Alemannic.

So not all Alemannians were Swabians, but all Swabians were Alemannians.

No, that's modern nonsense. The text is from a German dialect of the region, the terminology and classification are modern. You need to learn to distinguish these things Domen.

 

[Domen]

The Alemanni were first mentioned (under this name!) by the Romans in 213 AD - not exactly "modern".

 

[Domen]

The text is from a German dialect of the region

Maybe German, maybe not - perhaps already a Non-German dialect:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_Alemannic_German

"(...) is often considered to be part of the German language, even though mutual intelligibility with Standard German and other non-Alemannic German dialects is very limited. (...)"