A couple of recent posts from Joel at Far Outliers; both of them start “My latest newsletter from Culture.pl contains a link to several observations by Janusz R. Kowalczyk about linguistic variation within Poland.”
There are two official languages in our country: Polish and Kashubian. In addition, we have dialects: Masovian, Lesser Poland dialect, Greater Poland dialect, Silesian, mixed ones in the east of the country and new mixed dialects in the west and north. These are divided into several dozen regionalisms; some of them occur in only a few towns, so they even more so deserve tender care.
…
In the north of Poland, students learn Kashubian in school. They can take the secondary school exit exam in this language. Official signs of the region’s institutions and local information have versions in the two languages.
Why did Kashubians specifically get the privilege of having their speech recognized as a separate language? Mainly because it is much less understandable than others. Hardworking Kashubians have created a grammar of their language, published literary works as well as textbooks and dictionaries in it.
(More details and examples at link.)
An excellent example of the Silesian dialect can be found in Stanisław Ligoń’s ‘Gowa. Łozmyślania filozoficzne’ (The Head: Philosophical Musings), included in his Bery i bojki śląskie (Silesian Jokes and Fairy Tales), published by Śląsk Publishers, Katowice, 1980.
[There follows a quote with translation and glossary.]
As any Polish speaker can see, the Silesian dialect (or, according to a growing group of researchers, the Silesian language) has many expressions that differ from Polish vocabulary. The beginning of the formation of the Silesian dialect dates back to the period of district division, which took place approximately 800 years ago.
Like any language, it has undergone transformations over time. It has split into many local varieties. Nowadays, there are four main Silesian dialects, in at least several dozen specific regionalisms. Silesian is to a large degree an Old Polish language. It contains words and phrases that were used in the past throughout Poland but are now generally forgotten.
I first became aware of Kashubian from reading Die Blechtrommel, where the narrator’s mother’s family speak it.
(I think I’d describe the book as “brilliant but repellent”, which may quite possibly be just what Grass was aiming at.)
Yeah, might put you off eating eels.
Re Silesian, I believe speakers of the (now extinct?) German Silesian lect called the Slavic lect “wasserpolnisch”.
I think I’d describe the book as “brilliant but repellent”, which may quite possibly be just what Grass was aiming at.
That’s my memory of it (and describes its author as well).
Free Kashubia! Or Cassubia Libera, for those who think Latinate forms more suitable for the dignity of such aspirations. Presumably some of the distinctive nature of Kashubian stems from its speakers having been under Prussian rule from fairly early on, which probably separated them in some relevant ways from standardization movements within Polish.
That was (part of?) Mazurian at the opposite end of Poland.
Yeah, might put you off eating eels.
I saw the movie. The scene with the eels I still remember. Certainly put me off reading the book.
From the Grimms’ dictionary:
Wasserpolack, Wasserpole
https://woerterbuchnetz.de/?sigle=DWB&lemid=W09121
wasserpolnisch
https://woerterbuchnetz.de/?sigle=DWB&lemid=W09125
It’s transparently Ковалчик, as in the diminutive of Smith, to me? As a L1 speaker of Bulgarian? Maybe I’m wrong but…
Yep.
It might very well be true that Śląsk Publishers published Gowa in Katowice in 1980 and that it was its first print edition, but it is also true that Stanisław Ligoń (in Polish, but don’t despair, there is a Russian version) has died in 1954. I cannot quite get what was the first edition of Bery i bojki śląskie. The earliest I can find is 1932, but that clearly is not the final version. The first one that looks like a book was printed in 1944 in (wait for it) Jerozolima. The first posthumous edition (not necessarily a complete one, but at least the author was forced to stop writing) is 1957, same Katowice, same Śląsk. There is something on internet with a claim of 1931 edition, but the date is not printed on a page available for viewing and I remain skeptical.
And by the way, I set out to find how gowa lost its “l”, but failed.
@D.O.
L-vocalization has shifted the [ɫ] to [w], which in turn assimilated to next vowel.
@original post
I find it rather disappointing, as it seems to be very unfocused and all over the place. I think that if author has at least described the features present in provided quotes and used them to highlight dialectal differences, then his article would be somewhat more informative than confusing.
Citation needed. I get what reasoning might motivate this statement, but he does not delve into any details.
@Sęk skit
Kowalczyk quotes it extensively, but in the end fails to convey why it is funny. Take a look at this line and tell me, if you get the joke:
@dm, M
Thanks for clarifying the term wasserpolnisch; I was unaware especially of the nastier connotations under the related word in Grimm. I think my memory of the usage in Silesia was from this book:
https://www.amazon.de/Vom-Gl%C3%BCck-Hrdlak-gekannt-haben/dp/3442436060
Maybe DM knows Janosch for his children’s books.
Sorry, right author, wrong book:
https://archive.org/details/cholonekoderderl0000jano
it seems to be very unfocused and all over the place.
Yeah, I had the same reaction. I posted it because it dealt with interesting material I didn’t know about, but I wish it had been better written.
We had a thread on LH which I couldn’t find now, about the weirdly named medieval Slavic principality in the Oder area, which probably touched on Kashubian antiquities and the changed way the language was treated by the post-WWII Poland (first denied existence, then extensively supported).
Kashubian culture already took a disproportionate hit under the Nazi occupation when the Reich claimed Pomeranian lands as its own and initiated ethnic cleansing from wide-ranging extermination of all educated Slavs in the area, what’s now known as the Pomeranian Crime.
Last year, a forensic archaeology paper came out, trying, 85 years later, to put some names on the victims of the mass executions
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/an-archaeology-of-the-pomeranian-crime-of-1939-collecting-the-material-evidence/F7F4FC86CC62AAE4D088B33005C4680B
Nachasz, dziękuję bardzo. Should have guessed it myself…
About that telephone joke. Not speaking Silesian or Polish, I would guess that number 3 (trzi), pronounced like “tshree” (I took it from Google AI Overview) is closed to Polish czy /ˈt͡ʂɘ/ “what?”. Silesian doesn’t use interrogative czy, which probably adds to confusion.
We had a thread on LH which I couldn’t find now, about the weirdly named medieval Slavic principality in the Oder area,
OBOTRITES ?
@D.O.
I believe that no Silesians were harmed in making of this skit, but otherwise you are on the right track. Standard Polish contrasts stop–fricative clusters and affricates, so the number 333 is supposed to be pronounced as /ˈtʂɘ.sta tʂɘˈd͡ʑɛɕ.t͡ɕi tʂɘ/, however in case of Sęk there are only affricates instead: /ˈt͡ʂɘ.sta t͡ʂɘˈd͡ʑɛɕ.t͡ɕi ˈt͡ʂɘ/
This merger occurs in case of some Lesser Polish varieties, so I find it funny that author did not highlighted this joke. Considering his background, he must have encountered such pronounciation quite often.
@Dmitry Prus
One of these?
@some more Kashubian material
Gramatika kaszëbsczégò jãzëka by Hana Makùrôt (Hanna Makurat). Excerpt regarding vowels:
Oops! I misunderstood it in context. “Silesian”, “Polish as spoken in the river-shipping business” and “any Polish dialect in Prussia” it is, then.
Yes!
That may be fine as a phonemic interpretation; phonetically, however, things are rather more fascinating.
D.O. : In (mostly western) Bulgarian unpalatalised “л” is also currently undergoing vocalization. Or I guess, semi-vocalisation? Something approximating /w/. I’m in my forties and in seventh or eight grade that was considered a speech impediment and to be ridiculed. It’s much more common now. Only before back vowels, though.