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.