Pomeranian (German dialect group)
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Pomeranian (German: Pommersch) is a group of East Low German dialects named after Pomerania (Pommern). It is also known as pommersch Platt, or "Pomeranian Low German". It should not be confused with the West Slavic Pomeranian language (known as Pomoranisch in German).
[edit] History
By the early Middle Ages, Pomerania was largely populated by Slavic Pomeranians and Liuticians, who spoke the Pomeranian and Polabian languages. During the High Middle Ages, Germans from northern parts of the Holy Roman Empire settled in Pomerania as part of the medieval Ostsiedlung. Most Slavic Pomeranians gradually became Germanized. The new Pomeranian dialects which emerged from the admixture of the Low German dialects of the settlers are classified within East Low German.[1]
After World War II, Germans east of the Oder-Neisse line were expelled to post-war Germany. Most of the Pomeranian dialects have largely died out in the following decades as the expellees were assimilated into their new homes, although Pomeranian dialects are still spoken in Vorpommern (Western or Hither Pomerania), part of the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
As a result of German immigration to Brazil, there are still some communities speaking Pomeranian in Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Espírito Santo.[2]
[edit] Dialects
Pomeranian dialects formerly or currently spoken in Pomerania include:
- Westpommersch or Vorpommersch,[3] a variant of Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch,[4][5][3][1][6] spoken in Vorpommern (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern)
- Mittelpommersch,[5][3][1] sometimes grouped with (Märkisch-) Brandenburgisch,[6] spoken in the Lower Oder region
- East Pomeranian[6] (Ostpommersch[5][3][1] or Hinterpommersch,[1] now extinct)
- Westpreußisch (in West Prussia)
- Westhinterpommersch (in western Further Pomerania)
- Osthinterpommersch (in eastern Further Pomerania)
- Bublitzisch (in Bublitz, now Bobolice, Poland)
- Pommerellisch (in Pomerelia)
The German dialects of Pomerania are compiled in the Pommersche Wörterbuch ("Pomeranian Dictionary"), a dictionary of the German dialects spoken within the Province of Pomerania's borders in 1936.
Pomeranian dialects of East Low German are also spoken in Brazil (see Pomerode, Santa Catarina, and Santa Maria de Jetibá, Espírito Santo).
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e Werner Besch, Sprachgeschichte: Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung, 2nd edition, Walter de Gruyter, 1998, pp.2699ff, ISBN 3110158833
- ^ Renata Pinz Dietrich. "180 anos de Imigração Alemã" (in Portuguese). http://www.alfredosimon.com.br/~alemao/destaque.php?des=3. Retrieved on 2007-08-12.
- ^ a b c d Dieter Stellmacher, Niederdeutsche Sprache und Literatur der Gegenwart, Georg Olms Verlag, 2004, pp.48ff, ISBN 348712582X
- ^ D. A. Cruse, Franz Hundsnurscher, Michael Job, Peter Rolf Lutzeier, Lexikologie, Walter de Gruyter, 2002, p.1177. ISBN 3110113082
- ^ a b c Maik Lehmberg, Dieter Stellmacher, Sprache, sprechen, Sprichwörter: Festschrift für Dieter Stellmacher zum 65. Geburtstag, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004, p.83, ISBN 3515084592
- ^ a b c Stephen Barbour, Patrick Stevenson. Variation in German: A Critical Approach to German Sociolinguistics, 3rd edition, Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp.76,94, ISBN 0521357047
- This article incorporates information from the revision as of September 28, 2006 of the equivalent article on the German Wikipedia.
