Spit Curonian

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Spit Curonian

Spoken in

Germany
speaker ~ 7
Linguistic
classification

Nehrungskurisch (Nehrungskurisch: kursisk valuod , Latvian kursenieku valoda ) is an East Baltic language that was spoken by fishermen on the Curonian Spit (then East Prussia ) until 1945 . It is a Latvian dialect with strong influences from the Lithuanian , Low German and German languages . There is no direct connection to the presumably West Baltic Old Kurish language .

Origin and historical-sociological development

Language area of ​​the Nehrungskurischen 1649 - hatched areas where it was no longer spoken at the beginning of the 20th century

Contrary to outdated hypotheses of the 19th century, which are still often passed on, Nehrungskurisch is neither a remnant of the old West Baltic Prussian language , nor the old West Baltic Curonian language , both of which have not been spoken for centuries, but is closest to the East Baltic Latvian language and is classified either as a Latvian dialect or as a separate East Baltic language.

After the end of the long border wars of the Teutonic Order against the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , which devastated the border regions on both sides, in the Peace of Lake Melno in 1422 and finally in the Second Peace of Thor in 1466, the necessity arose from the end of the 15th century, which almost depopulated To gradually repopulate " Great Wilderness " in the north, east, south and on the coast of the Teutonic Order State of Prussia. Only the central areas had a constant population of German-speaking populations, into which the old Prussian-West Baltic population assimilated up to the 17th century . To repopulate the "Great Wilderness", in addition to some German settlers in the 16-17 Century BC a. in the north and east Lithuanian farmers (" Prussian Lithuania "), in the south Polish farmers (" Masuria "), often Protestant emigrants before the Catholic Counter-Reformation in Poland and Lithuania, brought into the country, on the coast fishermen from what is now western Latvia located region of Courland . These "cures" (nehrungskurisch: Kursenieki , Latvian: kursi, Kurši ) spoke no longer the old West Baltic Curonian language , but mittellettische East Baltic dialects, which until the 15th century by immigration from Latgale and Zemgale had replaced the altkurische language in Kurland. As is known from historical source evaluations, the Curonian-Latvian fishing villages spread from the 14th to 17th centuries. Century gradually over the Curonian and Lithuanian coast, the Curonian Spit and some villages on the inside of the Curonian Lagoon , over the coast of Samland and the Fresh Lagoon to the coast east of Gdansk . In the 17th century, all sea fishing in this region was in the hands of Curon fishermen. Nehrungskurisch is therefore often characterized as the sociolect of the Baltic Sea fishermen in the region, while the farmers in the interior spoke Polish, German or Lithuanian. According to Andreas Kossert , this expansion of Curonian fishermen began west of the Riga Bay . Therefore, there was no linguistic continuity with the southern tribes of the ancient Kurds . The Prussian-Lithuanian border areas (Western Samogitia and Lithuania Minor ) were largely depopulated in the 15th century and were then mostly repopulated by Lithuanian farmers, which of course does not exclude individual and individual family contacts with the previous population.

From the 17th century onwards, Kurish was gradually assimilated and pushed back through marriages and contacts with the hinterland. In some regions the custom developed for the men to speak Curonian on their fishing trips, at home, on the other hand, German or Lithuanian was spoken and many technical terms relating to sea fishing in Prussia came from Curonian, which promoted the classification as a sociolect of sea fishermen. Only in the fishing villages of the Curonian Spit, Curonian remained a widely used language until the Second World War. In the 19th century, therefore, the name "Nehrungskurisch" was formed. In the early 1920s, Latvia briefly made political claims to the remote spit, the language of which was understandable for Latvian visitors. With the flight and expulsion of the Germans from East Prussia, the Nehrung Kurische population, who also spoke German, were expelled westwards as "Germans" or fled beforehand.

A dying language

In 1945 there were at least 245 families who spoke Curonian. After the expulsion, the native speakers lived in Germany. In 2002 seven speakers were known. However, these data refer to only one source.

Richard Pietsch (1915–2007), formerly a horse postman with only left hand on the single horse carriage, insurance agent and later in the Bundeswehr administration, was in 2001 the last writer of the Nehrungskurischen. He only knew one man, also old, who spoke the language but did not write.

Language example

The Lord's Prayer in Curonian:

   Teve mūses, kur tu es danguj,
   Garbiets ir taue vards.
   Lai nāke taue karelīste.
   Taue vale nuoase duoade ka is dange, ta ir us zeme.
   Mūse diene maize duoade mums šuoadiene.
   Ir paduoade mums mūse kalte,
   Ka ir mes paduoadame mūsams kaltejams.
   Ir nevede mums is pajundijuma,
   Islidze mums nu piktume.
   Tad taue ir ta kareliste un ta sile un ta šviesibe
   Nu amžu lidz amžu. Amen

literature

Dictionaries

  • Paul Kwauka, Richard Pietsch: Curonian dictionary . Camen, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-921515-03-3 (= Nordost-Archiv , Volume 13).
  • Richard Pietsch: German-Curonian Dictionary . Nordostdeutsches Kulturwerk, Lüneburg 1991, ISBN 3-922296-60-2 (= publication series Nordost-Archiv , Volume 33) 463 pp.

Publications in the Curonian language

  • Richard Pietsch: Fishermen's life on the Curonian Spit. Shown in Curonian and German . Nordostdeutsches Kulturwerk, Lüneburg 1982 (= Nordost-Archiv series of publications , volume 20)

Manual article

  • Harald Haarmann : Kurisch . In: Miloš Okuka , Gerald Krenn (Hrsg.): Lexicon of the languages ​​of the European East . Klagenfurt 2002, ISBN 3-85129-510-2 , p. 957 (= Wieser Encyclopedia of the European East , Volume 10) uni-klu.ac.at (PDF) on the website of the Encyclopedia of the European East

Linguistic research

  • Wolfgang P. Schmid , in collaboration with I. Bernowskis (Ed.): Nehrungskurisch. Linguistic history and instrumentalphonetic studies on a dying dialect . (= Treatises of the humanities and social science class. Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart
  • Christliebe El Mogharbel: Nehrungskurisch, documentation of a moribund language. Hector, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-9801832-8-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andreas Kossert : East Prussia: Myth and History. Munich 2007, p. 192.
  2. Information on historical-sociological development cf. Andreas Kossert : East Prussia: Myth and History. Munich 2007, pp. 190–195.
  3. The old man and the language . In: ruprecht , No. 80, November 5, 2002; Retrieved May 12, 2007
  4. Richard Pietsch . Dutch Wikipedia
  5. Jens Sparschuh: The last elk . ( Memento of the original from August 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 20090314 09h05-10h00 on ORF Radio Ö1 - audio images, coproduction 2001 by SFB, SWF and others @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / oe1.orf.at