Palatinate language island on the Lower Rhine
The Palatine linguistic island in the Lower Rhine is an area at the left Niederrhein , one in which since the mid-18th century migrants spoken dialect, of the Palatine is associated, because the settlers from the historic Kurpfalz came. Because of their Protestant faith, the newcomers did not mix with the local Catholic population, so elements of their original cultural independence, such as their dialect and customs , have been preserved to the present day.
geography
The language island is located in the far west of Germany to the left of the Lower Rhine to the Dutch border on the Lower Rhine ridge between the cities of Goch , Kalkar and Kleve .
designation
The expression “Palatine” is deceptive; The only thing the emigrants had in common with today's Palatinate was the Wittelsbach rule, which ruled the Electoral Palatinate for centuries. Their language, which they later called "Pälzersch", also differed and differs fundamentally from the dialects that are assigned to the Palatinate by linguistics .
history
Departure and stranding
In May 1741 a large group of emigrants from the Upper Palatinate authorities of Kreuznach an der Nahe and Simmern in the Hunsrück - today both cities are in Rhineland-Palatinate - wanted to emigrate to the North American colony of Pennsylvania via Rotterdam . They tried to avoid the bad economic situation, the armed conflicts and the religious disadvantage in their homeland; for there they had the denomination of their sovereigns (who after the Reformation had partly professed Lutheranism , partly Calvinism ), but they lived in a predominantly Catholic environment.
Because of the naval war between England and Spain , however, not all those wishing to leave have been given a passage to America since 1740. This led to overpopulation and impoverishment in the European port cities. The Dutch border guards in particular were therefore instructed to only allow emigrants into the country who could prove a ship passage to North America. For this reason, the group of emigrants from the Electorate of the Palatinate was stopped at the Dutch border fortress Schenkenschanz in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia . Negotiations with an English ship's captain failed because the emigrants considered the price too high and did not accept it.
The Rhine boatmen, who were supposed to bring the group of emigrants further to Rotterdam, did not agree with their ships being anchored at the Prussian- Dutch border and demanded their payment. The resettlers then occupied the ships and only released them again after the war and domain chamber in Kleve had been requested to evacuate them.
Settlement
Then 20 families with around 120 people decided not to emigrate and asked for land to be transferred on site. Your request was forwarded to the Prussian magistrates and judges of Emmerich , Goch, Huissen and Kleve. The city of Goch owned the Gocher Heide, a 10,000- acre site that was given to it in 1458 by Arnold von Egmond , Duke of Geldern . This land was made available to the Electoral Palatinate, who called themselves "Palatinate". It was only about 250 km from their home.
In the years that followed, the emigrants had to struggle with initial financial difficulties, which led to repeated expulsions. They therefore turned to King Frederick the Great with a petition , who on April 30, 1743, gave the War and Domain Chamber of Kleve and the Goch magistrate in a special order to support the settlers.
Church planting
- Pfalzdorf
The settlement area in the Gocher Heide has been called Pfalzdorf since 1749 . After the first successes of the colonists, the Prussian authorities developed an interest in further immigrants. By 1771 other families settled there, almost exclusively from the Hunsrück area. After that the heather ground was almost completely taken.
The long-term lease agreement between the settlements did not allow for sale or division; that is why many children born afterwards saw the only way out in emigration again. The first wave of emigration took place in the Bönninghardt near Sonsbeck , the Königshardt near Oberhausen , the Asperheide near Goch and into the more distant East Frisia .
- Louisendorf
When the East Frisian settlement area was exhausted at the beginning of the 19th century, but the problem persisted, it was proposed to settle the Kalkar Forest. On September 30, 1820, Friedrich Wilhelm III signed. the cabinet order , after which the colony's arrangement became legally binding. At the request of the colonists, the new settlement was to be named Louisendorf after Queen Luise .
- Neulouisendorf
Since not all those willing to settle could be considered when settling Louisendorf, another wooded area was considered in 1826. On December 31, 1827, King Friedrich Wilhelm signed the cabinet order for the establishment of Neulouisendorf . On June 4, 1832 the colonies were assigned and settlement began. Contrary to the planning as an extension of the Louisendorf settlement, Neulouisendorf became an independent community.
Consolidation
In Pfalzdorf a reformed church was consecrated as early as 1775 and a Lutheran church on October 29, 1779. Before 1800 the place received a Mairie ; for in the wake of the French Revolution the German areas on the left bank of the Rhine were occupied by the French in 1797/98 and were then part of the neighboring state until 1815. A Catholic church was consecrated on September 11, 1811. This expansion of the infrastructure, which also made it easier for Catholics who had moved there to practice their religion, contributed to the community's extensive autonomy.
Louisendorf has belonged to the Till office since it was founded. However, it established its own Protestant parish, whose Elizabeth Church was inaugurated on November 13, 1861.
Neulouisendorf was part of the city of Kalkar. Here, too, a separate Protestant parish was established. The Protestant church in Neulouisendorf was consecrated on June 7, 1898.
With the 1st municipal reorganization program in North Rhine-Westphalia on July 1, 1969, Pfalzdorf became a district of Goch, and Louisendorf belonged to that part of the Till office that was incorporated into Bedburg-Hau .
Self-reliance
religion
The Protestant denomination separated the “Palatinate” from the Catholic area. There were hardly any marriages of different denominations, so that traditional “Palatinate” family names such as Puff , Hans , Saueressig , Imig and Thomas have been preserved to this day. Elements of the customs were also passed on, e.g. B. the mention of the surname before the first name ( i.e. Imigs Fritz and not Fritz Imig ). On the other hand, Catholic customs that were widespread in the Lower Rhine region, such as caroling on Epiphany or celebrating Carnival , were not adopted.
language
By settling in a small area, the "Palatinate" became a minority group that cultivated and developed its own dialect. This was promoted by the marriage policy already mentioned and by the establishment of its own elementary schools, which existed until the 1940s. Originally, the settlers had language peculiarities due to their different regional origins: Bad Kreuznach and Simmern are about 35 km apart and are separated by the 650 m high Soonwald ; Simmern belongs more to the Moselle Franconian , Kreuznach to the Rhine Franconian language area. In the settlement area, over time, both dialects became a general dialect, the "Pälzersch", which also included features of the surrounding Lower Franconian and Ripuarian dialects. The Pälzersch is still spoken regularly by the older residents today. The younger population usually switches to High German when they start school and loses their dialect skills. The preservation of the Pälzersch is therefore threatened. As a dialect poet and local historian is Jacob Imig emerged (1905-1994), after the returning to his collection Jakob Imig archive is named in Louisendorf and the LVR Institute for Geography and Regional History in Bonn as "de [n] most famous [ n] Pfälzer "from the Lower Rhine Palatinate language island.
literature
- Emil Böhmer: Language and founding history of the Palatinate Colony on the Lower Rhine . Dissertation. Marburg 1909 ( online ).
- Peter Honnen , Cornelia Forstreuter: Language islands in the Rhineland . A documentation of the Palatinate dialect on the lower Rhine and the " Hötter Platt " in Düsseldorf-Gerresheim (= Rhenish dialects . Volume 7 ). Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-7927-1456-6 (with a CD ).
- Barbara Mott: Palatine on the Lower Rhine . The history of the Palatinate settlements Pfalzdorf, Louisendorf and Neulouisendorf as part of the Prussian inland colonization of the 18th and 19th centuries. Völkersche Buchdruckerei and Buchhandlung, Goch and Kalkar 1989.
- René Schiering : On the documentation of the Pälzersch in Pfalzdorf, Louisendorf and Neulouisendorf (Lower Rhine) . Report of a two-week field research stay. In: Society for Threatened Languages (ed.): GBS Bulletin 10 . S. 7–15 ( online [PDF] 419 kB).
Web links
- The Palatinate dialect island on the Lower Rhine with audio samples on the website of the LVR Institute for Regional Studies and Regional History
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Emil Böhmer: History of the language and founding of the Palatinate Colony on the Lower Rhine , 1909.
- ↑ a b c d Barbara Mott: Pfälzer am Niederrhein , 1989.
- ↑ a b Helmut Lange: The desert will become a field ( memento of August 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), June 23, 2006.
- ↑ Martin Bünermann: The communities of the first reorganization program in North Rhine-Westphalia . Deutscher Gemeindeverlag, Cologne 1970.
- ↑ Information on the Jakob Imig archive .
- ^ LVR Institute for Regional Studies and Regional History: Island dialects. The Palatinate dialect island on the Lower Rhine.
Coordinates: 51 ° 43 ′ 38.8 " N , 6 ° 12 ′ 28.3" E
