Poland was a frontier country during the 1100s, 1200s, 1300s and into the 1400s. People poured into Poland from all over Europe. Especially before 1492, Poland was the great frontier where people could go and get rich. Merchants criss crossed the territories. And after the Union with Lithuania, the territory was immense. So it is all together believable that Flemish merchants might have started this community. I was just recently reading a good history of Poland and I posted my notes, and some excerpts, here:
Translated trying to use approximating modern Flemish-Dutch words ("slaap-voerde af" isn't really an existing word, but its meaning should be obvious).
ny ołys ej gułd, wos zih fynklt, glanct oba łiöeht?
Niet alles is geld, wat zo fonkelt, glanst vol{?} licht
All that glitters is not gold
Fylón yr wełt an ganc ałłán
Verloren in de wereld en gans alleen
Lost in the world and quite alone
ząs ych óm mjer óf hóhym śtán;
zat ik aan zee op een hoge steen
I sat down by the sea on a high stone.
der mond kąm raus hyndróm gybjég,
de maan kwam van ginder om de berg
the moon came up behind the mountain
szłyfyt myjch áj, wi s kynt yr wig.
slaap-voerde mij af, als een kind in de wieg
he puts me to sleep like a child in a cradle
As a Flemish speaker, the original tekst seems to be closer to German than (modern) Flemish.
Expressions like "ganz allein" seems more natural to German than "gans alleen" to Flemish.
But our language also evolved a lot, so probably this should be some study of the old language that was spoken here before they emigrated to Poland.
Interesting none the less.
On the other hand "mjer" was translated to "sea", which looks totally wrong from Flemish standpoint: zee=sea, meer=lake. If you say "mjer" to me, it sounds like "meer"(=lake), not "zee"(=sea).
From the listed words only two have immediately obvious Polish connotations (dźjada (grandpa), and dziadek is grandpa in Polish; śpjelik (sparrow), where śpiewać is "to sing"). Most words have German-ish sound to them, somewhat similar to Silesian subdialect of Polish (though Silesia was occupied by Germany, which is the reason for its influence). The spelling is mostly Polish-like, perhaps from older centuries though; except for some umlauts which clearly originate in German and similar.
Native dutch from the eastern part that has lived in the southern part too, now in Munich and knows (and speaks) quite a lot of dialects. This sounds like someone from Luxemburg would be better at understanding. It's a mixture of dutch spoken in Limburg (soft tones, not the "hard" r and g pronounciation that is typical for the western parts of the Netherlands) but also not that modern vlaams melody. I could understand it roundabout a sgood as when I hear someone speaking Afrikaans.
If it's any help, I speak pretty good dutch, some german, and some czech (which is similar to polish) and can only understand about 1/4 of this. Any native dutch speakers can feel free to chime in, but I don't think speaking dutch is a major advantage in understanding this.
I speak (Austrian) German and it sounds a lot more like a German dialect than Dutch to me (there are so many of them, though, this is not really saying an awful lot). Like the Dutch speakers who've chimed in, I don't understand much of it but can pick out enough words to tell where the other, incomprehensible words are.
Having listened to the above youtube video, I think resemblance to allemanic might be coincidental, as it is so often.
Judging from the pronunciation, I would also put some "idioms" of this dialect in Dutch/Flemish regions (there is maybe a distinct polish influence in there that throws one off?).
As so often for me, the written word it seems is way more understandable than the spoken word. I had the same experience with Swedish. Weird how some languages kept similarities in writing longer than similar pronunciation.
There are also a lot of strange tricks personal perception and familiarity play on you. I found this easier to listen to first and then listen and look at the text together later. I similarly find myself thrown for a loop whenever I see Viennese/Bavarian written. 'Wir sind' - easy to read and hear, 'mia san' easily matches up with the former when heard. 'Mia san' written down and for a moment I have no idea what I'm looking at. Feels weird to even type it out.
German influence. Before ~1918 area was a part of German language 'island' of Bielitz. A town nearby called Hałcnów had a similar local language that was much more similar to German.
The first fragment with the old woman sounds a bit more like Dutch or Low Saxon but with heavy German influence. The second clip with the young man sounds very much like a German dialect to me (Dutch native). Understanding either of them completely would take a lot of effort.
Theres plenty of linguistic oddities across Europe. On the opposite side of this (Slavs in Germany as opposed to Germans in Slavic countries) there's the Sorbs. Other isolated languages/peoples include the Cimbrians (German dialect in Italy), Istriot and Istriot-Romanian (Romance language in Croatia), Italiot-Greek, Arbëresh (Albanian dialects in Italy), Gagauz (Turkic dialect in Moldova), etc.
He is interested in Polish and German (and, I suppose, Slavic and Germanic more generally) and he had wanted to do field work on Wymysorys. He did an MA with me (not on Wymysorys), and now is doing a PhD (at a different university on another continent). I've sent him a link to the 'parent' article; I"m not sure if Wymysorys is still something he plans to work on or not.
I’ve personally listened to Tymoteusz Król giving a seminar lecture on Wilamowian. Lots of historical background in there. This guy is a heck of a geek, of the rarely-encountered kind.
It seems to me that Europeans will use any excuse under the sun to fork language, branch and create a new dialect. If one Austrian village has brown goats, and the other white, or if there is a lake between them, or maybe a mountain, or if maybe there's an apocryphal tale of a farmers daughter going off to live with a shoe-makers son, across a few days of travel - well then, its time for a new dialect ...
And I honestly think its not productive, in the sense that dialects are intentionally propagated in a fashion as to cause one "in-group" to have its detractors. It really seems to me that the forces driving us to create new, unintelligible dialects, are the same forces which allow us to justify heinous crimes against others - just at a different scale. Speaking in such a way as to differentiate oneself from others, I believe, is a root cause of so much of humanities stress.
But the quandary is, I also believe we should not let these odd languages die. As an Australian, I find it a terrible shame that we've lost 70,000 years of this factor, in the genocides against the Australian aborigines. But, on the other hand, I think Europeans have taken the tribalism just a little too far. Its a contradiction that I haven't quite resolved, although I've come close: perhaps the solution is to continue to encourage the creation of dialects, as long as there are tools such as the Internet around to assist with overcoming the confusion that results when two dialects clash...
These forks (for the most part) occurred organically, not just in order to sound different. After the fact they became a matter of pride, culture and nationalism, but originally they were not. People just spoke in the way that felt the most convenient and pleasing to them, at the time there was no widespread long distance communication and the vast majority of the population never left a relatively small radius around where they were born. Languages diverged because there was no external force unifying them (like, say, the roman empire). Eventually due to the lack of contact languages drift apart and become mutually unintelligible.
Imagine a world where there's no TV, radio or internet and you could only travel by horse and most people use the language mainly in its spoken form (if they can even read at all). How long do you think the Australian language would remain unified in these conditions? One generation? Three? Ten?
To add to this: the Australian aborigines actually split their languages a lot, and on purpose. Groups of young people would split off from their tribe and form a new group, and deliberately changed their language (as young people are wont to do to express difference to their parents).
So it's actually opposite to what mmjaa claims: Europeans didn't split their languages on purpose, while non-Europeans did.
That's a very ignorant opinion. History shows that it's the opposite - there's a strong correlation between some of the worst atrocities the human kind has committed, and the drive to unify languages. From overseas colonies, to German and Russian occupations of Central Europe and Asia (read up on forced Germanisation and Russification).
Oh, in fact I think it goes both ways. I don't think its either/or. The drive to create a unique cultural identity separate from other, existing identities: a cause of war.
The drive to create non-unique cultural identities: also a cause of war.
Its not as dialectic as you imply.
That said, I've seen it time and again: villagers with different dialects, arguing with each other because they can't understand each other or don't like the sound of each others ü's and ä's ...
And, I propose that the solution is to relax ones resistance against new language, by embracing all language and not just ones own.
Sorry but what is implied apart from your ignorance? Given are concrete examples: Germanisation and Russification, nothing implied.
What are examples of your cultural wars? Anecdote about some villagers? Appeal to human nature? Where and how did it manifest in the history concretely as a cause?
Upthread @lkubner links to interesting piece he wrote about multicultural history of Poland where there was no war over any of this for many centuries. 30-year war on the other hand had less to do with Germans fragmented into 200+ states than with enforcing religious homogenity.
There is no doubt that people don't want to have new language and culture forced on them. There is also no doubt that people enjoy creating new language, and thus new culture.
The strife comes when there is no agreement. The Austrian dialects don't form on the basis of individual expressions of power - they form through consensus, the same mechanism by which wars are fought.
The point is, I believe that there is a balance between obsessively differentiating ones culture through new invention, and establishing the basis of cultural peace through common language.
You've correctly indicated the extremes - but within the scope of those boundaries, there is a means of peace, which is: always be as willing to learn a new word as you are in creating a new word. This is not so easy - there are definitely limits - but those limits are extended with every new word learned, and the contract with every strange word encountered.
What is fought about with Austrian dialects? What is the consensus mechanism, what does the notion of individual expression of power mean? You mean self-expression is a power structure? Did you just hereby invent this notion, or is it some echo of power structures inherent in language stereotypes passed as having anything to do with dialects?
What is obsessive about differentiating, what is "establishing basis of cultural peace". These make no sense to me at all.
I indicated nothing, just repeated concrete examples you choose to ignore for the second time. Then instead of giving your own you choose to muddy the waters with some incomprehensible original philosophy.
Dialects are established collectively. If I like your new word/dialect, I use it. That is the consensus.
Wars are established collectively. Nobody fights a war as an individual - always as a group. Just like language and dialects are assumed at the individual level, through collective means.
The rights of cultural groups, composed of individuals, to compose their own language, is the basis of civilisation. It is also the basis of war and that is the quandary - because it is not as dialectic as you imply (black/white).
Its a balancing act - as you have indicated. Enforce cultural mechanisms (language) through violence - war - and you will encounter resistance.
But give people the opportunity, at the individual level, to assume whatever cultural positions they may, using language, and you attain peace.
Please. Stop. You write with letters. Wars are waged writing letters. Also thinking is a tool of war. Therefore stop, don't trouble yourself, and be at peace.
I don't know how you really tease them out; "standardization" efforts typically take the dialect of one place and say "well that's the standard; now everyone needs to talk like that."
> The drive to create a unique cultural identity separate from other, existing identities:
I don't think that it's a drive, it just happens. Language is cultural exchange, and if the only entry point for a word is some stranger with a spelling mistake, you'll then build upon that spelling mistake and incorporate it into your own vocabulary. The languages and dialects formed in times when most people couldn't read or write.
I see dialects in the current zeitgeist changing, at rapid clip, in groups of literate people all the time. It happens in tech, with programming languages - which, face it, fundamentally all describe the same thing, just using different cultural norms.
Well, from here in Central Europe, all those dialects and minor languages seem to be on the verge of extinction these days - not just a language with 25 speakers: Upper and Lower Sorbian are circling the drain, with tens of thousands of speakers each. The interest in such languages is waning. This is even evidenced by the article: "People are staging a play in a language that's not on the Red List" is non-news.
We still speak Spanish in South America but the difference between Chile and Mexico or Venezuela is still felt strongly and can cause funny or embarrassing confusion.
We don't try to split the language into several, that is simply something that happens and surprises you when traveling.
http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/poland-was-shockingly...