Old Prussian language
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Old Prussian is an extinct Baltic language spoken by the inhabitants of the area that later became East Prussia (now in north-eastern Poland and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia) prior to German colonization of the area beginning in the 13th century. In Old Prussian itself, the language was called "Prūsiskan" or "Prūsiskai Bilā" [link]. A few experimental communities involved in reviving a reconstructed form of the language now exist in Lithuania, Poland and other countries.
Old Prussian is closely related to the other extinct western Baltic languages, the Curonian and Sudovian. It is more distantly related to the surviving eastern Baltic languages, Lithuanian and particularly Latvian.
The Aesti, mentioned by Tacitus in his Germania, may have been a people who spoke Old Prussian. Tacitus describes them as being just like the Suebi (who were a group of Germanic peoples) but with a more Britannic-like (Celtic) language.
Old Prussian, as a Baltic language, was similar to the other two Baltic languages, Latvian and Lithuanian. In addition, it also possessed similarities in a few basic words to the Slavic languages. (Compare the Prussian word Zemê to the Latvian Zeme, the Lithuanian Žemė, and the Polish Ziemia, all with the meaning "earth".)
During the Reformation and thereafter, other groups of people from Poland, Lithuania, France, and Austria found refuge in Prussia. These new immigrants caused a slow decline in the use of Old Prussian as Prussians began to adopt the languages of the newcomers. Old Prussian probably ceased to be spoken in the beginning of the 18th century with the Great Plague.
It is called “Old Prussian” to avoid confusion with the adjective “Prussian”, which relates also to the later German state. The “Old Prussian” name for the nation, not being Latinized, was Prūsa. This too may be used to delineate the language from the later state.
Old Prussian began to be written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 13th century. A small amount of literature in the language survives.
Monuments
The monuments of Old Prussian are:
1 - Prussian-language geographical names within the territory of (Baltic) Prussia. The first basic study of these names was by Georg Gerullis, in Die altpreußischen Ortsnamen (The Old Prussian Place-names), written and published with the help of Walter de Gruyter, in 1922 CE.
2 – Prussian personal names. Up to now, the main research is by Reinhold Trautmann, in Die altpreußischen Personennamen (The Old Prussian Personal-names) [link]. This was published by Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, in Göttingen, 1923. (In it, the work of Ernst Lewy in 1904 is also included.)
3 – Separate words found in various historical documents.
4 – Vernacularisms in the former German dialects of East and West Prussia, as well words of Old Curonian origin in Latvian, and West-Baltic vernacularisms in Lithuanian and Belorussian.
5 – The so-called Basel Epigram [link]. It reads : Kayle rekyse. thoneaw labonache thewelyse. Eg. koyte poyte. nykoyte. pe^nega doyte; which may be : Kaīls rikīse! Tu ni jāu laban asei tēwelise, ik kwaitēi pōiti, ni kwaitēi peningā dōiti. (In English: "Hello Mister! You are no longer a nice uncle, if you want to drink but not to pay for it!" [link].) This is an inscription of the 14th century, most probably by a Prussian student studying in Prague, found by St. McCluskey in one of folios of the Basel university in 1974.
6 – Various fragmentary texts : a) Recorded in several versions by Hieronymus Maletius in Sudovian Nook in the middle of the 16th century are :
- Beigeite beygeyte peckolle - Run, devils, run!,
- Kails naussen gnigethe - Hello our friend!,
- Kails poskails ains par antres - (a drinking toast, reconstructed as Kaīls pas kaīls, aīns per āntran, or in English : A healthy one after a healthy one, one after another!),
- Kellewesze perioth, Kellewesze perioth - A carter drives here, a carter drives here!,
- O hoho Moi mile swente Pannike Oh my dear holy fire!.
7 – A manuscript fragment of the first words of the Pater Noster in Prussian, from the beginning of the 15th century : Towe Nüsze kås esse andangonsün swyntins.
8 – 100 words (in strongly varying versions) of the Vocabulary by Simon Grunau [link], written ca. 1517–1526; these have been reconstructed into a more unified single system of spelling by V. Mažiulis.
9 – The so-called Elbing Vocabulary [link], which consists of 802 thematically sorted words and their German equivalents. This manuscript, copied by Peter Holcwesscher from Marienburg on the boundary of the 14th and 15th centuties, was found in 1825 by Fr. Neumann among other manuscripts acquired by him from the heritage of the Elbing merchant A. Grübnau; it was thus dubbed the “Codex Neumannianus”. Again, the words have been reconstructed into a more unified single system of spelling by V. Mažiulis, a scholar and contributor to the revival of the Prussian language .
10 - The three Catechisms : I, II, and III (all here[link]) printed in the Prussian language in Königsberg in 1545, 1545, and 1561 respectively. The first two consist of only 6 pages text in Prussian -- the second one being a correction of the first into another sub-dialect. The third one, however, consists of 132 pages of Prussian text, and is a translation by Abel Will of Martin Luther’s Enchiridion.
11 - An adage of 1583, Dewes does dantes, Dewes does geitka. This is, in all probability, not Prussian -- the form does in the second instance corresponds to Lithuanian future tense duos ‘will give’ -- however it is included in this list because it is commonly thought of as Prussian. As for trencke, trencke! (Strike! Strike!), it too is in all probability Lithuanian, not Prussian.
Examples of Prussian
Here are some basic Prussian phrases :
| Translation | Phrase |
|---|---|
| Prussian [language] | Prūsiskan |
| Hello | Kaīls |
| Good morning | Kaīls Anksteīnai |
| Good-bye | Ērdiw |
| Thank you | Dīnka |
| How much? | Kelli? |
| Yes | Jā |
| No | Ni |
| Where is the bathroom? | Kwēi ast Spaktāstuba? |
| (Generic toast) | Kaīls pas kaīls aīns per āntran |
| Do you speak English? | Bilāi tū Ēngliskan? |
Prussian was a highly inflected language, as can be seen from the declination of the demonstrative pronoun stas, that. (Note that translators of the Teutonic Order frequently misused stas as an article for the word "the".)
| Case | Singular, m | Singular, f | Singular, n | Plural, m | Plural, f | Plural, n |
| Nominative | stas | stāi | stan | stāi | stās | stai |
| Genitive | stesse | stesses | stesse | stēisan | stēisan | stēisan |
| Dative | stesmu | stessei | stesmu or stesmā | stēimans | stēimans | stēimans |
| Accusative | stan | stan | stan or sta | stans | stans | stans or stas |
Prussian also possessed a vocative case, like Latin.
See also
External links
- [The Prussian-German-English dictionary]
- [Frederik Kortlandt: Electronic text editions]—contains transcriptions of Old Prussian Texts
- [Discussion forum in Prussian]
- [Nērtiks. Website in Prussian]
- [A dictionary of recovered and reconstructed Prussian (PDF file)]
| Baltic languages | ||
|---|---|---|
| Curonian | Galindian | Latgalian | Latvian | Lithuanian | Old Prussian | Samogitian | Selonian | Semigallian | Sudovian | ||
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