The Masurian ethnolect (Masurian: mazurská gádkä; ; ), according to some linguists, is a dialect group of the Polish language; others consider Masurian to be a separate language, spoken by the Masurian people in northeastern Poland. The dialect belongs to the Masovian dialect group and is located in the part of Poland as well as parts of Siberia. It borders the Lubawa dialect to the far southwest, the Ostróda dialect and Warmia dialect to the west, the new mixed dialects to the north, the Suwałki dialect to the east, marginally the Podlachia dialect to the far east, and the Kurpie dialect and Far Mazovian dialect to the south.

History

From the 14th century, some settlers from Masovia started to settle in southern Prussia, which had been devastated by the crusades of the Teutonic Knights against the native Old Prussians. According to other sources, people from Masovia did not move to southern Prussia until the time of the Protestant Reformation, Prussia having become Lutheran in 1525. The Masurians were mostly of the Protestant faith, in contrast to the neighboring Roman Catholic people of the Duchy of Masovia, which was incorporated into the Polish kingdom in 1526. A new dialect developed in Prussia, isolated from the remaining Polish language area. The Masurian dialect group has many Low Saxon, German and Old Prussian words mixed in with Polish-language endings. Beginning in the 1870s, Imperial German officials restricted the usage of languages other than German in Prussia's eastern provinces. While in 1880 Masurians were still treated as Poles by the German Empire, at the turn of century the German authorities undertook several measures to Germanise and separate them from the Polish nation by creating a separate identity. After World War I the East Prussian plebiscite was held on July 11, 1920, according to the Treaty of Versailles, in which the Masurians had to decide whether they wanted to be part of the Second Polish Republic or remain in German East Prussia; about 98% voted for Germany. By the early 20th century, most Masurians were at least bilingual and could speak Low Saxon and German; in some areas about half of them still spoke Masurian, at least at home. In 1900, according to the German census there were 142,049 Masurians speaking Masurian. In 1925, only 40,869 people gave Masurian as their native language, many considering German their first language, considering Masurian merely as their domestic dialect, By the early 1920s there were also some Masurians who had their separate identity, claiming that Masurians are a nation. Most of them were members of Masurenbund. Their main goal was to grant Masurians some minority laws inside Germany, but there were also some separatists. In the early 1930s, support for the Nazi Party was high in Masuria, especially in elections in 1932 and 1933. Nazi political rallies were organized in the Masurian dialect during the campaigning. After 1933 the usage of the Masurian dialect was prohibited by the National Socialist authorities. By 1938 most Masurian place and personal names had been changed to "pure" German substitutes. From 1939 on it was forbidden to hold church services in Masurian. The replacement of Masurian in favor of German was not completed by the time the Soviet Red Army conquered Masurian East Prussia in January 1945, in World War II. The territory was transferred to Poland according to the postwar Potsdam Conference. During the wartime fighting and post-war deportations in the subsequent decades, most Masurian-speakers left Masuria for western Germany, especially to post-war West Germany, where they were quickly assimilated into the German mainstream.

Situation in 21st century

According to some scientists such as Andrzej Sakson, there are about 5,000–10,000 ethnic Masurians left in Poland. According to the Polish census from 2011, there are only 1,376 of them who identify themselves as Masurians. Most Masurians live in Germany now, but due to the German law the ethnicity and nationality are not determined in their census. There is a lack of surveys on the knowledge of the ethnolect both in Poland and Germany. However, the elderly can communicate in Masurian with some fluency. The sole group who speak Masurian on a daily basis are the so-called Russian Masurians, who are the descendants of colonists who arrived in Siberia at the end of the 19th century. They have lived in isolation from the other groups, thus they were neither Germanized nor Polonized, although their speech acquired many Russian loanwords. Nowadays, there are several organizations promoting the dialect. Since 2015, the Sorkwity Masurian Culture Festival started to promote Masurian, locals are starting to create folk music, and some schools are organizing competitions in speaking Masurian. People are also starting to promote the ethnolect via social media. In 2016, the Związek_Mazurski was founded to promote the Masurian ethnolect and culture. Meanwhile, some activists have also started a process of linguistical normalization to promote and save the ethnolect. In 2016, the online dictionary Glosbe introduced Masurian to their data.

Books in Masurian

The oldest book written in Masurian probably is Ta Swenta Woyna, written by Jakub Szczepan in 1900. In 2018, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry was translated to Masurian.

Dialect or language

Several scientists consider Masurian to be a separate language in its own right; others argue that Masurian is a dialect of Polish, or even just a subdialect.

Linguistic features

Typical of Masovian dialects, devoicing of word-final consonants before vowels and liquids is present here, including before clitics. Also typical of Masovian dialects is the presence of mazuration, however, younger people tend to use a pronunciation that of Standard Polish, and as such, mazuration is quickly fading. The degree of mazuration can also depend on the given phoneme.

Vowels

The shift of initial ja-, ra- > je-, re- is present but limited to particular words: jek (jak), reno (rano). Medial -ar- shifts to -er-: rozwer: (rozwarł), w mercu (w marcu), łosiera (ofiara). Ablaut is often levelled: wietrak (wiatrak). Often y merges with i: pisk (pysk).

Slanted vowels

Slanted á may be retained as á (more common in the central part), or sometimes merge with a (more common in the east), where historic short a often fronts to [æ] and can cause softening of the preceding consonant: matk’æ. Slanted é may sometimes be retained as é, or may either lower and merge with e or raise and merge with y. Slanted ó is usually retained as ó, but may also either lower and merge with o (in the east) or raise and merge with u (elsewhere).

Nasal vowels

Medial nasal vowels may raise: dziesiunti (dziesiąty), gorónce (gorące), gynsi (gęsi). Medial and final ę may also lower: bandzie (będzie). na tu łolsztyńsko droga (na tę olsztyńską drogę). Nasal vowels decompose before non-sibilants word-medially. Before sibilants, nasals may decompose (more in the east), or denasalization may occur (more in the west): genś, geś (gęś), vons, wos (wąs). Word-finally and also before l, ł, both nasal vowels denasalize and often raise: wode (wodę), spsieywajo (śpiewają), nie chcu (nie chcą). Soft palatals may also sporadically harden, especially around Reszel, probably due to German influence: peśń (pieśń); or due to a more relaxed pronunciation: wyberam (wybieram).

Prothesis

Initial i- often has a prothetic j-, and can then sometimes lower: jimię (imię), jenaczyj (inaczej). This happens most commonly in the north east of Szczytno and Mrągowo. Initial o- typically labializes, as does u- to a lesser extent. Soft labials decompose: b’jałi, b’źałi (biały), b’h’ijak (bijak) h and ch appear more commonly in the east and ś and ź in the west, j being rare; m’ shifts to mń: ramńona (ramiona); sometimes ᵐń: ᵐniasto; as well as ń: ńód (miód). Hardening of m also occurs, particularly in German loanwords and the instrumental plural ending -ami: ńemeck’i (niemiecki), nasto (miasto), myck’i (czapki), cepamy (cepami). św’, ćw’ i dźw’ typically harden: śfat (świat). Soft forms occur more often before front vowels, but not only: śf’at (świat), śf’eće (świecie). Fricative rz is retained by some speakers; however by the early 20th century it was already rare and present mostly among older speakers, and today is nearly non-existent, with rz generally being pronounced as in Standard Polish. ń sometimes hardens, typically in the north, as a result of German influence: drewnana studna (drewniana studnia). kie, gie, ki, and gi generally remain soft, but most people often harden k and g before one of the vowels while keeping them soft before the other, and generally k and g are soft before e more than i: k’edy (kiedy), taky (taki). Hard pronunciations are becoming rarer. A few instances of further palatalization can be heard: flakt’i (flaki), okt’eć (łokieć), mat’era (makiera). k and g may also sometimes palatalize before ę, especially in the east: matk’e (matkę), g’enśi (gęsi). k and g may also soften before a in the east, particularly the northeast; in the west it remains hard: k’apa (kapa). This softening mostly concerns jasne a, and is rare for ká, gá. Most residents had this pronunciation through the 20th century. Also in the east, ch may soften before i, e, ę, and a to chś, ś, or szi: ožeśi (orzechy), štaśety (sztachety), l’iśa (licha), ch’ata (chata). In the west, a hard pronunciation is most common.

Consonants

cz is most commonly merged with c, but words related to education often have cz, spread through schools. Rarely it may soften to czi or ć. dż is generally realized az dz, but is not a common enough phone to establish statistics. ż and sz show much more fluctuation, due to influence from both Standard Polish as well as German, but also the common presence of the phonemes s, z and ż sz from rz. This confusion with rz can sometimes result in mazuration of rz as well as hypercorrections, which contributes to the loss of mazuration of ż and sz. sz shows more fluctuation than ż. However, mazuration still predominates, with żi being less common and ź being rare. Fricative rz was very common at the beginning 20th century; by the middle of the 20th century it was still used by some speakers, generally being replaced with ż/sz or rarely r: rec-i (rzeczy). Similarly, the palatal sibilants ś, ź, ć, dź may be realized in many ways. Sometimes they are the same as in Standard Polish. They may also harden to szi, żi, czi, and dżi, or as sz, ż, cz, dż. Most rarely, they may completely depatalize. ś ź show more fluctuation than ć dź. Palatal pronunciations of ś ź are the most common, except in the north-east where szi, żi are more common. ć and dź more commonly harden in the north due to German influence. Elsewhere, soft realizations are more common. A few cases of kaszubienie can be found.

Dialects of Masurian

Masurian has three to five dialects:

Grammar

Inflectional cases

The verb "to be"

In the singular it is possible to replace u with ÿ for example: (Já) buł/bÿł, tÿsź buł/bÿł, (Ón) buł/bÿł. It is also possible to create the future perfect tense with the structure +, for example: (Já) Bénde koménderowač.

Present tense conjugation

-ač

The conjugation of regular verbs usually ending in -ač, for example znač (to know). á will shorten to a if the word has more than one syllable. For example:

-eč

The conjugation of regular verbs usually ending in -eč, for example mÿšléč (to think).

-ovač

The conjugation of regular verbs usually ending in -owač ", for example "koménderowač" (to give an order to someone).

Conditional

To create the conditional, as in the majority of Slavic languages, the verb root is taken (i.e. verb endings like ač, eč are not considered and the respective ending is added for the conditional mode. For example, znač (to know) → znabÿ (he/she would know). bÿ in Masurian has also one more function, where it can be placed at the beginning of a sentence to make questions, or also to mean "whether"/"or"/"if". For example, Lejduje ni niénso/niéso, bÿ sźwÿnina, bÿ réntozina (I like meat, whether it [is] pork or beef), which in standard Polish: Lubię mięso, czy to wieprzowinę, czy wołowinę.

Grammatical differences between Masurian and Standard Polish

Grammatical constructions with sense verbs

Here, the structure is sense verb + object + verb.

Writing system

Vocabulary

Small dictionary

Toponyms

Names of months

Examples

Lord's Prayer

Song

A short Masurian song.

Poem

Réjza siodám ná koło kiej féin pogodá dumám tédÿ nád zÿciem Mazurá ajw násu ziamiá ôddÿcha w dáli ány rÿchtÿk pozwalá mniá do dumániá nád mójá réjzá přéd siébie chućko jidé ná drogách zÿciá chtóré ûmÿká chtórégo nie zabácé po śmiérci, chtóra z latámi přéniká ... wsÿtko je féin ajw ji téraz jék budzié po tym co přÿjdzié nié ziém...? jédno jé péwné zé ajw jé féin ná mójéj réjzié ..