Old Prussian was a
Western Baltic language
The Western Baltic languages were a group of Baltic languages that were spoken by Western Baltic peoples. Western Baltic is one of the two primary branches of Baltic languages, along with Eastern Baltic. It includes Old Prussian, Sudovian, West ...
belonging to the
Baltic branch of the
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
, which was once spoken by the
Old Prussians
Old Prussians, Baltic Prussians or simply Prussians ( Old Prussian: ''prūsai''; german: Pruzzen or ''Prußen''; la, Pruteni; lv, prūši; lt, prūsai; pl, Prusowie; csb, Prësowié) were an indigenous tribe among the Baltic peoples that ...
, the
Baltic peoples
The Balts or Baltic peoples ( lt, baltai, lv, balti) are an ethno-linguistic group of peoples who speak the Baltic languages of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages.
One of the features of Baltic languages is the number ...
of the
Prussian region. The language is called Old Prussian to avoid confusion with the German dialects of
Low Prussian
Low Prussian (german: Niederpreußisch), sometimes known simply as Prussian (''Preußisch''), is a moribund dialect of East Low German that developed in East Prussia. Low Prussian was spoken in East and West Prussia and Danzig up to 1945. In D ...
and
High Prussian
High Prussian (german: Hochpreußisch) is a group of East Central German dialects in former East Prussia, in present-day Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship (Poland) and Kaliningrad Oblast (Russia). High Prussian developed in the 13th–15th centuries, ...
and with the adjective ''Prussian'' as it relates to the later German state. Old Prussian began to be written down in the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
in about the 13th century, and a small amount of literature in the language survives.
Classification and relation to other languages
Old Prussian is an Indo-European language belonging to the Baltic branch. It is considered to be a Western Baltic language.
Old Prussian was closely related to the other extinct
Western Baltic languages, namely
Sudovian,
West Galindian and possibly
Skalvian and
Old Curonian.
Other linguists consider Western Galindian and Skalvian to be Prussian dialects.
It is related to the
Eastern Baltic languages
The Eastern Baltic languages are a group of languages that along with the extinct Western Baltic languages belong to the branch of the Baltic language family. The Eastern Baltic branch has only two living languages— Latvian and Lithuanian. In so ...
such as
Lithuanian and
Latvian, and more distantly related to
Slavic. Compare the words for "land": Old Prussian ', lv, zeme and lt, žemė, russian: земля́ ().
Old Prussian had
loanwords from Slavic languages (e.g., Old Prussian ' "hound", like Lithuanian ' and Latvian ', cognate with Slavic (compare uk, хорт, ; pl, chart; cs, chrt)), as well as a few borrowings from
Germanic, including from
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
(e.g., Old Prussian ' "awl" as with Lithuanian ', Latvian ') and from
Scandinavian languages
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also r ...
.
Influence on other languages
German
The Germanic regional dialect of
Low German
:
:
:
:
:
(70,000)
(30,000)
(8,000)
, familycolor = Indo-European
, fam2 = Germanic
, fam3 = West Germanic
, fam4 = North Sea Germanic
, ancestor = Old Saxon
, ancestor2 = Middle L ...
spoken in Prussia (or
East Prussia
East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label=Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 187 ...
), called
Low Prussian
Low Prussian (german: Niederpreußisch), sometimes known simply as Prussian (''Preußisch''), is a moribund dialect of East Low German that developed in East Prussia. Low Prussian was spoken in East and West Prussia and Danzig up to 1945. In D ...
(cf.
High Prussian
High Prussian (german: Hochpreußisch) is a group of East Central German dialects in former East Prussia, in present-day Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship (Poland) and Kaliningrad Oblast (Russia). High Prussian developed in the 13th–15th centuries, ...
, also a Germanic language), preserved a number of Baltic Prussian words, such as ', from the Old Prussian ', for ''
shoe
A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot. They are often worn with a sock. Shoes are also used as an item of decoration and fashion. The design of shoes has varied enormously through time and from culture ...
'' in contrast to common nds, Schoh (standard German '), as did the
High Prussian Oberland subdialect.
Until the
1938 renaming of East Prussian placenames, Old Prussian river- and place-names, such as ' and ', could still be found.
Polish
One of the hypotheses regarding the origin of – a phonological
merger of
dentialveolar and
postalveolar sibilants in many
Polish dialects
Polish dialects are regional vernacular varieties of the Polish language.
Four major dialect groups are typically recognized, each primarily associated with a particular geographical region, and often further subdivided into subdialectal groups ...
– states that it originated as a feature of
Polonized
Polonization (or Polonisation; pl, polonizacja)In Polish historiography, particularly pre-WWII (e.g., L. Wasilewski. As noted in Смалянчук А. Ф. (Smalyanchuk 2001) Паміж краёвасцю і нацыянальнай ідэя ...
Old Prussians in
Masuria
Masuria (, german: Masuren, Masurian: ''Mazurÿ'') is a ethnographic and geographic region in northern and northeastern Poland, known for its 2,000 lakes. Masuria occupies much of the Masurian Lake District. Administratively, it is part of the ...
(see
Masurian dialect
The Masurian ethnolect (Masurian: ''mazurská gádkä''; pl, mazurski; german: Masurisch), 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 ...
) and spread from there.
History
Original territory
In addition to Prussia proper, the original territory of the Old Prussians may have included eastern parts of
Pomerelia
Pomerelia,, la, Pomerellia, Pomerania, pl, Pomerelia (rarely used) also known as Eastern Pomerania,, csb, Pòrénkòwô Pòmòrskô Vistula Pomerania, prior to World War II also known as Polish Pomerania, is a historical sub-region of Pome ...
(some parts of the region east of the
Vistula River
The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland.
The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...
). The language may also have been spoken much further east and south in what became
Polesia
Polesia, Polesie, or Polesye, uk, Полісся (Polissia), pl, Polesie, russian: Полесье (Polesye) is a natural and historical region that starts from the farthest edge of Central Europe and encompasses Eastern Europe, including East ...
and part of
Podlasie, before conquests by
Rus
Rus or RUS may refer to:
People and places
* Rus (surname), a Romanian-language surname
* East Slavic historical territories and peoples (). See Names of Rus', Russia and Ruthenia
** Rus' people, the people of Rus'
** Rus' territories
*** Kievan ...
and
Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Ce ...
starting in the 10th century and the
German colonisation of the area starting in the 12th century.
Decline
With the conquest of the Old Prussian territory by the
Teutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly known as the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious institution founded as a military society in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was formed to aid Christians o ...
in the 13th century, and the subsequent influx of Polish, Lithuanian and especially German speakers, Old Prussian experienced a 400-year-long decline as an "oppressed language of an oppressed population".
Groups of people from
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
,
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
,
and
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
(see
Salzburg Protestants
The Salzburg Protestants (german: Salzburger Exulanten) were Protestant refugees who had lived in the Catholic Archbishopric of Salzburg until the 18th century. In a series of persecutions ending in 1731, over 20,000 Protestants were expelled from ...
) found refuge in Prussia during the
Protestant Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
and thereafter.
Old Prussian ceased to be spoken probably around the beginning of the 18th century,
because many of its remaining speakers died in the
famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...
s and the
bubonic plague outbreak which harrowed the
East Prussia
East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label=Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 187 ...
n countryside and towns from 1709 until 1711.
Revitalization
![Mėnuo Juodaragio XXI Kellan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/M%C4%97nuo_Juodaragio_XXI_Kellan.jpg)
In the 1980s, Soviet linguists
Vladimir Toporov
Vladimir Nikolayevich Toporov (russian: Влади́мир Никола́евич Топоро́в; 5 July 1928 in Moscow5 December 2005 in Moscow) was a leading Russian philologist associated with the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school. His wife was ...
and
Vytautas Mažiulis started reconstructing the Prussian language as a scientific project and a humanitarian gesture. Some enthusiasts thereafter began to
revive the language based on their reconstruction.
Most current speakers live in Germany, Poland, Lithuania and
Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad ( ; rus, Калининград, p=kəlʲɪnʲɪnˈɡrat, links=y), until 1946 known as Königsberg (; rus, Кёнигсберг, Kyonigsberg, ˈkʲɵnʲɪɡzbɛrk; rus, Короле́вец, Korolevets), is the largest city and ...
(Russia). Additionally, a few children are native in Revived Prussian.
Today, there are websites, online dictionaries, learing apps and games for Revived Prussian, and one childrens book
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's ''
The Little Prince
''The Little Prince'' (french: Le Petit Prince, ) is a novella by French aristocrat, writer, and military pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first published in English and French in the United States by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943 an ...
'' was translated into Revived Prussian by Piotr Szatkowski (Pīteris Šātkis) and published by the Prusaspirā Society in 2015. Moreover, some bands use Revived Prussian, most notably in the Kaliningrad Oblast by the bands
Romowe Rikoito
Romowe Rikoito is a neofolk band based in Nida, Lithuania. It was formed by Glabbis Niktorius at 1995 and named after ancient Prussian spiritual center Romowe (also known as Rikoyto). The group has published 5 albums – first two albums ''Narciss ...
, Kellan and Āustras Laīwan, as well as in Lithuania by
Kūlgrinda
(plural ; from the Samogitian 'stone' and 'pavement', itself from 'to rake, pull together') is a hidden underwater stony road or ford across swamps and swampy areas used for defense in the history of Lithuania. Similar secret roads made primar ...
in their 2005 album ''Prūsų Giesmės'' (Prussian Hymns), and Latvia by Rasa Ensemble in 1988 and
Valdis Muktupāvels
Valdis Muktupāvels (9 November 1958 in Līvāni) is a Latvian ethnomusicologist, composer, musician, teacher and doctor of art criticism.
Muktupāvels graduated 1980 from the University of Latvia and acquired a specialty in chemistry in 1983. H ...
in his 2005
oratorio
An oratorio () is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists. Like most operas, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias. However, opera is mus ...
"Pārcēlātājs Pontifex" featuring several parts sung in Prussian.
Dialects
The Elbing Vocabulary and the Catechisms display systematical differences in phonology, vocabulary and grammar. Some scholars postulate that this is due to them being recording of different dialects:
Pomesanian and Sambian.
Phonetical distinctions are: Pom. ''ē'' is Samb. ''ī'' (' »world«); Pom. ''ō'', Samb. ''ū'' after a labial (' »mother«) or Pom. ''ō'', Samb. ''ā'' (' »father«; ' »brother«), which influences the nominative suffixes of feminine ā-stems (' »blood«). The nominative suffixes of the masculine o-stems are weakened to “-is” in Pomesanian, in Sambian they are syncopated (' »god«).
Vocabulary differences encompass Pom. ', Samb. ' »man«; Pom. ', Samb. ' »son« and Pom. ', Samb. ' »field«.
The neuter gender more often found in Pomesianan than in Sambian.
Others argue that the Catechisms are written in a Yatvingized Prussian. The differences noted above could therefore be explained as being features of a different West Baltic language
Yatvingian/Sudovian.
Phonology
Consonants
The Prussian language is described to have the following consonants:
There is said to have existed palatalization (i.e. , ) among nearly all of the consonant sounds except for , and possibly for and . Whether or not the palatalization was phonemical remains unclear.
Apart from the palatalizations Proto-Baltic consonants were almost completely preserved. The only changes postulated are turning Proto-Baltic into Prussian and subsequently changing Proto-Baltic into .
Vowels
The following description is based on the phonological analysis by Schmalstieg:
* could also have been realized as
* is not universally accepted, p.e. by Levin (1975)
Diphthongs
Schmalstieg proposes three native diphthongs:
* may have also been realized as a mid-back diphthong after palatalized consonants.
* occurs in the word , which is thought to be a loanword.
Grammar
With other remains being merely word lists, the grammar of Old Prussian is reconstructed chiefly on the basis of the three Catechisms.
Nouns
Gender
Old Prussian preserved the Proto-Baltic neuter. Therefore, it had three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter).
Number
Most scholars agree that there are two numbers, singular and plural, in Old Prussian, while some consider rests of a dual identifyable in the existent corpus.
Cases
There is no consensus on the number of
cases that Old Prussian had, and at least four can be determined with certainty: nominative, genitive, accusative and dative, with different
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...
es. Most scholars agree, that there are traces of a
vocative case
In grammar, the vocative case ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and nume ...
, such as in the phrase ' "O God the Lord", reflecting the inherited
PIE
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...
vocative ending *', differing from nominative forms in o-stem nouns only.
Some scholars find instrumetal forms, while the traditional view is that no instrumental case existed in Old Prussian. There could be some locative forms, e.g. ("in the evening").
Noun stems
Declensional classes were ''a''-stems (also called ''o''-stems), ''(i)ja''-stems (also called ''(i)jo''-stems), ''ā''-stems (feminine), ''ē''-stems (feminine), ''i''-stems, ''u''-stems, and consonant-stems. Some also list ''ī''/''jā''-stems as a separate stem, while others inlcude ''jā''-stems into ''ā''-stems and do not mention ''ī''-stems at all.
Adjectives
There were three adjective stems (''a''-stems, ''i''-stems, ''u''-stems), of which only the first agreed with the noun in gender.
There was a comparative and a superlative form.
Verbal Morphology
When it comes to verbal morphology present, future and past tense are attested, as well as
optative
The optative mood ( or ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given action. It is a superset of the cohortative mood and is closely related to the subjunctive mood but is distinct from the desiderative mo ...
forms (used with imperative or permissive forms of verbs), infinitive, and four participles (active/passive present/past).
Orthography
The orthography varies depending on the author. As the authors of many sources were themselves not proficient in Old Prussian, they wrote the words as they heard them using the orthographical conventions of their mother tongue. P.e. the use of
for both and is based on German orthography. Additionally, the writers misunderstood some phonemes and when copying manuscripts, they added further mistakes.
Corpus of Old Prussian
Onomastics
There was Prussian toponomy and hydronomy within the territory of (Baltic) Prussia. Georg Gerullis undertook the first basic study of these names in ' ("The Old Prussian Place-names"), written and published with the help of Walter de Gruyter, in 1922.
Another source are personal names.
Evidence from other languages
Further sources for Prussian words are Vernacularisms in the German dialects of East and West Prussia, as well as words of Old Curonian origin in Latvian and West-Baltic vernacularisms in Lithuanian and Belorussian.
Vocabularies
Two Prussian vocabularies are known. The older one by
Simon Grunau Simon Grunau (c. 1470 – c. 1530) was the author of ''Preussische Chronik'',Full title: ''Cronika und beschreibung allerlüstlichenn, nützlichsten und waaren historien des namkundigenn landes zu Prewssen'' or ''Chronicle and description of the mos ...
(Simon Grunovius), a historian of the
Teutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly known as the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious institution founded as a military society in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was formed to aid Christians o ...
, encompasses 100 words (in strongly varying versions). He also recorded an expression: ("This (is) our lord, our lord"). The vocabulary is part of the ' written .
The second one is the so-called Elbing Vocabulary, which consists of 802 thematically sorted words and their German equivalents. Peter Holcwesscher from
Marienburg copied the manuscript around 1400; the original dates from the beginning of the 14th or the end of the 13th century. It 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 '.
Fragmentary Texts
There are separate words found in various historical documents.
The following fragments are commonly thought of as Prussian, but are probably actually
Lithuanian (at least the adage, however, has been argued to be genuinely West Baltic, only an otherwise unattested dialect):
# An adage of 1583, ': the form ' in the second instance corresponds to Lithuanian future tense ' ("will give")
# ' ("Strike! Strike!")
Fragmentary Lord's Prayer
Additionally, there is one manuscript fragment of the first words of the in Prussian, from the beginning of the 15th century:
'
Maletius' Sudovian book
Vytautas Mažiulis lists another few fragmentary texts recorded in several versions by Hieronymus Maletius in the
Sudovian book in the middle of the 16th century. Palmaitis regards them as Sudovian proper.
#' ("Run, run, devils!")
#' ("Hello our friend!")
#' – a drinking toast, reconstructed as ' ("A cheer for a cheer, a tit for tat", literally: "A healthy one after a healthy one, one after another!")
#' ("A carter drives here, a carter drives here!")
#' – also recorded as ', ', ' ("Oh my dear holy fire!")
Complete Texts
In addition to the texts listed beneath, there several colophons written by Prussian scriptors who worked in Prague and in the court of Lithuanian duke
Butautas Kęstutaitis.
Basel Epigram
The so-called Basel Epigram is the oldest written Prussian sentence (1369). It reads:
This jocular inscription was most probably made by a Prussian student studying in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
(
Charles University
)
, image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg
, image_size = 200px
, established =
, type = Public, Ancient
, budget = 8.9 billion CZK
, rector = Milena Králíčková
, faculty = 4,057
, administrative_staff = 4,026
, students = 51,438
, undergr ...
); found by Stephen McCluskey (1974) in manuscript MS F.V.2 (book of physics ' by
Nicholas Oresme
Nicole Oresme (; c. 1320–1325 – 11 July 1382), also known as Nicolas Oresme, Nicholas Oresme, or Nicolas d'Oresme, was a French philosopher of the later Middle Ages. He wrote influential works on economics, mathematics, physics, astrology ...
), fol. 63r, stored in the
Basel University
The University of Basel ( Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis'', German: ''Universität Basel'') is a university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest surviving universi ...
library.
Catechisms
The longest texts preserved in Old Prussian are three Catechisms printed in in 1545, 1545, and 1561 respectively. The first two consist of only six pages of text in Old Prussian – the second one being a correction of the first. The third catechism, or ''Enchiridion'', consists of 132 pages of text, and is a translation of
Luther's Small Catechism
''Luther's Small Catechism'' (german: Der Kleine Katechismus) is a catechism written by Martin Luther and published in 1529 for the training of children. Luther's Small Catechism reviews the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Pr ...
by a German cleric called Abel Will, with his Prussian assistant Paul Megott. Will himself knew little or no Old Prussian, and his Prussian interpreter was probably illiterate, but according to Will spoke Old Prussian quite well. The text itself is mainly a word-for-word translation, and Will phonetically recorded Megott's oral translation. Because of this, the ''Enchiridion'' exhibits many irregularities, such as the lack of case agreement in phrases involving an
article
Article often refers to:
* Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness
* Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication
Article may also refer to:
G ...
and a
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
, which followed word-for-word German originals as opposed to native Old Prussian syntax.
Trace of Crete
The "Trace of Crete" is a short poem added by a Baltic writer in
Chania
Chania ( el, Χανιά ; vec, La Canea), also spelled Hania, is a city in Greece and the capital of the Chania regional unit. It lies along the north west coast of the island Crete, about west of Rethymno and west of Heraklion.
The muni ...
to a manuscript of the '' Logica Parva'' by
Paul of Venice
Paul of Venice (or Paulus Venetus; 1369–1429) was a Catholic philosopher, theologian, logician and metaphysician of the Order of Saint Augustine.
Life
Paul was born, according to the chroniclers of his order, at Udine, about 1369 and died at V ...
.
Sample texts
Lord's Prayer in Old Prussian (from the so-called "1st Catechism")
Lord's Prayer after
Simon Grunau Simon Grunau (c. 1470 – c. 1530) was the author of ''Preussische Chronik'',Full title: ''Cronika und beschreibung allerlüstlichenn, nützlichsten und waaren historien des namkundigenn landes zu Prewssen'' or ''Chronicle and description of the mos ...
(Curonian)
Lord's Prayer after Prätorius (Curonian)
Lord's Prayer in Lithuanian dialect of
Insterburg
Chernyakhovsk (russian: Черняхо́вск) – known prior to 1946 by its German name of (Old Prussian: Instrāpils, lt, Įsrutis; pl, Wystruć) – is a town in the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, where it is the administrative center of C ...
(Prediger Hennig)
Lord's Prayer in Lithuanian dialect of
Nadruvia
The Nadruvians were a now-extinct Prussian tribe. They lived in Nadruvia (alternative spellings include: ''Nadruva'', ''Nadrowite'', ''Nadrovia'', ''Nadrauen'', ''Nadravia'', ''Nadrow'' and ''Nadra''), a large territory in northernmost Prussia. Th ...
, corrupted (Simon Praetorius)
See also
*
High Prussian dialect
High Prussian (german: Hochpreußisch) is a group of East Central German dialects in former East Prussia, in present-day Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship (Poland) and Kaliningrad Oblast (Russia). High Prussian developed in the 13th–15th centuries ...
*
Low Prussian dialect
Low Prussian (german: Niederpreußisch), sometimes known simply as Prussian (''Preußisch''), is a moribund dialect of East Low German that developed in East Prussia. Low Prussian was spoken in East and West Prussia and Danzig up to 1945. In Da ...
*
Masurian dialect
The Masurian ethnolect (Masurian: ''mazurská gádkä''; pl, mazurski; german: Masurisch), 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 ...
Notes
References
Literature
* J. S. Vater: Mithridates oder allgemeine Sprachenkunde mit dem Vater Unser als Sprachprobe, Berlin 1809
* J. S. Vater
Die Sprache der alten Preußen Wörterbuch Prußisch–Deutsch Katechismus, Braunschweig 1821/Wiesbaden 1966
*
G. H. F. Nesselmann, Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der preußischen Sprache
2. Beitrag Königsberg, 1871.
*
G. H. F. NesselmannThesaurus linguae Prussicae Berlin, 1873.
*
E. Berneker, Die preussische Sprache, Strassburg, 1896.
*
R. TrautmannDie altpreussischen Sprachdenkmäler Göttingen, 1910.
* Wijk, Nicolaas van,
Altpreussiche Studien : Beiträge zur baltischen und zur vergleichenden indogermanischen Grammatik, Haag, 1918.
* G. Gerullis
Die altpreussischen Ortsnamen Berlin-Leipzig, 1922.
*
R. Trautmann, Die altpreussischen Personnennamen, Göttingen, 1925.
* G. Gerullis, Zur Sprache der Sudauer-Jadwinger, in Festschrift A. Bezzenberger, Göttingen 1927
* W. R. Schmalstieg, An Old Prussian Grammar, University Park and London, 1974.
* W. R. Schmalstieg, Studies in Old Prussian, University Park and London, 1976.
* V. Toporov, Prusskij jazyk: Slovar', A – L, Moskva, 1975–1990 (not finished).
* L. Kilian: Zu Herkunft und Sprache der Prußen Wörterbuch Deutsch–Prußisch, Bonn 1980
* (In Lithuanian) V. Mažiulis, Prūsų kalbos paminklai, Vilnius, t. I 1966, t. II 1981.
* J. Endzelīns, Senprūšu valoda. – Gr. Darbu izlase, IV sēj., 2. daļa, Rīga, 1982. 9.-351. lpp.
*
V. Mažiulis, Prūsų kalbos etimologijos žodynas, Vilnius, t. I-IV, 1988–1997.
* M. Biolik, Zuflüsse zur Ostsee zwischen unterer Weichsel und Pregel, Stuttgart, 1989.
* R. Przybytek, Ortsnamen baltischer Herkunft im südlichen Teil Ostpreussens, Stuttgart, 1993.
* R. Przybytek, Hydronymia Europaea, Ortsnamen baltischer Herkunft im südlichen Teil Ostpreußens, Stuttgart 1993
* M. Biolik, Die Namen der stehenden Gewässer im Zuflussgebiet des Pregel, Stuttgart, 1993.
* M. Biolik, Die Namen der fließenden Gewässer im Flussgebiet des Pregel, Stuttgart, 1996.
* G. Blažienė, Die baltischen Ortsnamen in Samland, Stuttgart, 2000.
* A. Kaukienė, Prūsų kalba, Klaipėda, 2002.
*
V. MažiulisPrūsų kalbos istorinė gramatika Vilnius, 2004.
* LEXICON BORVSSICVM VETVS. Concordantia et lexicon inversum. / Bibliotheca Klossiana I, Universitas Vytauti Magni, Kaunas, 2007.
* OLD PRUSSIAN WRITTEN MONUMENTS. Facsimile, Transliteration, Reconstruction, Comments. / Bibliotheca Klossiana II, Universitas Vytauti Magni / Lithuanians' World Center, Kaunas, 2007.
* (In Lithuanian) V. Rinkevičius
Prūsistikos pagrindai(Fundamentals of Prussistics). 2015.
External links
Database of the Old Prussian Linguistic Heritage(Etymological Dictionary of Old Prussian (in Lithuanian) and full textual corpus)
Frederik Kortlandt: Electronic text editions(contains transcriptions of Old Prussian manuscript texts)
*
ttp://donelaitis.vdu.lt/prussian/GrG.pdf Vocabulary by a friar Simon GrunauElbing Vocabulary
{{Authority control
Prussian language, Old
Prussian language, Old
Culture of Prussia
Extinct Baltic languages
Extinct languages of Europe
Language revival
Languages extinct in the 18th century
Old-Prussian language
eo:Praprusoj#Kristanigo kaj la praprusa lingvo