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Wymysorys (, or ), also known as Vilamovian or Wilamowicean, is a West Germanic language spoken by the ethnic
Vilamovian Wymysorys (, or ), also known as Vilamovian or Wilamowicean, is a West Germanic language spoken by the ethnic Vilamovian minority in the small town of Wilamowice, Poland ( in Wymysorys, ), on the border between Silesia and Lesser Poland, near ...
minority in the small town of Wilamowice, Poland ( in Wymysorys, ), on the border between Silesia and Lesser Poland, near Bielsko-Biała. It is considered an endangered language, possibly the most so of any of the Germanic languages. There are probably fewer than 20 native users of Wymysorys, or around 70 speakers in 2006 according to
Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...
, virtually all bilingual; the majority are elderly. The status of Wymysorys is complex because genealogically, it belongs to the East Central dialect group of High German. Nevertheless, based on the self-identification of users as a group separate from the Germans and the existence of a literary language (or, more precisely, a
microlanguage Slavic microlanguages are literary linguistic varieties that exist alongside the better-known Slavic languages of historically prominent nations. Aleksandr Dulichenko coined the term "(literary) microlanguages" at the end of the 1970s; it subsequ ...
), it can be considered a separate language. It belongs to the dialect group of the former , which includes the
Alzenau dialect Halcnovian , alternatively spelled Haltsnovian, is an East Central German dialect spoken in the former village of Hałcnów, which is now a district of Bielsko-Biała, Poland. It was the vernacular language of Hałcnów until 1945, when ethnic G ...
.


History

In origin, Wymysorys is traced to derive from 12th century Middle High German, with a strong influence from
Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
, and presumably also some influence from
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 ...
, Dutch,
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
and perhaps Frisian. The inhabitants of Wilamowice are thought to be descendants of
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
, Flemish and Scottish settlers who arrived in Poland during the 13th century. Many of the inhabitants claim that they are descended from the people of Flanders, Friesland, and Holland, with others claiming to be descended from the Anglo-Saxons. Although historically derived from the German dialect continuum, Wymysorys is not
mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
with Standard German.Wicherkiewicz, op. cit. Unlike in other West Germanic enclave communities in Polish-speaking territory, where closely related dialects (e.g.
Halcnovian Halcnovian , alternatively spelled Haltsnovian, is an East Central German dialect spoken in the former village of Hałcnów, which is now a district of Bielsko-Biała, Poland. It was the vernacular language of Hałcnów until 1945, when ethnic ...
) were spoken, Wymysorys speakers did not self-identify as Germans and used Polish, not German, as '' Dachsprache''. Wymysorys was the vernacular language of Wilamowice until World War II. However, it seems it has been in decline since the late 19th century. In 1880 as many as 92% of the town's inhabitants spoke Wymysorys (1,525 out of 1,662 people), in 1890 – only 72%, in 1900 – 67%, in 1910 – 73% again. Although Wymysorys was taught in local schools (under the name of "local variety of German"), since 1875 the basic language of instruction in most schools in Austro-Hungarian
Galicia Galicia may refer to: Geographic regions * Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain ** Gallaecia, a Roman province ** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia ** The medieval King ...
was Polish. During World War II and the German occupation of Poland Wymysorys was openly promoted by the Nazi administration, but after the war the tables turned: local
communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
authorities forbade the use of Wymysorys in any form. The widespread bilingualism of the people saved most local residents from being forcibly resettled to Germany, many of them stopped teaching their children their language or even using it in daily life. Although the ban was lifted after 1956, Wymysorys has been gradually replaced by Polish, especially amongst the younger generation. Most of the inhabitants have the same surnames (Mozler, Rozner, Figwer, Biba, Foks, Sznajder), which led to the use of nicknames (Fliöer-Fliöer, Hȧla-Mockja, i.e. Florian, son of Florian or Maciej, son of Elżbieta). Nowadays, as part of saving the Wymysorys culture, new songs and lyrics are written in this language. The play was written in Wymysorys, based on the prose of J. R. R. Tolkien, which was staged, among others, at the
Polish Theatre in Warsaw Polish Theatre in Warsaw ( pl, Teatr Polski im. Arnolda Szyfmana w Warszawie) is a theatre in Warsaw, Poland. It is located at ul. Karasia 2. The current artistic director is Andrzej Seweryn. The theatre was initiated by Arnold Szyfman and desig ...
in February 2016. Acting on a proposal by Tymoteusz Król, the Library of Congress added the Wymysorys language to the register of languages on 18 July 2007. It was also registered in the International Organization for Standardization, where it received the ''wym'' ISO 639-3 code. In a 2009 UNESCO report Wymysorys has been reported as "severely endangered" and nearly extinct. Members of the Wikimedia Polska association were also involved in saving this dying language. As part of the "Wilamowice" project, Wymysorys words read by Józef Gara were recorded, and the Wymysorys dictionary in Wiktionary was supplemented (in 2018, the dictionary consisted of over 7,000 words).


Revitalisation

Some new revitalisation efforts were started in the first decade of the 21st century, led by speaker Tymoteusz Król, whose efforts include private lessons with a group of pupils as well as compiling language records, standardising written orthography and compiling the first ever dictionary of Wymysorys. Additionally, a new project called The Wymysiöeryśy Akademyj – Accademia Wilamowicziana or WA-AW was established under the "Artes Liberales" program at the University of Warsaw with the intention of creating a unified scholastic body for the study of the Wymysorys language.


Phonology


Consonants

* Voiced stops, sibilant fricatives and affricates are regularly devoiced or voiceless in final position. * The sounds of and are interchangeable among different speakers. The use of is typically heard at the beginning of a word, possibly due to the influence of Polish, even though historically in Germanic languages, the glottal fricative is typically heard. * The series of palato-alveolar and alveolo-palatal fricative and affricate sounds, are heard interchangeably among various speakers. * is heard in word-final position, as an allophone of . * The voiced affricates are only heard in Polish loanwords. * A series of flat post-alveolar sibilants and affricates , are also heard in Polish loanwords, interchangeably with alveolar-palatal sounds . * The labial-velar approximant is pronounced with a lesser degree of lip rounding than in English, and is more similar to the Polish pronunciation of ''ł'' .


Vowels

* The close-mid sound is phonetically more fronted as . * Mid central vowel sounds are also heard close central sounds , among speakers.


Alphabet

Wymysorys has been for centuries mostly a spoken language. It was not until the times of Florian Biesik, the first author of major literary works in the language, that a need for a separate version of a Latin alphabet arose. Biesik wrote most of his works in plain
Polish alphabet The Polish alphabet (Polish: ''alfabet polski'', ''abecadło'') is the script of the Polish language, the basis for the Polish system of orthography. It is based on the Latin alphabet but includes certain letters with diacritics: the ''kreska'' ...
, which he considered better-suited for the phonetics of his language. In recent times Józef Gara (1929–2013), another author of works in the local language, devised a distinct Wymysorys alphabet, consisting of 34 letters derived from the Latin script and mostly based on Polish as well: Wymysorys orthography includes the digraph " AO", which is treated as a separate letter.


Example words and their relationship to other languages

A sample of Wymysorys words with German, Dutch and English translations. Note that is read in Wymysorys like English w (as in Polish), and like v (as in Polish and German):


Sample texts

Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...
in Wymysorys Our Father; English translation Our Father, thou (who) art in heaven, Thy name shall be hallowed; Thy kingdom shall come here; Thy will shall be in heaven and on earth; give our daily bread to us today; and forgive us our debts/sins, as we, too, forgive our debtors/sinners; don't lead us to sin; but save us from evil.
or Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Or or OR may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * "O.R.", a 1974 episode of List of M*A*S*H episodes (Season 3), M*A*S*H * Or (My Treasure), a 2004 movie from Israel (''Or'' means "light" in Hebrew) Music * Or (album), ''Or ...
Amen.
A lullaby in Wymysorys with English translation: Sleep, my boy, soundly! Foreign guests are coming, Aunts and uncles are coming, Bringing nuts and apples, Sleep, my Johnny, soundly!


See also

* Vilamovians *
Alzenau dialect Halcnovian , alternatively spelled Haltsnovian, is an East Central German dialect spoken in the former village of Hałcnów, which is now a district of Bielsko-Biała, Poland. It was the vernacular language of Hałcnów until 1945, when ethnic G ...
* Silesian German * Masurian dialect


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * *


External links

*
Wymysiöeryś – jeszcze mowa nie zginęła (Wymysiöeryś – the language has not yet perished)
at YouTube. Agencja Fotograficzna Fotorzepa.
Rzeczpospolita () is the official name of Poland and a traditional name for some of its predecessor states. It is a compound of "thing, matter" and "common", a calque of Latin ''rés pública'' ( "thing" + "public, common"), i.e. ''republic'', in Engli ...

The founding ceremony of the Accademia Wilamowicziana
at YouTube.
A documentary about Wymysorys and the associated revitalization efforts
at YouTube.
About the Wymysorys language in a television magazine
at YouTube.


Central Europe's Most Mysterious Language
via Culture.pl. *
WYMYSOJER

Revitalizing Endangered Languages
– The portal is also available in Wymysorys. *
Wilamowice – przywracanie języka, przywracanie pamięci / Wilamowice – restoring the language, restoring the memory (PL)
Maciej Mętrak, University of Warsaw. Warsaw (April 2016; pp. 127–134) * Narzecze wilamowickie. (Wilhelmsauer Dialekt. Dy wymmysauschy Gmoansproch) (Wymysorys language) in the editorial office of at the Polish Wikisource *
wilamowicki czy wilamowski? – Poradnia językowa PWN (Wymysorys or Wymysorys?)
, Polish Scientific Publishers PWN (13 January 2020)
Ynzer łidła – nasze pieśni (Ynzer Łidła – Our Songs). Songs, Lullabies and Counting-out Rhymes from Wilamowice


Further reading

*Adam Kleczkowski
''Dialekt Wilamowic w Zachodniej Galicji. Fonetyka i Fleksja''
1920 (Google Books, full text) {{DEFAULTSORT:Wymysorys language High German languages German dialects Endangered Germanic languages Languages of Poland Silesian Voivodeship