Kashubian - How does it sound like to you?

[Rugevit]

Obviously, Kashubian is most similar to Polish. I could pick up more words from Kashubian than Polish from the text of the song posted above.

[Roy]

Agree, but if you make an effort and tune your ears to different pronunciation of the same words, the process of understanding will be much easier. It applies to all Slavic languages. To focus on listening is a must

Yes but I don't believe that every Polish person should understand ''Góral speech'' / góralski when they speak with use of specific words that are unknown to the rest.

[Veneda]

Yes but I don't believe that every Polish person should understand ''Góral speech'' / góralski when they speak with use of specific words that are unknown to the rest.

Excuse me, but Góral speech is the most understandable Polish dialect among all Polish dialects. Sorry for you that you as a Pole do not follow Polish Górals lang LOL

[Rugevit]

Is language of Słowińcy, who live between Słupsk and Łeba still spoken? Maybe some regional dialect that has retained linguistic features of their language?

[Peterski]

Is language of Słowińcy, who live between Słupsk and Łeba still spoken?

They spoke the same language as Kashubians, only a slightly different dialect.

But no - their dialect died out (except for very old people) already before WW2. They got Germanized before 1945.

Some of them have remained in Poland after WW2, but they also lost their language during the last 70 years.

Today descendants of Słowińcy who live in Germany speak German and these who live in Poland speak Polish.

In 1800 there were many Słowińcy. But they were becoming Germanized fast, especially those who were Protestants.

For example here is the data from the Lutheran parish of Główczyce (Główczëce, Glowitz), ca. 28 km from Słupsk (Słëpsk, Stolp):

Year (total population) - number of Polish/Slavic language speakers (%), number of German language speakers (%):

1829 (4848) - 3297 (68%), 1551 (32%)
1850 (5122) - 1370 (27%), 3752 (73%)
1879 (5381) - 125 (2%), 5256 (98%)

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As for Kashubian language - it is very similar to Polish.

And historically Kashubians called their own language "puolski" (polski, Polish), while local Germans called it "Polsch" (Polish).

Kashubians also called themselves (when describing their ethnicity), "puolscy ledze" (Polish: polscy ludzie; English: Polish people).

In local German dialects term "Kashubians" was a synonym for "peasants", while their ethnicity was described as "Polaken".

For example German ethno-linguistic atlas by Justus Perthes from 1847 did not distinguish Kashubians as separate from Poles.

The first German census which counted Kashubian-speakers as a distinct group, not as Poles, was the census of 1890. And all German censuses before 1861 counted Kashubian-speakers as ethnic Poles (those between 1861 and 1890 counted them as "others who don't speak German").

Translated excerpt from the website of the association "Kashubian Unity" ("Kaszëbskô Jednota"):

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"(...) The interest regarding the number of Kashubian population dates back to the middle of the 19th century. Numbers given at that time have only an estimated character. For example according to Russian scholar Alexander Hilferding, who in 1856 visited the region of Kashubia, in his work "Remnants of Slavs along the Baltic Sea coast" , wrote that there were around 200,000 Kashubians at that time, maybe slightly more - as he added.

In Prussian statistics Kashubians as a separate linguistic group were counted for the first time only in the 1861 census. Before that they were counted as Polish-speaking people in all censuses. However, in officially published results of the 1861 census the column for Kashubian-speakers was not included. Instead of that, there was another column, named "other people who don't speak German". It has to be assumed, that vast majority of people in that column were Kashubians. Only the 1890 census included Kashubian population in its officially published results. According to official data from that census, the number of Kashubians at that time was over 53,000. However, the results of that census were heavily criticized by a Kashubian scholar Stefan Ramułt. In his "Statistics on Kashubian population", published in Cracow in 1899, Ramułt concluded, that the results of the German 1890 census were basically falsified and were showing a false picture of real linguistic structure of the region. He illustrated his conclusion with several examples. It is worth to quote them:

"For example in village Parchowo, numbering 640 inhabitants, 6 people were reported as Polish-speakers, and 466 people as Kashubian-speakers (the rest of them were Germans and Jews). Also in Prokowo among 543 people there were reported 7 people who spoke Polish as their mother tongue, and 518 with Kashubian mother tongue. Similar situation was in Dzierżążno (Seeresen), where among 318 inhabitants 4 people were written down into the column for Polish language and 268 people into the column for Kashubian language. But on the other hand, in Żuromin from among 231 inhabitants, 230 were included in the column for Polish-speakers and nobody was reported as a Kashubian-speaker. In Skorzewo among 749 inhabitants only 1 person was reported as a Kashubian-speaker, while 697 as Polish-speakers. In Mściszewice among 768 people as many as 709 were included in the column for Polish language and only 5 in the column for Kashubian."

Author of "Statistics on Kashubian population" summarized those numbers as follows:

"But nobody should even think, that Slavic population living in Parchowo, Prokowo and Dzierżążno is speaking a different language, or even a different dialect, than inhabitants of Żuromin, Skorzewo and Mściszewice. (...) All of them (...) speak one and the same Kashubian dialect. (...) Because the number of people, whose mother tongue is literary Polish in that area, was in reality not even 100 individuals, compared to over 45,000 speakers of native Kashubian dialect, while according to the falsified official Prussian data there were 22,309 Polish-speakers and only 16,964 Kashubian-speakers."

That scholar also heavily criticized the Prussian category of "bilingual people". He considered that so called "bilingual people" should in fact be counted among the Kashubians, who speak also German as their second language, and are too timid to admit their full "Kashubianness". (...)"

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According to Stefan Ramułt, the German census of 1890 in several counties understated the number of Kashubian-speakers, while inflating the numbers of Polish-speakers and German-speakers - in his study he corrected the falsified official figures in the following way:

In this chart "Germans" = "speakers of German language" (and so on), because the census counted languages:



Another example of manipulations in German censuses:

Subkowy Municipality in Tczew County (Kreis Dirschau) - censuses of 1905, 1910 and 1921:

1905 (population: 1180) - 935 Polish-speakers, 238 German-speakers, 7 other language
1910 (population: 1249) - 751 "Bilinguals", 273 Polish-speakers, 225 German-speakers

And now according to Polish census (question about nationality, not language):

1921 (population: 1342) - 1262 Polish, 72 German, 8 other nationality

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In 1800 there were many Słowińcy. But they were becoming Germanized fast, especially those who were Protestants.

For example here is the data from the Lutheran parish of Główczyce (Główczëce, Glowitz), ca. 28 km from Słupsk (Słëpsk, Stolp):

Year (total population) - number of Polish/Slavic language speakers (%), number of German language speakers (%):

1829 (4848) - 3297 (68%), 1551 (32%)
1850 (5122) - 1370 (27%), 3752 (73%)
1879 (5381) - 125 (2%), 5256 (98%)

Roman Catholics were harder to Germanize:

This map shows percent of Roman Catholics among the total population around years 1900 - 1910:



And this shows Polish pupils as percent of all pupils in Prussian schools by region in years 1905 - 1914:



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Coming back to Kashubians:

According to 2011 census in Poland there were 232,547 people who declared themselves as ethnic Kashubians (Pomeranians). Of them only 386 (three hundred and eighty six) regarded themselves as Kashubians and Germans. Vast majority - 215,784 - regarded themselves as Kashubians and Poles (of them 214,415 regarded themselves as Poles 1st and Kashubians 2nd, while 1,369 regarded themselves as Kashubians 1st and Poles 2nd). Finally there were 16,377 people who regarded themselves as Kashubians alone.

Majority of Kashubians have already forgotten the language of their ancestors.

But 97,714 of them (42% of those who declared Kashubian ethnicity) still spoke Kashubian at home, according to 2011 census.

In addition to that, another group of 10,426 people declared that they spoke Kashubian language in 2011 census, but they did not declare any kind of Kashubian ethnic identification (be it Polish-Kashubian, Kashubian alone, etc.) - they declared their ethnicity as Polish alone. This shows that the real number of Kashubians or people of Kashubian descent is higher than the number of people who declare Kashubian ethnicity (232,547), because many of such Kashubians (but how many? - this is impossible to establish precisely, certainly at least several dozen thousand) simply do not declare Kashubian ethnicity. 10,426 of them did not declare Kashubian ethnicity even though they still spoke Kashubian language.

So in total there were 108,140 Kashubian speakers in Poland in 2011 census. Of them 3,802 spoke Kashubian as their only language, while 104,319 were bilinguals who spoke Kashubian and Polish. And 19 (nineteen) people were bilinguals who spoke Kashubian and German.