Reviving the Prussian language.

[Skomand]

I have just found this article on the Order/Old Prussians (in German):


Wenskus, Reinhard, Der deutsche Orden und die nichtdeutsche Bevölkerung des Preußenlandes,

in: Die deutsche Ostsiedlung des Mittelalters, hrsg. von W. Schlesinger, Sigmaringen 1975

http://www.mgh-bibliothek.de/dokumente/a/a140984.pdf

Quote 21 refers to Dusburg mentioning returning Bartians.
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Salys, Antanas (1902-1972)

Die žemaitischen Mundarten. Tl. 1, Geschichte des žemaitischen Sprachgebiets

http://kpbc.umk.pl/dlibra/docmetadat...r_id=&lp=3&QI=



The time-frame is 1450 to 1550.

[Skomand]

There is an interesting section called Lithuanians of Lithuania Minor: autochtons or immigrants? in the book by Arthur Hermann (Lietuvių ir vokiečių kaimynystė : straipsnių rinkinys). The article deals with populating of wildnis. It mentions that in XII-XIII c. Nadruvians and Scalvians together with southern Curonians politically belonged to Samogitians who immigrated to these lands (which means close inguistic contacts between Western and Eastern Baltic).

Arthur Hermann's article is outdated (from round 1990), he did not take into account important data.
This is the situation before the arrival of Lithuanian immigrants (after 1466): the Great Wilderness

[Skomand]

Oh the irrational sentimentality

Old Prussian culture was more of a full-blown culture, than the contemporaneous German one could aspire to be - it had its own autochtonous religion, customs, social structure whereas Teutons were merely regurgitating the imported Judeo-Christian religion and other cultural aspects taken over from the Mediterranean.

The only sense in which it was "superior" to the indigenous Old Prussian one was aggressiveness. Teutonic Order was far more aggressive, I'll give you that.


You bringing up widow burning in this context is really laughable though - as if the Germans weren't practising things no less atrocious?
As if the Germans didn't burn alive the Prussian chieftains who came to them for negotiation in 1261? Did the Ordin's Master not burn alive the Teutonic knights who sided with Old Prussians side during the Great Prussian Uprising?
Even many centuries later, Protestants were still burning women at stakes as "witches". How's that for primitive?

Do you like widow-burning as long as it is pagan?

[Skomand]

Free download (includes Old Prussian, Lithuanian and Latvian)
The print was 145,00 EUR at the time

Okuka M. (Hg.) 2002: Lexikon der Sprachen des europäischen Ostens. Klagenfurt (= Wieser Enzyklopädie des europäischen Ostens 10).

http://eeo.uni-klu.ac.at/index.php?t...prachenlexikon

[lI]

Antanas Zalys in his book "Die zemaitischen Mundarten" (downloadable) argues that the -aitis/-atis patronym suffixes are of purely Samogitian origin.

Does he actually argue that those suffixes are of purely Samogitian origin? Could you post a source in English or translate your German source for this claim?
In a Lithuanian source something very different is stated about Salys' argument. According to it, Salys argued that -aitis suffix is more typical for Western Lithuania (which means Samogitia & Sudovia rather than just Samogitia alone) but he did not claim that it's origin is purely Western Lithuanian, only that it's more common there:

Prof. A. Salys teigia, kad priesaga -aítis esanti būdinga vakarinei Lietuvos daliai (Žemaičiai, Mažoji Lietuva,I Zanavykai.)

http://www.ku.lt/leidykla/files/2012...s_2011_210.pdf

Furthermore, despite of it being more common in West Lithuania at the start, by XVII century there already was a single system encompassing the whole Lithuanian speaking areas where -aitis was the most typical patronymic suffix.

Lieka tik viena: anuomet formavosi ar jau buvo susiformavusi vieninga visai etnografinei Lietuvai vieninga tėvavardžių sistema su priesaga -aitis

http://www.baltistica.lt/index.php/b...ewFile/919/846

__________________________________________________

Do you like widow-burning as long as it is pagan?

I never said I liked widow-burning.

You proclaimed that the Teutonic crusaders were more culturally advanced than Old Prussians based on that their widows practised self-immolation (which wasn't even compulsory, widows had an option to become vaidilutės (pagan priestesses) instead - i.e. the kind of women that Protestants were so zealous to burn on the stakes) and even equated the arrival of Teutons to the spread of Indo-European languages and culture when in reality the Teutonic practises were more barbaric than widow burning.

__________________________________________________


Some useful links for Old Prussian language:

Vytautas Mažiulis
HISTORICAL GRAMMAR OF OLD PRUSSIAN
Translation from Lithuanian and comments by Dr. Letas Palmaitis
http://donelaitis.vdu.lt/prussian/mazgr.pdf


DICTIONARY OF REVIVED PRUSSIAN:
PRUSSIAN–ENGLISH
ENGLISH–PRUSSIAN
http://donelaitis.vdu.lt/prussian/Engl.pdf


Prussian Chrestomathy
http://donelaitis.vdu.lt/prussian/chrestom.pdf

[Skomand]

Does he actually argue that those suffixes are of purely Samogitian origin? Could you post a source in English or translate your German source for this claim?
In a Lithuanian source something very different is stated about Salys' argument. According to this source, Salys argued that -aitis suffix is more typical for Western Lithuania (which means Samogitia & Sudovia rather than just Samogitia alone) but he did not claim that it's origin is purely Western Lithuanian, only that it's more common there:

http://www.ku.lt/leidykla/files/2012...s_2011_210.pdf

Furthermore, despite of it being more common in West Lithuania at the start, by XVII century there already was a single system encompassing the whole Lithuanian speaking areas where -aitis was the most typical patronymic suffix.
http://www.baltistica.lt/index.php/b...ewFile/919/846

This is Salys himself. His thesis is in German because he was a student under Jurgis Gerulis in Leipzig.

Translation of the bottom part:
"................
Patronymica ending in -aitis, however, are typical of Samogitian. Only in the Dievinisis area of the Vilnius region do we know forms of names such as Kacoic, Zamoic, Pilipaitis etc, MLLG IV 175."

[Skomand]

I never said I liked widow-burning.
You proclaimed that the Teutonic crusaders were more culturally advanced than Old Prussians based on that their widows practised self-immolation (which wasn't even compulsory, widows had an option to become vaidilutės (pagan priestesses) instead - i.e. the kind of women that Protestants were so zealous to burn on the stakes) and even equated the arrival of Teutons to the spread of Indo-European languages and culture when in reality the Teutonic practises were more barbaric than widow burning.

First I mentioned how Trautmann explains why Old Prussian - as expressed in the use of surnames - lost its vigour between 1400 and 1600. He sees the reason in the economic superiority of the Germans.





Then I picked up this idea again with the "horse and wheel" quote and mentioned the barbaric practices of Old Prussian (peace time!) culture, such as widow-burning. Doing away with them was a condition of the peace treaty of Christburg, which f.ex. would have provided for Old Prussians to have their own Prussian Christian priests.

The atrocities committed by the Order have always been utterly condemned in East-Prussia and by East-Prussian historians, as well as the manhunts and the devastations during the Lithuanian crusades. And so did the Curia, the Order was taken to court at the Council of Constance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council...tonic_conflict

The German "Ostsiedlung" - not the warfare - was beneficial to the countries where it occurred.

Do you really believe that witch trials were held by Protestants only?

[lI]

This is Salys himself. His thesis is in German because he was a student under Jurgis Gerulis in Leipzig.

Translation of the bottom part:
"Patronymica ending in -aitis, however, are typical of Samogitian. Only in the Dievinisis area of the Vilnius region do we know forms of names such as Kacoic, Zamoic, Pilipaitis etc, MLLG IV 175."

Dieveniškės is a tiny town (it would be more suitable to label it a village) on the Easternmost fringe of Vilnius region:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieveni%C5%A1k%C4%97s

However, at the beginning of the 17th century surnames with -aitis suffix constituted 63% of all suffixes in Vilnius city - obviously, Dieveniškės, being so tiny, cannot be held accountable for all those -aitis folks there, the whole Vilnius region must have had simialr frequencies of it.

_________________________________________________

Do you really believe that witch trials were practised by Protestants only?

No, they were practiced by all Christians. However, while this phenomenon caused an estimated number of 800 fatalities in staunchly Catholic Italy, zealous Protestants of Germany took lives of 17324–26000 people. That says it all really.

The German "Ostsiedlung" - not the warfare - was beneficial to the countries where it occurred.

A population replacement by Germans was beneficial to the autochtones?.. lol
You might say that it was beneficial to the countries where it occurred only if you infer an abstract entity "a country" defining it by the region it occupies rather than by the people who dwell in it and choose economics as the sole evaluation criteria.

First I mentioned how Trautmann explains why Old Prussian - as expressed in the use of surnames - lost its vigour between 1400 and 1600. He sees the reason in the economic superiority of the Germans.

Economic superiority does not translate into cultural superiority. Imposing one's culture by getting the others economically subjugated by brute force says nothing positive about the quality of the culture being imposed.

The atrocities committed by the Order have always been utterly condemned in East-Prussia and by East-Prussian historians, as well as the manhunts and the devastations during the Lithuanian crusades. And so did the Kurie, the Order was taken to court at the Council of Constance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council...tonic_conflict

How relevant is it that they were condemned if virtually nothing was done to stop them? A quote from your very own link about the Council of Constance:

The Council did not make any political decisions.
After another round of futile negotiations, Gollub War broke out in 1422. It ended with the Treaty of Melno. Polish-Teutonic wars continued for another hundred years.

Not to mention that even the condemnation was half-hearted and not unanimous:

John of Falkenberg [a German Dominican theologian and writer] proved to be the fiercest opponent of the Poles. In his Liber de doctrina, Falkenberg argued that "the Emperor has the right to slay even peaceful infidels simply because they are pagans (...). The Poles deserve death for defending infidels, and should be exterminated even more than the infidels; they should be deprived of their sovereignty and reduced to slavery." In Satira, he attacked Polish King Jogaila, calling him a "mad dog" unworthy to be king. Falkenberg was condemned and imprisoned for such libel, but was not officially accused of heresy.

Then I picked up this idea again with the "horse and wheel" quote and mentioned the barbaric practices of Old Prussian (peace time!) culture, such as widow-burning.

Oh, sorry, do the German witch trials count as wartime fatalities?

I think you don't quite understand the Baltic culture.
First of all, I repeat what I wrote in the previous post: self-immolation was not compulsory for widows as they had an option to become vaidilutės (pagan priestesses) instead - i.e. the witches that Protestants were burning on the stakes.
Secondly, it is a well known fact that Old Prussian men (same as other Balts) practiced suicides by making pyres and stabbing themselves onto them too when life would get too tough - so, it's not only about the widows or women.
It is simply that suicides historically haven't been a taboo in Baltic culture like they have been in Christianity - something that has survived even to this age.

Anyway, a person taking one's life by jumping onto fire (which Old Prussians used to do) and a person being forcibly flung onto a fire by others (which Germans used to do during the witch trials) is not quite on par in terms of barbarity.

Doing away with them was a condition of the peace treaty of Christburg, which f.ex. would have provided for Old Prussians to have their own Prussian Christian priests.

The conditions of the peace treaty of Christburg was converting to Christianity, rather than just dropping some particular pagan practices.
The practice in question was just one of the excuses for the crusades, not the motivating factor.

[Mingle]

[Mingle]

Found this interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Pr...d_Old_Prussian

A few linguists and philogogists are involved in reviving a reconstructed form of the language from Luther's catechisms, the Elblągian dictionary, place names, and Prussian loan words in the Low Prussian dialect of German. Several dozen people use the language in Lithuania, Kaliningrad, and Poland, including a few children who are natively bilingual. The Prusaspira Society has published their translation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince. The book was translated by Piotr Szatkowski (Pīteris Šātkis) and released in 2015. The other efforts of Baltic Prussian societies include development of online dictionaries, learning apps and games. In Kaliningrad Oblast there are also attempts to produce music with lyrics written in the revived Baltic Prussian language.[16][17]

Important in this revival was Vytautas Mažiulis, who died on 11 April 2009, and his pupil Letas Palmaitis, leader of the experiment and author of the web site Prussian Reconstructions.[18] Two late contributors were Prāncis Arellis (Pranciškus Erelis), Lithuania, and Dailūns Russinis (Dailonis Rusiņš), Latvia. After them, Twankstas Glabbis from Kaliningrad oblast and Nērtiks Pamedīns from Polish Warmia-Mazuria actively joined.[citation needed]