Poland-Germany border, most interesting thing ever

[War Chef]

Too much glorifying the German language to their own detriment?

Go ahead and say the obvious. THEY GOT CUCKED.

Lots of German surnames but minimal German DNA points to 1 thing. Massive cuck-fest with the local women.

[Peterski]

Same with rulers in various regions. Silesian Piasts for example started as a Polish dynasty, and ended up being German-speakers (you can see when that happened if you look at their given names - when they started identifying as Germans, they started using Germanic given names):

https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...=1#post4560125

[Peterski]

German colonisation also is part of it. It's not just a cultural spread, but also a genetic one.

OK but for example Spanish language and culture spread to both Argentina and Bolivia. Both of these countries speak Spanish today. But Bolivia got much less of Spanish genes than Argentina.

So you can have a cultural and linguistic shift with various levels of genetic contribution.

It was also a genetic spread, but not on such a scale like replacement of natives in Argentina. Slavic inhabitants were mostly assimilated, not replaced. Like Andids in Bolivia.

But in areas like Silesia Germans came as peaceful settlers. So there is a big difference compared to how Spaniards came to Argentina and Bolivia (as invaders / conquistadors).

[Peterski]

There were different circumstances in each region. For example:

1) Mecklenburg - Germans come as crusaders, and exterminate a lot of local population.

2) Silesia - Germans come as peaceful immigrants, local Slavic population is untouched.

^^^
So no surprise, that Silesian Germans are much more Slavic than Mecklenburg Germans.

As for Baltic Germans:

3) Latvia - Germans invade, don't exterminate locals, but also don't assimilate them.

In Lower Silesia Slavs were culturally Germanized. In Latvia, Latvians were not Germanized. So Latvian genes did not "infiltrate" Baltic Germans as much as Slavic genes did in Silesia.

However, it seems that some Latvians were still absorbed into the German community.

[Dandelion]

It doesn't take a large population of foreigners for people to switch language. I'm quite happy it never spread too far for Belgium. Only Brussels was Frenchified and this also in part thanks to the success of French colonisation of much of Africa and immigration and the fact that Brussels used to be less relevant in the past. It developed and grew under French-speaking rule. Ghent was the second most Frenchified city, but only the elite and eventually they switched back to Dutch or migrated. It stayed Dutch-speaking.
Many French speakers in Brussels are autochtonous with Dutch surnames though. I used to have one replacement teacher for French due to the pregnancy leave of the other teacher. She was a Francophone from Brussels with a Dutch surname. She learned Dutch but spoke it with a heavy French accent.

You just need either the regime to be pushing for it or an elite speaking it and learning centres to speak that language. Or in the case of Poland have religious sermons in that language.

[Peterski]

Germanization of Lower Silesia was completed only during the 19th and early 20th century. There were still many Slavic-speakers there as of early 1800s. Linguistic map as of 1816-1831:

[Dandelion]

There were different circumstances in each region. For example:

1) Mecklenburg - Germans come as crusaders, and exterminate a lot of local population.

2) Silesia - Germans come as peaceful immigrants, local Slavic population is untouched.

^^^
So no surprise, that Silesian Germans are much more Slavic than Mecklenburg Germans.

As for Baltic Germans:

3) Latvia - Germans invade, don't exterminate locals, but also don't assimilate them.

In Lower Silesia Slavs were culturally Germanized. In Latvia, Latvians were not Germanized. So Latvian genes did not "infiltrate" Baltic Germans as much as Slavic genes did in Silesia.

However, it seems that some Latvians were still absorbed into the German community.

When Latvia first became independent it had a fairly strong anti-German sentiment. Some Baltic Germans Balticised their names as a result. I would guess they have mixed with Latvians by now as the Baltic population emancipated and enjoyed social mobility.

[Peterski]

Ethnic structure of Western Pomerania, year 1300:

"Around 1300, Western Pomerania was inhabited by 240-300 thousand people, including ca. 60 thousand Germans. In cities, Germans were 50% of inhabitants and in villages they were 10-11%."

Source: http://parseta.org.pl/uploads/media/...skich_2008.pdf

I saw similar estimates for Silesia, but I can't find them now.

I have this, but this is only for knights / nobility (not for total population):

Ethnic structure of knights (nobles) in Silesia, year 1300:

Total knights mentioned in sources - 1192

Polish knights - 1084 (ca. 91%)
German knights - 99 (ca. 8%)
Czech knights - 9 (below 1%)

Source:

http://otworzksiazke.pl/images/ksiaz...a_polityka.pdf

http://otworzksiazke.pl/images/ksiaz...i_rodowody.pdf

[Loki]

Good thread, interesting info!

I see it looks like Hungary and Poland are quite close genetically.

[Loki]

When Latvia first became independent it had a fairly strong anti-German sentiment.

Now they've traded it for a fairly strong anti-Russian sentiment. Never happy, they are...