Wymysorys language

Wymysorys
Vilamovian
Wymysiöeryś
Native to Poland
Region Wilamowice
Native speakers
 70 (2006)[1]
Latin
Official status
Regulated by no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-3 wym
Glottolog wymy1235[2]

Wymysorys (Wymysiöeryś), also known as Vilamovian or Wilamowicean, is a West Germanic micro-language actively used in the small town of Wilamowice, Poland (Wymysoü in Wymysorys), on the border between Silesia and Lesser Poland, near Bielsko-Biała.[3][4] It is considered an endangered language.[3] At present, there are probably between 70 and 100[3][5] native users of Wymysorys, virtually all bilingual; the majority are elderly.[3]

History

In origin, Wymysorys appears to derive from 12th-century Middle High German, with a strong influence from Low German, Dutch, Frisian, Polish and Old English.[3] The inhabitants of Wilamowice are thought to be descendants of German, Flemish and Scottish settlers who arrived in Poland during the 13th-century. However, the inhabitants of Wilamowice always denied any connections with Germany and proclaimed their Flemish origins.[6] Although related to German, Wymysorys is not mutually intelligible with standard German (this is however also the case for most German dialects).[7]

Wymysorys was the vernacular language of Wilamowice until 1939–1945. However, it seems it has been in decline since late 19th century. In 1880 as many as 92% of the town's inhabitants spoke Wymysorys (1525 out of 1662), in 1890 - only 72%, in 1900 - 67%, in 1910 - 73% again.[8] 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 was Polish.[8] 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 authorities forbade the use of Wymysorys in any form.[8] Although common bilingualism 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.[9] Although the ban was lifted after 1956, Wymysorys has been gradually replaced by Polish, especially amongst the younger generations.

Acting on a proposal by Tymoteusz Król, the Library of Congress added the Wymysorys language to the register of languages on July 18, 2007.[10] It was also registered in the International Organization for Standardization, where it received the wym ISO 639-3 code.[4] In a 2009 UNESCO report Wymysorys has been reported as "severely endangered" and nearly extinct.[10]

Wymysorys was the language of the poetry of Florian Biesik, during the 19th-century.

Revitalization

Some new revitalization efforts have been started within 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, standardizing 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.[11]

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, which he considered better-suited for the phonetics of his language.[12] 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:

Majuscule forms (also called uppercase or capital letters)
AAoBCĆDEFGHIJKLŁMNŃOÖPQRSŚTUÜVWYZŹŻ
Minuscule forms (also called lowercase or small letters)
aaobcćdefghijklłmnńoöpqrsśtuüvwyzźż

Wilamowicean orthography includes the digraph "AO", which is treated as a separate letter.

Sample words and relation to other languages

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

Meaning Wymysorys Middle High German German Dutch Comment
alone ałan alein(e) allein alleen
and ana, an und(e), unt und en
bridge bryk brücke, brucke Brücke brug
dolt duł tol, dol ‘foolish, nonsensical’ toll ‘mad, fantastic, wonderful’ dol ‘crazy’
hear fulgia < Frisian; WFris folgje, EFris foulgje ‘to follow’ hören horen cf. German folgen, Dutch volgen "to follow"
wholly ganc ganz ganz heel (Flemish: gans)
court gyrycht geriht Gericht gerecht cf. German Recht "(legal) right", English right)
dog hund hunt Hund hond cf. English hound
heaven dyr hymuł himel Himmel hemel
love łiwa liebe Liebe liefde
a bit a mikieła michel ‘much’ ein bisschen een beetje Scots mickle, English much; antonymic switch ‘much’ → ‘little’
mother müter muoter Mutter moeder
middle mytuł mittel Mitte middel
no one nimanda nieman niemand niemand
no ny ne, ni nein nee(n)
breath ödum < Middle German Atem adem cf. obsolete German Odem, Middle Franconian Öödem
elephant olifant < Dutch Elefant olifant
evening öwyt ābent Abend avond
write śrajwa schrīben schreiben schrijven
sister syster swester Schwester zuster
stone śtaen stein Stein steen
drink trynkia trinken trinken drinken
picture obrozła < Slavic; Polish obraz Bild beeld
world wełt werlt Welt wereld
winter wynter winter Winter winter
silver zyłwer silber Silber zilver
seven zyjwa < Middle German siven sieben zeven
welcome sgiöekumt wil(le)kōme(n) wilkommen welkom

Sample texts

Lord's Prayer in Wymysorys

Ynzer Foter, dü byst ym hymuł,

Daj noma zuł zajn gywajt;

Daj Kyngrajch zuł dö kuma;

Daj wyła zuł zajn ym hymuł an uf der aot;

dos ynzer gywynłichys brut gao yns haojt;

an fercaj yns ynzer siułda,

wi wir aoj fercajn y ynzyn siułdigia;

ny łat yns cyn zynda;

zunder kaonst yns reta fum nistgüta.

[Do Dajs ej z Kyngrajch an dy maocht, ans łaowa uf inda.]

Amen

A lullaby in Wymysorys with English translation:

Śłöf maj buwła fest!

Skumma fremdy gest,

Skumma muma ana fettyn,

Z' brennia nysła ana epułn,

Śłöf maj Jasiu fest!

Sleep, my boy, soundly!

Foreign guests are coming,

Aunts and uncles are coming,

Bringing nuts and apples,

Sleep, my Johnny, soundly!

See also

References

  1. ↑ Wymysorys at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Wymysorys". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Ethnologue: Languages of the World - Wymysorys
  4. 1 2 Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: wym
  5. ↑ Tomasz Wicherkiewicz (2003). The Making of a Language: The Case of the Idiom of Wilamowice. Mouton de Gruyter. p. 5. ISBN 3-11-017099-X.
  6. ↑ http://www.fil.wilamowice.pl/upload/file/PDF/knack2002.pdf Knack, issue 31, 2002
  7. ↑ Wicherkiewicz, op.cit., p.15
  8. 1 2 3 Wicherkiewicz, op.cit., p.10
  9. ↑ Wicherkiewicz, op.cit., p.12
  10. 1 2 Darek Golik (2010). Wymysiöeryś – jeszcze mowa nie zginęła [Wymysiöeryś - the language has not yet perished] (in Polish). Warsaw: Agencja Fotograficzna Fotorzepa, Rzeczpospolita. Event occurs at 7:25.
  11. ↑ Ritchie, Carlos (2014). "Revitalizing Endangered Languages - Wymysorys Language".
  12. ↑ Wicherkiewicz, op.cit., p. 24

Literature

External links

Wymysorys language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
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