Silesian German

Silesian
Lower Silesian, Silesian German
Schläsche Sproache, Schläs'sche Sproche
Native to Germany, Poland, Czech Republic
Region Silesia; also spoken in Czech Republic and German Silesia (area that was part of Prussian Province of Silesia, more or less around Hoyerswerda, now in Saxony)
Native speakers
 (undated figure of 12,000 in Poland)[1]
11,000 in the Czech Republic (2001 census)
Language codes
ISO 639-3 sli
Glottolog lowe1388[2]

Silesian (Silesian: Schläsche Sproache or Schläs'sche Sproche, German: Schlesisch), Silesian German or Lower Silesian is a nearly extinct German dialect spoken in Silesia. It is part of the East Central German language area with some West Slavic influences. Variations of the dialect until 1945 were spoken by about seven million people.[3] After World War II, local communist authorities forbade the use of the language, after the expulsion of the Germans the province of Silesia was incorporated into southwestern Poland, with small portions remaining in northeastern Czech Republic and in eastern Germany. Silesian German continued to be spoken only by individual families expelled to the remaining territory of Germany and in cultural gatherings mainly in West Germany. Most descendants of the Silesian Germans expelled to West and East Germany no longer learned the dialect, and the cultural gatherings were less and less frequented.

History

Historical area of distribution of the Silesian German

In origin, Silesian German appears to derive from 12th-century dialects of Middle High German, including medieval forms of Upper Saxon German, East Franconian German and Thuringian. The inhabitants of Silesia are thought to be descendants of settlers from Upper Lusatia, Saxony, Thuringia and Franconia who arrived in Silesia in the 13th century.

After World War II, local communist authorities forbade the use of the language. After the forcible expulsion of the Germans from Silesia, German Silesian culture and language nearly died out when most of Silesia became part of Poland in 1945. Polish authorities banned the use of the German language. There are still unresolved feelings on the sides of both Poles and Germans, largely because of Nazi Germany's war crimes on Poles and the forced expulsion and ethnic cleansing of native Germans from former German territories that were transferred to Poland in the wake of the Potsdam Agreement.

The German Silesian dialect is not recognized by the Polish State in any way, although the status of the German minority in Poland has improved much since the 1991 communist collapse and Polish entry into the European Union.

Silesian can be divided into gebirgsschlesische Dialektgruppe, südostschlesische Dialektgruppe, mittelschlesische Dialektgruppe, westschlesische Dialektgruppe and neiderländische Dialektgruppe.[4]:138–139 The nordostböhmische Dialektgruppe belongs to Silesian, too.[5][4]:143

Silesian German was the language in which the poetry of Karl von Holtei and Gerhart Hauptmann was written, during the 19th century.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Silesian at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009)
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Lower Silesian". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Klaus Ullmann: Schlesien-Lexikon, 2. Band der Reihe Deutsche Landschaften im Lexikon, 3. Auflage 1982, Adam Kraft Verlag GmbH & Co. KG Mannheim, pp. 260–262.
  4. 1 2 Ludwig Erich Schmitt (ed.): Germanische Dialektologie. Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden 1968
  5. ↑ Alois Kreller: Wortgeographie des Schönhengster Landes. Kraus, Nendeln 1939, 1979 Kraus, vol. 3, p. 3
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