Pamarėska

The Pomorian language or Pamarėska golba, język pomorski (in Polish) is a Balto-Slavic language spoken in the region of Pomorze in Northern Poland from Gdynia to Braniewo cities, mostly in rural areas. There are at least 20 000 speakers (including second-language speakers), of which less than 4000 speak Pomorian natively. Most of the native speakers are at the age of 50 and above, while younger generation usually speaks Polish as their first language.

Classification

Pomorian is usually classified as a separate branch of the Slavic language group of the Indo-European language family, but some scholars agree that the language is actually a distinct group related to both Baltic and Slavic languages. There is also no sole opinion on whether Pomorian is a single language or a group of closely related languages. Nowadays it is considered to be a dialectal continuum.

History

According to most scholars the Pomorian language splitted from Early Proto-Slavic before or during the period of First Palatalization. Unlike slavic languages it it highly conservative, which makes it more similar to Baltic languages. It also shared some sound changes common to this group.

Early Pomorian (Rėniapamarieska)

Little is known about an early period of Pomorian (before XIII century CE), because no written record had been left during this time. Archeological evidence state that early Pomorian tribes were living in the territory of Western Polesie region, which is now South-Western Belarus and Eastern Poland as far as the San river. Around V-VII centuries CE (during the Migration Period) Pomorians moved to their current land. The cause of migration is disputed, many factors played role in it. During this period many borrowings from neighbouring Baltic tribes entered the language. After that Pomorian did not changed quite a lot from its original state.

Old Pomorian (Vėtuhapamarieska)

First written records came from German missionaries in the XIII century and the language is called Old Pomorian (Vėtuhapamarėska). The first attestation was found on a stone, which could be a part of a monastery, in Viestūtė. The carving states: "Deiwes kun semya preienlus esti", which translates as: "God has come to this land" (In modern language this would be: "Dieve kų zemio priejįlu est"). It is also the only attestation where final /s/ is present. Some inscriptions and even small texts survived from that period, showing some dialectal features.

Middle Pomorian (Serdapamarieska)

During the period between XIII and XV centuries Eastern Pomerania was under Teutonic Order and was under a great German influence. Before that time Pomorze and Prussia were sparcely populated having no major towns there. Because of most towns being founded and populated by Germans (and later by Poles), the Pomorian language was a tine minority there. Despite that Pomorian continued existing in rural areas, where it stayed for all of its history. During this time contact with German and Polish began and a lot of loanwords were borrowed from these two languages. Also they influenced Pomorian phonology in different dialects creating even more distinction among them. Under the Polish rule Pomorian began to decline in southern territories of Pomorze and Prussia.

Modern Pomorian

The Modern period began at the end of the XIX century, when lots of people from rural areas started moving to cities and towns. People living in the city spoke primarily in German and Polish and Pomorian speaking new settlers began to forget their native tongue instead speaking the languages of prestige. Unlike in the previous period much more texts were written in Pomorian and also it became a language of liturgies, mostly in the countryside. At the beginning of XX centure there were some successful attempts to revitalize and standardize Pomorian. In 1952 a spelling reform was adopted and the standardized grammar was established. The standard was based on North-Eastern dialects, which were the most widely spoken back then. However, some writers continued using the traditional spelling or wrote in their native dialect. It was untill 1989, when a Polish linguist Sauliu Dzelini proposed a new Pomorian Proper, based on his native dialect of Viestūtė (Wiastowce in Polish), which is a Central-West dialect and also the one having the longest written records., which combined features of both previous ones. Older (Eastern) spelling was kept for linguistic works, dictionaries and as a standard for Eastern dialects.

Phonology

Vowels

Pomorian has a distinctive vowel length and four diphthongs. Unlike slavic languages, it retained all Early Proto-Slavic vowels, but most of them changed their quality having different outcomes in dialects of this language.Front vowels can palatalize a preceeding consonant, but in Western dialects this applies only to /i:/ and /e:/ before dental consonants.

Long vowels

	Front		Back
	oral	nasal	oral	nasal
Close	y /i:/	į /ĩ:/	ū /u:/	ų /ũ:/
Mid	ė /e:/		o /o:/
Open-mid	e (/ɛ:~æ:/)	ę /ɛ̃:/		ą /ɔ̃:/
Open	a (/a:/)

Short vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i /ɪ/	u /ʊ/
Open-mid	e /ɛ/	å (/ɔ/)
Open		a /ɑ/ å /ɒ/

• Allophones, appearing under acute/circumflex accent.

Diphthongs

ie /ie/	uo /uo/	ei /iɪ̯~i:/	au /ou̯/

• Allophones, appearing under acute/circumflex accent.

Consonants

Pomorian languge undergone through a process similar to the First Palatalization of velars in Slavic and palatalizaton of velars in Latvian, which resulted in turning /kʲ/ and /gʲ/ sounds into affricates (probably /t͡ɕ/ and /d͡ʑ/). Then those affricates were depalatalized to /t͡s/ and /d͡z/ in most dialects. Also there is a sound change, which turned /ɕ/ (from earlier /x/) into /ʆ/, which merged with plain /ʃ/ in all dialects, except Western ones (previously lacking a /ʃ/ sound).

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Palato-alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n̪	ɲ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t̪	c 1	k
	voiced	b	d̪	ɟ 1	g
Affricate	voiceless		t̪͡s̪	t͡ʃ
	voiced		d̪͡z̪	d͡ʒ
Fricative	voiceless	(f) 2	s̪	ʃ		h
	voiced		z̪	ʒ		(ɦ) 3
Trill			r
Approximant		w~ʋ 4		j
Lateral approximant			l	ʎ

• 1 In North-Western dialects there are stops [c], [ɟ], while in South-Eastern - affricates [t͡ɕ], [d͡ʑ].
• 2 Occures only in borrowings.
• 3 [ɦ] is an allophone of /h/ in the intervocal position.
• 4 [w] occures after back vowels, while [ʋ] - after front ones.

Orthography

Pomorian has three different orthografies, all of which use Latin alphabet: the standard, traditional and eastern. The traditional orthography is based mostly on German and Polish ones, it used digraphs like sch, ai and ei, instead of modern š, and ė. The Eastern (or dictionary) orthography was used after a spelling reform in 1952 and is still used in dictionaries and as a standard for Eastern dialects, because it's more phonemic, than a traditional one. The Pomorian standard orthography came into use after 1989 reform and combines both previous orthographies, though is mostly phonemic.

Majuscule forms (uppercase or capital letters)

A

Ą

Å

B

C

Č

D

E

Ę

Ė

F

G

H

I

Į

Y

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

Š

T

U

Ų

Ū

V

Z

Ž

Minuscule forms (lowercase or small letters)

a

ą

å

b

c

č

d

e

ę

ė

f

g

h

i

į

y

j

k

l

m

n

o

p

r

s

š

t

u

ų

ū

v

z

ž

Name of Letters

a

a nosinå

a rįdžinå

bė

cė

čė

dė

e

e nosinå

ė dilgå

ef

gė

ha

i

i nosinå

i dilgå

jot

ka

el

em

en

o

pė

er

es

eš

tė

u

u nosinå

u dilgå

vė

zė

žė

Palatalization is indicated with a silent "i" after a palatal consonant. Occasionally "ť" and "ď" can be used to indicate /c/ and /ɟ/ respectively as in the Eastern orthography.

Prosody

Stress

Pomorian is a pitch-accented language. The stess is free meaning that any syllable of the word can be stressed, though usually the place of streess is predictable. A stressed syllable can be pronounced in two (in some dialects - in three) different ways. One way is a falling accent - tvírdagalså -, which can be long - dìlgå (marked with an acute) - or short - cẽrtå (marked with a grave). The second way is a rising accent - lìkugalså (marked with a circumflex or a tilde). Tvírdagalså translates literally as firm stress, and lìkugalså - light stress. Despite the stress is phonemic it is not written, except dictionaries. For example the word "úokte" means tall but "uõkte" means full of force, lusty.

Morphophonology

Ablaut, still productive in Pomorian, was inherited from Proto-Balto-Slavic period. It changes the morphological form of the word. For example "snė͂ge" (older snai͂ges) means "snow", "snigtì" to snow "sniẽdze"(older "sneigḗt") "it snows". Also ablaut appears in imperfective mood of different verbs:

Original	Imperfective	Translation
veztì	važýti	to transport
birtì	bieróti	to take
piešė́ti	piešuõti	to paint (pictures)

It is also present when deriving verbs from nouns.

cį͂ste	cęšýti	kąšýti	kųstù
frequent	to share	to divide	a branch