Pamarėska

Pamarėska gålba
Pomorian language
Pronunciation	[/pɑ.ˈma:.rɪe.skɑ/]
Created by	Raistas
Setting	Parallel World
Language family	Indo-European Pamarėska gålba
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Balto-Slavic Early Proto-Slavic Vėtuhapamarėska

The Pomorian language or Pamarėska golba, język pomorski (in Polish) is a Balto-Slavic language spoken in the region of Pomorze Wschodnie in Northern Poland from Gdynia to Braniewo cities, mostly in rural areas. There are at least 20 000 speakers (including second-language speakers knowing the language on an elementary level), of which less than 4000 speak Pomorian natively. Most of the native speakers are at the age of 50 or 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 split 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 (Rėniapamarėska)

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 (Vėtuhapamarėska)

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 (Serdapamarėska)

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 green area shows Pomorian-speaking territories (With more than 10% of total population speaking 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.

In XX century 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.

Despite an active movement to promote speaking Pomorian, the language stays endangered with 3600-4000 native speakers according to Polish census in 2011 (compared to 17000 in 1978). The Pomorian Association was created in 2004 with the intention of promoting and popularizing the Pomorian language and culture. Pomorian language classes have been conducted for both children and adults in some areas (mostly in big towns) and an increasing ammount of people are learning Pomorian as a second language.

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 /ɛ:~æ:/, /a:/, /ɔ/ appear under acute/circumflex accent.

Diphthongs

ie /ɪe/	uo /uo/	ei /eɪ̯~e:/	au /ɑʊ̯/

• Ei and au, are rather diphthongoids than true diphthongs.

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.

• Dental consonants like [t̪] and [d̪] are usually written as plain /t/ and /d/.

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

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.

Phonotactics

Every syllable in Pomorian can have an onset, a nucleus (always present) and a coda, with a nucleus being a vowel. If to mark vowels with V, consonants - with C and approximants - with R, than the biggest possible syllable would look like CCRVCC, which can seldom be found among Pomorian words. Typical syllables are C(R)V and C(R)VC. V (a vowel) can occure only word-initially, because VV clusters are not allowed in Pomorian. There is also a principle according to which a consonant with higher sonority should be closer to a nucleus than one with lower sonority, for example in the word /ˈstoː.rɛ/ - heavy - /t/ is higher on the sonority than /s/ and appears closer to /oː/ which is the nucleus.

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" (older "snigteĩ") to snow "snẽdze"(older "snegḗt") "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.

čį͂ste	cęšýti	kąšýti	kųstù
frequent	to share	to divide	a branch

Morphology

Nouns

There are seven (or six if count the sixth and the seventh as one) noun declensions in Pomorian. Nouns have seven cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Instrumental, Locative and Vocative. In Pomorian Proper most nouns have only two numbers: singular and plural, while in Western and Southern dialects there is also a dual number. Some noun cases can have two endings: long (with an unsterssed "u" at the end) or short (without an "u"). Also the Accusative plural of some words like mariå has two endings: "-e" and "-i". Those endings are interchangeable and can specifically be used in poetry or in dialectal speech.

First declension

More than a half of Pomorian nouns belongs to this dieclension. Loanwords usually also decline according to it. There are two different declining patterns for masculine and feminine genders.

*-e, (masculine), -a (feminine), -å (neuter)

	gróde = hail		galvà = head		mariå̀ = sea
	singular	plural	singular	plural	singular	plural
Nominative	gróde	gródė	galvà	gãlvo	mariå̀	marió
Genitive	gródo	gródų	galvó	galvų́	màrio	marių́
Dative	gródau	gródam(u)	gãlvei	galvõm(u)	màriau	mariãm(u)
Accusative	gródå	gródu	gãlvą	gãlve	màriå	màri/e
Instrumental	gródum	gródėmy	gãlvają	galvomy͂	màrium	mariamy͂
Locative	gródė	gródėhu	galvė́	galvosù	marė́	mariosù
Vocative	gróde	gródė	gãlva	gãlvo	mària	màriio

Second declension

Second declension contains mostly feminine gender nouns, usually inanimate. Some masculine gender nouns and old loanwords belong to this declension.

*-i, (masculine), -i (feminine)

	zvėrì = hail		ųgnì = head
	singular	plural	singular	plural
Nominative	zvėrì	zvė͂rė	ųgnì	ųgný
Genitive	zvėrió	zvėrių́	ųgný	ųgnių́
Dative	zvė͂rei	zvėrìm(u)	ųgneĩ	ųgnìm(u)
Accusative	zvė͂rį	zvė͂rį	ųgnį́	ųgnį́
Instrumental	zvėrimì	zvėrimy͂	ųgniją́	ųgnìmy
Locative	zvėrė́	zvėrėhù	ųgnė́	ųgnìhu
Vocative	zvėrie͂	zvėrė͂	ųgnie͂	ųgny͂

Third declension

This declension contains only masculine gender nouns. About one sixth of all the nouns belong to this declension.

*-u, (masculine)

	sūnù = son		ledù = ice
	singular	plural	singular	plural
Nominative	sūnù	sū͂nave	ledù	le͂dū
Genitive	sūnó	sūnų́	ledó	ledų́
Dative	sū͂navie	sūnùm(u)	ledaũ	ledùm(u)
Accusative	sū͂nų	sū͂nų	le͂dų	le͂dų
Instrumental	sūnumì	sūnumy͂	ledumì	ledumy͂
Locative	sūnáu	sūnuhù	ledáu	leduhù
Vocative	sūnuõ	sū͂nave	leduõ	le͂dave

Fourth declension

Few old nouns of a feminine gender belong to this declension, some can come in pairs, like brū (eyebrows) and thus have a dual number.

*-ū, (feminine)

	brū́ = eyebrow
	singular	dual	plural
Nominative	brū́	brùvi	brùvy
Genitive	bruvý	brùvuõ	bruvų́
Dative	bruvie͂	brùviema	bruvìm(u)
Accusative	brùvų	brùvi	brùvų
Instrumental	brùve	brùviema	bruvimy͂
Locative	bruvė́	bruvuõ	bruvihù
Vocative	brùvie	brùvie	brùvy

Fifth declension

Few nouns once ending in "-n" belong to this declension. There are two different patterns of declining: for the feminine and the neuter genders. This declension preserves a dual number.

*-n (feminine), *-n (neuter)

	elū́ = deer			ìmnę = name
	singular	dual	plural	singular	dual	plural
Nominative	elū́	elèni	elèny	ìmnę	imnèni	imnenó
Genitive	elèny	elènuo	elènų	imneny͂	imnenuõ	imnenų́
Dative	elènie	elènima	elènim(u)	ìmnenie	imnènima	imnenìm(u)
Accusative	elènį	elèni	elènį	imnenį́	imnèni	imnenį́
Instrumental	elène	elènima	elènimy	imnenìm	imnènima	imnenimy͂
Locative	elènė	elènuo	elènihu	imnenė́	imnenuõ	imnenihù
Vocative	elènie	elènie	elèny	imnenie͂	imnenie͂	imnenó

Sixth declension

Also called the consonant declension, the sixth declension contains only a few words, all of them descending from proto-Balto-Slavic. There is also a dual number for the nouns belonging to this declension.

*-t, -s (neuter)

	telę́ = calf			kãkla = wheel
	singular	dual	plural
Nominative	telę́	telę́ti	telę́to	kãkla	kãklani	kaklasó
Genitive	telę́ty	telę́tuo	telę́tų	kãklasy	kaklasuõ	kaklasų́
Dative	telę́tie	telę́tima	telę́tim(u)	kãklasie	kaklasìma	kaklasìm(u)
Accusative	telę́tį	telę́ti	telę́tį	kãklasį	kãklani	kaklasį́
Instrumental	telę́tim	telę́tima	telę́timy	kãklasim	kaklasìma	kaklasimy͂
Locative	telę́tė	telę́tuo	telę́tihu	kaklasė́	kaklasuõ	kaklasihù
Vocative	telę́tie	telę́tie	telę́to	kaklasie͂	kaklasie͂	kaklasó

Seventh declension

This declension is sometimes considered to be a part of sixth one. It has only two nous in it: mūti (mother) and dukti (daughter).

*-r (feminine)

	mū́ti = mother			duktì = daughter
	singular	dual	plural	singular	dual	plural
Nominative	mū́ti	mū́teri	mū́tery	duktì	dùkteri	dùktery
Genitive	mū́tery	mū́teruo	mū́terų	duktery͂	dukteruõ	dukterų́
Dative	mū́terie	mū́teriema	mū́terim(u)	dùkterie	dukterie͂ma	dukterìm(u)
Accusative	mū́terį	mū́teri	mū́terį	dùkterį	dùkteri	dùkterį
Instrumental	mū́tere	mū́teriema	mū́terimy	dùktere	dukterie͂ma	dukterimy͂
Locative	mū́terė	mū́teruo	mū́terihu	dukterė́	dukteruõ	dukterihù
Vocative	mū́terie	mū́terie	mū́tery	dukterie͂	dukterie͂	dùktery

Derivational morphology

-->

Dialects

Area with more than 4% of total population speaking Pomorian. Pamarėskė sačinė (Pomorian dialectals)

Pomorian consists of

1. Northern and North-Western
2. Central-Western
3. South-Western
4. Central
5. Southern
6. Central-Eastern
7. Ežerina (Lake dialect)
8. Prūsisk (Eastern)

Those dialects form three dialectal groups: Western (1,3), Central (2,4,5,6) and Eastern (7,8)

The most widely spoken dialect is Central-Western one having 1000 native speakers. Western and Eastern dialects have approximately 500 native speakers each, Central-Eastern has about 700 speakers and Southern has less than 500 speakers. The rest of the dialects are spoken by less than 800 speakers and are severely endangered (Ežerina dialect having only 12 native speakers left).

There are some differences in phonology and morphology among dialects while the syntax stays pretty much the same. For example, the sentence: "I gave a few pennies to Brone (short from Bronislove)" would be "(Àz) dóďe cẽlkų gróšå Bróniau" /(ɑz.)ˈdoː.ɟɛ.ˈt͡sɛːl.kũ.ˈgroː.ʃɒ.ˈbroː.ɲɑʊ̯/ in Pomorian Proper, but (Jès) dõďe kelkǻ gróšå Bróniau" /(ˌjɛz.) ˈdoː.ɟɛ.kɛl.ˈkɔː.ˈgroː.ʃɒ.ˈbroː.ɲɑʊ̯/ in Western dialect and "(Às) dā́džia cálko pènįgo Bronių́ /(ˌɑz.)ˈdaːd͡ʑɐ.ˈt͡saːl.kɔ.ˌpɛ.nĩ.gɔ.brɔ.ˈɲũ/ in Eastern dialect. The word penįgė is present in Pomorian Proper where it means "money". There is also seen a long vowel /aː/, which is a separate phoneme in Eastern dialect and did not became /oː/ like in the Proper. The word kelkå in Western dialect shows /k/ insted of expected /t͡s/, which is a common development in it. A borrowing from Polish could be also possible, but it doesn't explain the accent of the word. Major difference between Western and Central/Eatern dialectal groups is a retaining of final /ɛ/ or /ə/ sound from Proto-Balto-Slavic *-as ending (Brone, Bronislove) in former, but a complete loss in latter (Broń or Broniu, Bronislov).