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.
Phonology
| Long vowels | Front | Back |
|---|---|---|
| Close | y /i:/ | ū /u:/ |
| Mid | ė /e:/ | o /o:/ |
| Open-mid | *e (/ɛ:~æ:/) | |
| Open | *a (/a:/) |
| Short vowels | Front | Back |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i /ɪ/ | u /ʊ/ |
| Open-mid | e /ɛ/ | *å (/ɔ/) |
| Open | a /ɑ/ å /ɒ/ |
| ie /ie/ | uo /uo/ | ei /iɪ̯~i:/ | au /ou̯/ |
|---|
- Allophones, appearing under acute/circumflex accent.
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.