Sudovian language
Encyclopedia
Sudovian is an extinct
western Baltic
language of Northeastern Europe. Closely related to the Old Prussian language
, it was formerly spoken southwest of the Nemunas river in what is now Lithuania
, east of Galindia and north of Yotvingia
, and by exiles in East Prussia.
in the 2nd Century A.D. as Galindai and Soudinoi, ( Γαλίνδαι, Σουδινοί ). Although Sudovian and Yotvingian were separate dialects of the same language, Sudovian and Yotvingian merged as a common dialect in the 10th century when the two nations created a Federation together with the Denowe – Dainavians. Peter of Dusburg, in his 14th century Chronicon Terrae Prussiae, refers to Sudovia and to its inhabitants as Sudovites.
After the district was conquered by the Teutonic Knights
, the language died out and its speakers were gradually absorbed by German, Lithuanian and Slavic populations.
The language has six grammatical cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative and locative, and a complex morphology with a variety of moods
. It was a frontier dialect of Old Baltic, which preserved many archaic features which had been lost in the Middle Baltic group.
Sudovian was very similar to and mutually intelligible with the archaic Old Prussian language
, as stated in the introduction to the 1st Old Prussian Catechism (printed in Königsberg
– 1545 – the 1st Baltic language book):
Die Sudawen aber wiewol ihre rede etwas nyderiger wissen sich doch inn diese preüßnische sprach : wie sie alhie im Catechismo gedruckt ist auch wol zuschicken und vernemen alle wort – "But the Sudovians, although their speech is somewhat lower, understand this Prussian language, as it is printed in the Catechism, and they express themselves well and understand every word".
There are also some Sudovian language phrases in "Warhafftige Beschreibung der Sudawen auff Samland sambt ihren Bock heyligen und Ceremonien" – True Description of the Sudovians in Samland together with their goat sanctifications and ceremonies – written in the mid 16th century by Hieronymus Meletius.
John Poliander wrote in 1535 about the Sudovians living near Königsberg, Prussia, while referring to amber production, that 32 villages used Sudini speech in a 6-7 mile stretch of land of the Samland Corner that bears the name of Sudavia. They spoke their own speech, which is near to Old Prussian language. They used the term "gentaras" for amber and not the Samlandish (Old Prussian) term. From him we learn that the Sudovians lived secluded from the Samlandish, would marry within their own tribe and did not allow intermarriage with the neighbouring Prussian population "even if begged". They stubbornly held to their own traditions, and wore finger and ear rings with bronze bells and silver belts. Nothing was imported from abroad, but everything was produced by local craftsmen. Christoph Hartknoch
reported in 1684 that there were still Sudovians there.
The Constit. Synod. Evangel. of 1530 contains the following list of deities who were still worshipped by the Sudavians in Samland: "Occopirmus, Sualxtix, Ausschauts, Autrympus, Potrympus, Bardoayts, Piluuytis, Parcunas
, Pecols,..." (Hastings, p 488)
Toponyms from N.E. Poland, N.W. Belarus, and Lithuania also preserve words.
Sudovian was influenced by the Gothic language
, as was Old Prussian. As did other West Baltic dialects, it preserved the nominative singular neuter case ending -an, absent from Latvian and Lithuanian. In the declension of nouns, five cases are the same as in Old Prussian: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative. The vocative example "Kails naussen gnigethe." is listed above. The noun declension was very conservative and preserved many archaic features.
The Yotvingian territories of Sudovia and Galindia were later overrun and populated by Slavs around present-day Białystok and Suwałki in north-eastern Poland
and nearby Hrodna
(formerly Grodno) in Belarus
. Some elements of Baltic speech are still retained in the Belarus and Ukraine
territory, owing to the sparse indigenous populations and resettlements of refugees from Lithuania. The dialect of Zietela (Belarusian Дзятлава, Russian Дятлово, Yiddish Zietil, Polish Zdzięcioł) was of particular interest. Kazlauskas (1968, p. 285) suggested that the word mėnas ("month") (dative singular mënui) encountered in dialects (Zietela, Lazdijai
) and in the writings of Bretkûnas
is a remnant of nouns with the stem suffix -s.
Until the 1970s, Yotvingian was chiefly known from toponyms and medieval Russian sources. But in the 1970s a monument with Yotvingian writing was discovered by accident. In Belarussia, a young man named Zinov, an amateur collector, bought a manuscript titled Pogańskie gwary z Narewu ("Pagan speeches of Narew
") from a priest. It was written partly in Polish
, and partly in an unknown, "pagan" language. Unfortunately, Zinov had an argument with his mother, who burned the priceless manuscript in a rage. However before the manuscript was destroyed, Zinov had made notes of it which he subsequently sent to the renowned Baltist Vladimir Toporov
. Even though Zinov's notes were riddled with errors, it has been proven beyond doubt that the notes are indeed a copy of an authentic Yotvingian text. This short Yotvingian–Polish dictionary (of just 215 words), Pogańskie gwary z Narewu, appears to have been written by some Polish priest in order to preach to Yotvingians in their mother tongue.
Extinct language
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...
western Baltic
Baltic languages
The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe...
language of Northeastern Europe. Closely related to the Old Prussian language
Old Prussian language
Prussian is an extinct Baltic language, once spoken by the inhabitants of the original territory of Prussia in an area of what later became East Prussia and eastern parts of...
, it was formerly spoken southwest of the Nemunas river in what is now Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, east of Galindia and north of Yotvingia
Yotvingians
Yotvingians or Sudovians were a Baltic people with close cultural ties to the Lithuanians and Prussians...
, and by exiles in East Prussia.
History
Sudovia and neighboring Galindia were two Baltic tribes or nations mentioned by the Greek geographer PtolemyPtolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
in the 2nd Century A.D. as Galindai and Soudinoi, ( Γαλίνδαι, Σουδινοί ). Although Sudovian and Yotvingian were separate dialects of the same language, Sudovian and Yotvingian merged as a common dialect in the 10th century when the two nations created a Federation together with the Denowe – Dainavians. Peter of Dusburg, in his 14th century Chronicon Terrae Prussiae, refers to Sudovia and to its inhabitants as Sudovites.
After the district was conquered by the Teutonic Knights
Teutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...
, the language died out and its speakers were gradually absorbed by German, Lithuanian and Slavic populations.
The language has six grammatical cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative and locative, and a complex morphology with a variety of moods
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
. It was a frontier dialect of Old Baltic, which preserved many archaic features which had been lost in the Middle Baltic group.
Sudovian was very similar to and mutually intelligible with the archaic Old Prussian language
Old Prussian language
Prussian is an extinct Baltic language, once spoken by the inhabitants of the original territory of Prussia in an area of what later became East Prussia and eastern parts of...
, as stated in the introduction to the 1st Old Prussian Catechism (printed in Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
– 1545 – the 1st Baltic language book):
Die Sudawen aber wiewol ihre rede etwas nyderiger wissen sich doch inn diese preüßnische sprach : wie sie alhie im Catechismo gedruckt ist auch wol zuschicken und vernemen alle wort – "But the Sudovians, although their speech is somewhat lower, understand this Prussian language, as it is printed in the Catechism, and they express themselves well and understand every word".
There are also some Sudovian language phrases in "Warhafftige Beschreibung der Sudawen auff Samland sambt ihren Bock heyligen und Ceremonien" – True Description of the Sudovians in Samland together with their goat sanctifications and ceremonies – written in the mid 16th century by Hieronymus Meletius.
- Beigeite beygeyte peckolle.
- Kails naussen gnigethe.
- Kails poskails ains par antres. (a drinking toast)
- Kellewesze perioth, Kellewesze perioth.
- Ocho Moy myle schwante Panike.
John Poliander wrote in 1535 about the Sudovians living near Königsberg, Prussia, while referring to amber production, that 32 villages used Sudini speech in a 6-7 mile stretch of land of the Samland Corner that bears the name of Sudavia. They spoke their own speech, which is near to Old Prussian language. They used the term "gentaras" for amber and not the Samlandish (Old Prussian) term. From him we learn that the Sudovians lived secluded from the Samlandish, would marry within their own tribe and did not allow intermarriage with the neighbouring Prussian population "even if begged". They stubbornly held to their own traditions, and wore finger and ear rings with bronze bells and silver belts. Nothing was imported from abroad, but everything was produced by local craftsmen. Christoph Hartknoch
Christoph Hartknoch
Christoph Hartknoch was a Prussian historian and educator.- Biography :Hartknoch was born in Jablonken near Ortelsburg in the Duchy of Prussia. His father, Stephan Hartknoch of Lyck , is recorded to have been married for 100 years and to have lived to the age of 130...
reported in 1684 that there were still Sudovians there.
The Constit. Synod. Evangel. of 1530 contains the following list of deities who were still worshipped by the Sudavians in Samland: "Occopirmus, Sualxtix, Ausschauts, Autrympus, Potrympus, Bardoayts, Piluuytis, Parcunas
Perkunas
Perkūnas was the common Baltic god of thunder, one of the most important deities in the Baltic pantheon. In both Lithuanian and Latvian mythology, he is documented as the god of thunder, rain, mountains, oak trees and the sky.-Etymology:...
, Pecols,..." (Hastings, p 488)
Toponyms from N.E. Poland, N.W. Belarus, and Lithuania also preserve words.
Sudovian was influenced by the Gothic language
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...
, as was Old Prussian. As did other West Baltic dialects, it preserved the nominative singular neuter case ending -an, absent from Latvian and Lithuanian. In the declension of nouns, five cases are the same as in Old Prussian: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative. The vocative example "Kails naussen gnigethe." is listed above. The noun declension was very conservative and preserved many archaic features.
The Yotvingian territories of Sudovia and Galindia were later overrun and populated by Slavs around present-day Białystok and Suwałki in north-eastern Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and nearby Hrodna
Hrodna
Grodno or Hrodna , is a city in Belarus. It is located on the Neman River , close to the borders of Poland and Lithuania . It has 327,540 inhabitants...
(formerly Grodno) in Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
. Some elements of Baltic speech are still retained in the Belarus and Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
territory, owing to the sparse indigenous populations and resettlements of refugees from Lithuania. The dialect of Zietela (Belarusian Дзятлава, Russian Дятлово, Yiddish Zietil, Polish Zdzięcioł) was of particular interest. Kazlauskas (1968, p. 285) suggested that the word mėnas ("month") (dative singular mënui) encountered in dialects (Zietela, Lazdijai
Lazdijai
Lazdijai is a city in Lithuania located about east of the border with Poland. In 1990 Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union, and new check points between the borders Poland and Lithuania were established and Lazdijai became the center that oversees and continues to regulate these...
) and in the writings of Bretkûnas
Jonas Bretkunas
Jonas Bretkūnas, Johann Bretke, also known as Bretkus was a Lutheran pastor and was one of the best known developers of the written Lithuanian language...
is a remnant of nouns with the stem suffix -s.
Until the 1970s, Yotvingian was chiefly known from toponyms and medieval Russian sources. But in the 1970s a monument with Yotvingian writing was discovered by accident. In Belarussia, a young man named Zinov, an amateur collector, bought a manuscript titled Pogańskie gwary z Narewu ("Pagan speeches of Narew
Narew
The Narew River , in western Belarus and north-eastern Poland, is a left tributary of the Vistula river...
") from a priest. It was written partly in Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
, and partly in an unknown, "pagan" language. Unfortunately, Zinov had an argument with his mother, who burned the priceless manuscript in a rage. However before the manuscript was destroyed, Zinov had made notes of it which he subsequently sent to the renowned Baltist Vladimir Toporov
Vladimir Toporov
Vladimir Nikolayevich Toporov was a leading Russian philologist associated with the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school. His wife was Tatyana Elizarenkova....
. Even though Zinov's notes were riddled with errors, it has been proven beyond doubt that the notes are indeed a copy of an authentic Yotvingian text. This short Yotvingian–Polish dictionary (of just 215 words), Pogańskie gwary z Narewu, appears to have been written by some Polish priest in order to preach to Yotvingians in their mother tongue.
Literature
- Marija GimbutasMarija GimbutasMarija Gimbutas , was a Lithuanian-American archeologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe", a term she introduced. Her works published between 1946 and 1971 introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological...
, The Balts. London : Thames and Hudson, Ancient peoples and places 33, 1963. - Peter von Dusburg, Chronicon Terrae Prussiae , in Scriptores rerum Prussicarum (ed. Max Toeppen). Leipzig: Hirzel, 1861
- J. Endzelīns, Senprūšu valoda. – Gr. Darbu izlase, IV sēj., 2. daļa, Rīga, 1982. 9.-351. lpp.
- V. Mažiulis, Prūsų kalbos paminklai, Vilnius, t. I 1966, t. II 1981.
- W. R. Schmalstieg, An Old Prussian Grammar, University Park and London, 1974.
- W. R. Schmalstieg, Studies in Old Prussian, University Park and London, 1976.
- V. Toporov, Prusskij jazyk: Slovar', A – L, Moskva, 1975–1990.
- V. Mažiulis, Prūsų kalbos etimologijos žodynas, Vilnius, t. I-IV, 1988–1997.
- Schmalstieg, W. R., Armenian and Jatvingian mard: A Shared Lexical Item, Annual of Armenian Linguistics Vol. VII, 1986
- Eckert, R., An exact correlation to apr. Kellewesze in the Russian Church Slavonic, Linguistica Baltica, 1, 1992, p179–82
- Savukynas, B., Del M Rudnickio Galandos, Priegliaus ir Sūduvos etimologinių aiskinimų, Lietuvių kalbotyras klausimai, 6, 1963, pp 320–325
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- Archäologie der UDSSR: Die Finno-Ugrier und die Balten im Mittelalter, Teil II, Balten, S. 411-419, Moskau 1987
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- Lepa, Gerhard (Hrsg): Die Sudauer, in Tolkemita-Texte Nr. 55, Dieburg 1998
- Lepa, G., Gedanken über die Prußen und ihre Lieder, in Tolkemita-Texte „25 Lieder der Sudauer“ Nr. 56, Dieburg 1999
- Salemke, G., Lagepläne der Wallburganlagen von der ehemaligen Provinz Ostpreußen, Gütersloh, 2005, Karten 19/ 7 – 19/ 13
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- Illič-Svityč V., Sledy isčeznuvšych baltijskich akcentuacionnych sistem. Slavjanskaja ibaltijskaja akcentologija. Moskva: Nauka. 1964. pp 18–26.
- Vytautas J. Mažiulis. "Baltic languages". Britannica Online Encyclopedia.
- Henning, E., De rebus Jazygum sive Jazuin-gorum, Regiomonti, 1812
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- Nalepa, Jerzy, Połekszanie (Pollexiani) – Plemię Jaćwięskie u północno-wschodnich granic Polski, Rocznik Białostocki, t. VII: 1966, Warszawa 1967, s. 7-33.