Talk:Wymysorys language

Untitled

The evolution from a word like OE Mycel into "mikieła" sounds strange, since "mycel" meant much, and "a bit", as well as the german and dutch words are generally referring to "a little bit". I think the german and dutch words also could used to mean something like "slightly", Eng:"He is slightly dumb", German:"Er ist ein bisschen dumm." Feel free to correct me...

Some nonsense here

This article contains quite some nonsence. Take for example: "The inhabitants of Wilamowice are thought to be descendants of Dutch, German and Scottish settlers who arrived in Poland in the 13th century. The inhabitants of Wilamowice always strongly refused any connections with Germany and proclaimed their Dutch origins." The fact is, in the 13th century, there was no Dutch nation, and neither was there a German nation. The Netherlands were formed in the 16th century, and Germany as we no it didn't exist until a good few centuries later. Also, Dutch 'volgen' has no ordinary use 'to understand' or to 'hear', and I doubt whether anyone in the 13th century had ever seen an 'olifant' in this part of Europe... Seems like someone felt creative.

• Although there weren't the political nations of Germany or the Netherlands in the thirteenth century, there were the ethnicities and certainly the languages. -Branddobbe 07:55, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

• There was not only no Dutch nation in the 13th century, but neither was there any consciousness of being different from what we today call "the Germans". Settlers from the Netherlands would obviously have noticed that their dialect differed from that of other settlers, but so would settlers from Bavaria or Hesse. The dialect used in the poems is clearly Middle German, not Low German, so I cannot see any Dutch influence there (exept maybe in the word syster). Furthermore, the diminutive forms used there are the same as in Silesian German and fundamentally different from Low German or Dutch ones. The dialect is quite heavily influenced by a language I am not familiar with, probably Czeck or Polish.--Unoffensive text or character 09:21, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The entry may be misread or mistranslated, but a wave of British and Dutch settlers came in Northern Germany in the 16th century (some Scottish and Dutch-Frisian Protestants were invited to live in Lutheran Prussia) at a time when Scotland was independent and the newly formed Netherlands wanted to ally itself with Prussia whom ruled over the region (Silesia, Kashubia and Pomerania) that gone to Polish rule after 1945 by Germany's defeat in WWII. It's comparable to Scandinavian influence in Low German words or terms are also found along the Baltic sea Coast (i.e. Rugen, Rostock, Kiel and even Danzig/Gdansk) after periods of Danish and Swedish rule from the 1100s to as recent as the early 1800s. + 71.102.53.48 (talk) 07:13, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/001833.php#more discusses this article from a linguist's standpoint.

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Another translation:

H kannt ae möł ae mackia śyjn
An inda must yh eu num gyjn
An ufys zann an mytum zaein
Bo s kund ae ae möł sun łaha cy faein

I used to know a girl
I always had to come to her
And always look at her and be with her
Because she could to laugh to charmingly

Lullaby

Should it not be Ślöf, rather than Śtöf ("sleep", Standard German "schlaf", in Silesian Dialect "schloof")? --Unoffensive text or character 09:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Should be ł pronounced as English w. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.218.238.253 (talk) 16:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC).

Wymysojer means inhabitant of town Wilamowice, Wymysöryś is name of the language. Please change the name of this article into the right name of this language-Wymysöryś

Further remarks

About the section "History":

"Middle High German" (= between Old and Modern High German) is probably a mistranslation for "Middle German" (= between High and Low German). The German page on Wymysorys has "Mitteldeutsch".

About the Vocabulary:

See also the discussion page to the French version.

--Zxly (talk) 10:38, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Name?

There are no sources for the name anyway, so there is no use having the bad form from an original name, read by English speakers as [wɪ'mɪsəʊɹi:z]. The Polsih and original name comes from the name of this ethnic group - Wilamowianie (Wymysiöejer). I suggest the name Vilamovian language, which is read closely to Polish and original ones. Timpul my talk 10:16, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

The language is called officially "Wymysorys" and is recognised as such on Ethnologue a meeting was held in November of 2013 to officially name the language in English. "Wymysorys" was decided, the adjective is "Wilamowicean" so "Wymysorys is the Wilamowicean Language". Carlo Ritchie (talk) 15:08, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

References

Hałcnovian Ethnolect

Has anyone considered doing a translation of this article? --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 15:07, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I came across the word "Haltsnovian," and I don't think my post is given even a bit of attention. On the other hand, Haltsnovian used to be spoken in the Hałcnów borough of Bielsko-Biała. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 04:26, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alzenau_Dialect -EggSalt (talk) 16:57, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Disputed

This whole concept smells strongly of amateur linguists and amateur historians. From this article and the one about the village itself, we learn that it is a language based on: "Middle High German, Low German, Dutch, Polish, Old English, Frisian, Old Germanic, Old French, Celtic, Gaulish and Romansh." Nothing less! The geographical claims are substantially corrupted: "a group of colonists from the area of former Flanders came to the region, specifically from Friesland, near Bruges". However, Bruges or Flanders are not even close to Friesland. It is probably more justified to see it as a High German or Middle German dialect. The Polish-inspired spelling is peculiar, but rather than convincing me that this is a real language which is not German, it makes me suspicious that those who invented the spelling – and launched the hypothesis – have deficient knowledge of the German language and Germanic philology. Of course, an article about the dialect is justified, as well as describing the various hypotheses and (lay) concepts surrounding it. Until sources are scrutinised and better ones found, I think the "disputed" tag is necessary. If anyone can think of a more appropriate warning tag, please discuss. --Sasper (talk) 12:24, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

The scholarly reference work A Grammar of Wymysorys, cited in the References and Bibliography sections, makes a strong and substantial argument for questioning the simple classification of Wymysorys as nothing more than another East Central High German dialect. In particular, it cites "the palatalization of velar stops, the loss of the consonant n in unstressed syllables and the h- form of the third person masculine singular pronoun (i.e. har)." (See p. 9 of this reference work.) The work makes the point that these are not High German features, but rather Low German (Saxon) or Istvaeonic (Dutch/Flemish) features. The co-author of this work, Dr. Alexander Andrason, is clearly a qualified professional, not an "amateur linguist". This evidence provides more than enough justification for the classification of Wymysorys as a language quite distinct from Standard German and indeed from purely High German dialects. (Note: "Middle" German refers to a historical time period, not to a regional linguistic classification. "Central German" is a regional group of dialects within High German. Given the above-cited linguistic features of Wymysorys, it cannot be classified into either of these categories either.) Skummafremdygest (talk) 04:08, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

@Austronesier:, do you have any opinion on the claims made here? I just stumbled across this article on a dialect/language I'd never heard of before today. If RS consider it a language we of course should as well, (why consider Yiddish and Luxemburgish languages but not this?) but I think Sasper as well as Skummafremdygest bring up some things worth things about.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:06, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: I remember to have read in a pre-WWI source that refers to the dialect of Wilmesau as a Sprachinsel that is basically East Central German but strongly influenced by Polish due to its location. Apparently, speakers (being Catholics) were never attached to Standard German as Dachsprache (thus not only after WWII as a survival strategy), so it is really a special case, and with the disappearance of most other eastern Sprachinseln, a unique one. I'll download Wicherkiewicz's book[1] and try to dig up early 20th-century sources mentioned there which can bring more light to the matter (maybe Sarcelles can also help out here). –Austronesier (talk) 18:49, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

A major problem in the debate about the nature of Wymysorys is the conflation of ethnic origin and linguistic affiliation. If – what seems to be most likely – a diverse group of settlers (that probably included Flemings and at least partially spoke Flemish) eventually shifted to a local East Central German lect, chances are high that some traces of their earlier speech left some individual residues in the newly acquired vernacular. This is also confirmed by Andrason & Król, who write after the cherry-picked part cited above: "Currently, the most plausible, yet still working, hypothesis is that the majority of the traits of the language situate it in the East Central German (or Irminonic) branch, although the influence of other Germanic dialects (especially Low-German or Istvaeonic) is quite noticeable. (p. 9)"[2].

In any case, linguistic affiliation is not the sole criterion for the status of a language; extra-linguistic considerations are just as important here. –Austronesier (talk) 19:16, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Does the cited source really claim that vocabulary/influence comes from "Anglo-Saxon" in the 1200s? That's fairly squarely in the early Middle English period.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:08, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm reading slowly through the sources.

• Anderson & Król (2016) really have a passage that reads "According to the common view expressed by Vilamovians, their ancestors – and, hence, the language – came from the Low Countries: Flanders, Holland or Friesland. According to another view, which is also "commonly shared by native speakers, Wymysorys originated from Anglo-Saxon. The two theories are mainly regarded as local, popular, folk explanations. (pp. 8–9)"
• Ethnologue writes "Wymysorys appears to derive from 12th century Middle High German, with strong influences from Low German, Dutch, Frisian, Polish, and Old English[SIC!!!].". No comment.
• Ritchie (2012) is a BA thesis which is cited in the first sentence of "History". We usually don't cite BA theses, but some of the other sources used here cite it. Ritchie does not support the English/Scottish speculations, is a bit undecided about the Flemish link ("Specifically, it was hypothesised that Wymysorys may be an Istvaeonic language, descendant from the Low Franconian varieties of Flanders and the Netherlands. The data investigated in this paper has not provided strong evidence either for or against this hypothesis (p. 86).") but eventually concludes that "[t]he data examined in this paper would however strongly suggest that Wymysorys is a variety of Central German [...] a genetic affiliation outside of Central German is unlikely (p. 87)."

I think we need to disentangle hard linguistic fact and folk history in the text; the latter is maybe notable for mention as background information, but should not be mixed with solid statements about the language itself and its documented sociolinguistic setting. Mętrak (2019) which I have found the article Alzenau dialect is a great secondary overview source. –Austronesier (talk) 15:49, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

@Skummafremdygest: You write that Wymysorys is quite distinct from Standard German and indeed from purely High German dialects. Linguistic classification is never that simple. It is nothing unusual that a language is technically nested among "dialects" of a macrolanguage based on its basic genealogical affiliation, but nevertheless sociolinguistically distinct. The term "purely High German dialects" doesn't bring us far, since many High German dialects have been influenced by neighboring languages to various degrees (by Romance languages in the west and south and Slavic languages in the east). –Austronesier (talk) 16:03, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

It sounds to me like we should remove Ethnologue as a source in this article. I would agree that we don't normally use BA theses... was it written under the supervision of Salmons or something? I guess when the dialect is as understudied as this one things that normally wouldn't be consulted make it into the scholarly literature.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:02, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

The thesis was written at the University of Sydney under the supervision of William Foley. It's not really within Foley's core research area (languages of Insular SE Asia and Oceania), but he definitely is experienced in supervising theses about understudied languages. A major weakness of the study is that it doesn't include Upper Silesian data in the comparison sets, but digging up material about extinct dialects in 70+ year old FL sources is probably beyond the scope of a BA thesis. –Austronesier (talk) 20:47, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

translation of the our father

Seems to be a bit free and not very close to the text if I use my knowledge of germanic languages to try to understand it. Not to speak of the huge difference of it to the “normal” our father —2.203.243.184 (talk) 16:11, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Good catch, that's weird indeed. But I have found the source of the translation here. It's a literal translation of a not-so literally translated version of the prayer into Kölsch. No idea how it has found its way to this article. –Austronesier (talk) 16:55, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, this is indeed a weird origin. The translation from Kölsch is correct indeed. But we should probably replace it with the Our Father in a common English language version that is either a common English version or a translation from Wymysorys, which should not be that different. —-2.203.243.184 (talk) 20:27, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

For the benefit of most English speaking Wikipedia readers who might see this discussion, we should mention that "Kölsch" is a German dialect from the city of Cologne and its environs. Am I correct in identifying "Kölsch" as Colognesque? Pascalulu88 (talk) 16:29, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I'll experiment with a strictly literal translation from Wymysorys later or tomorrow, let's see how it works. –20:32, 21 April 2022 (UTC)Austronesier (talk)