Re: German loans in Polish

From: t0lgsoo1
Message: 68239
Date: 2011-11-26

>You have removed my premisses,

(??)

>and argued against my conclusion

(??)

>The important thing here was the *oldest*, pre-Ostsiedlung layer
>of German loanwords in Polish.

I know; yet the beginning of OS is also important, since the
transition from OHG to MHG was gradual, centuries long - at least
as far as *vocabulary* is of concern.

>For that layer, what happened in the 12th-13th century CE is >irrelevant.

It is.

>>Von den drei großen d. Dialektgruppen Obd., Md. und Nd.

Actually, in the era of old OHG, one barely can speak of "Obd,
Md, Nd". These more and more have been outlined in later
centuries (up to... AD 2011). North Sea and Alps German had
way less differences in Clovis's and Charlemagne's times than
1,000 years later on. But even today, one can deem Obd + Md as
being a compact family in stark contrast with Nd. The cited
authors don't insist on that, but if you asked them appropriately,
the'd confirm this. (Other sources, some of them quoted by
the "Atlas der dt. Sprache", much of the Eastern colonization
was done by LG-speaking colonists. Thus, corroborating your
sources.)

>>Mit obd. Dialekten hat das P. auch in älterer Zeit keine direkte
>>Berührung gehabt.

This might tempt one conclude that those "ostelbische" ancient
Germanic tribes emigrated altogether leaving there no rests.

>>Die Wörter sollen demnach mit einer von Oberdeutschland ausgehenden
>>Kulturströmung über Böhmen, Mähren und Schlesien ins P. gekommen
>>sein, wobei dem md. Schlesien im wesentlichen nur eine vermittelnde
>>Stellung zukam.

Which must have been the "normal" path: for a long time, the cultural
strongholds were in the South (as well as OHG: some kind of chiefly
_Southern_ written Proto-Deutsch language! e.g. "ben zi bena, gelid
zi geliden". NB: Even today, in 2011, _z<vowel>_ is, in northern
LG dialects, namely to the North of Cologne - Berlin - Kaliningrad
___to___ as in English! Or: zu Haus(e) vs. to Huus (So far the
accomplishment of shound shifts.)).

> Also in older times Polish didn't have any direct contact with Upper German dialects.

If those numerous Germanic tribes (Suebians, Langobards etc.)
moved from there to South Germany, Alsace, Switzerland, Austria,
Northern Italy, Northern Spain, they must have had some contacts
with Proto-Polish populace as well. Even if there'd be no written
evidence.

>Upper German words thus could only have come into Polish by >transmisson through Czech (hardly through Upper Sorbian).

Yes. But one can assume a Czech-Moravian-Sorbian-Polish dialectal
continuum, comprising all kinda (later) German immigrant isles...
Among immigrants, in the 12th-13rd c. groups of Germans coming
from the Mosel-Franconian dialect area (Belgium, Luxembourg,
Rhineland) and settled in what's today Slovakia, within the
kingdom of Hungary - i.e. nextdoorneighbor of Poland). The German
spoken by those kind of colonists: mixture of Alemanian and
Middle German dialects, also containing LG features.

>In Bohemia and Moravia a strong German influence is active early.

Because they quite early belonged to the Holy Roman Empire.

>It is conditioned not so much on the remaining local Germanic
>splinter populations (descendants of Marcomanni, Quadi, Langobardi)
>as on the German resettlement in the 12th century.

Meine Rede! :)

>Considering the young place name layers, Bretholz' idea of an

/To memorize: ***"young place name layers***/

>Upper German loanwords should thus for the above-mentioned reasons
>be expected only for the older layers. By the evaluation of Upper
>German phonetic phenomena due diligence is recommended, since East
>Central German dialects, especially Mountain Silesian and
>Glätz.(?), show, as the last remnant of the layer of Bavarian
>settlement, a number of Upper German phonetic developments

Des woaß ma scho, des kunnst glaam.

>Interesting, but not relevant to the topic of German loanwords in
>Polish.

The Ordo Teutonicus presence in the neighborhood also might have had
its influence (worth investigating).

>I think, correct me if I'm wrong, that you're trying here, as you've
>done before, to argue that since Central German and Upper German
>dialects are similar, they are the same.

Not the same, but similar (way much closer to one another, as far
as phonetics & vocabulary are of concern; where as Old Saxony,
namely the real Saxon's land has been something really different.
NB: the German population living in modern (upper) Saxony, namely
in Dresden, Leipzig etc., do not speak LG dialects, and their
German is extremely closed to standard German and very close to
the remotest southern Oberdeutsch.

>However, similar =/= identical.

Compare your own idiom, Danish, with them: LG is much closer to
Danish, while Alemanian and Bavarian are the remotest. In a 10
point scale between Copenhagen and Klagenfurt, methinks Leipzig
and Dresden are parted by the "axis" Strasbourg-Stuttgart-Munich-
Vienna" only by 2-3 notches and by 7 notches from Aarhus. That's
what I mean. Or take Aachen (Ooche) and Cologne (Köln/Kölle):
they are MG, also containing many features that "open the gate"
to the entire LG world (incl. Schleswig-Holstein), but by and large
it has more in common with what's spoken in Bavaria, Tirol, Austria,
and Swiss cantons (incl. the preservation of ancient "enk" for
"euch": "önch").

>Similar does not mean identical.

Wem sachn Se das!... :)

>If you want to argue that the earliest German loans to Polish are >Central German, not Upper German, please do.

Oh no, I won't. I some time ago vaguely also read Obd. was the
no. 1 kind of German in that respect.

>1. Those Upper German words were carried on a 'Kulturströmung'
>going from Bavaria via the Czech lands to Lesser Poland (Walther
>Kästner's proposal).

Li'l wonder: the oldest OHG written remnants were jotted down in
Bavaria, Suebia and Switzerland. Evidence has shown that LG
speaking Germans in Northern regions rather adapted their scribbling
to the Southern writers' idiosincrasies.

>2. Old Upper German was once spoken in the Old Polish area, before
>the Ostsiedlung of the 12th-13th century (as I also proposed earlier
>etc etc).

Awright. I expect the next questions: "Was this due to mere influen-
ces from intermediaries Bohemia and Moravia?" and "Was this so due
to pockets of "East-Elbe" Germanic-speaking populaces that never
left along with those migrators who settled South Germany, Switzer-
land, Northern Italy and Noricum (Austria; up to Balaton as well as
to the Danube). (Tja, wenn man es wüßte, wie's ausgschaugt hot von
Küste zu Küste... :))

George