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Wymysorys
Vilamovian
Wymysiöery?
Pronunciation	[v?m?sø:r]
Native to	Poland
Region	Wilamowice
Ethnicity	Vilamovians
Native speakers	20 (2017)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic High German Central German East Central German Schlesisch-Wilmesau Wymysorys
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
	wym
Glottolog	wymy1235
Wymysorys Show map of Poland Wymysorys Show map of Europe
Coordinates: 49°55?N 19°09?E / 49.92°N 19.15°E / 49.92; 19.15

Wymysorys (Wymysiöery? IPA: [v?m?s?ø:r] or IPA: [v?moer]), also known as Vilamovian, is a West Germanic language spoken by the ethnic Vilamovian minority in the small town of Wilamowice, Poland (Wymysoü [v?m?s?y?] in Wymysorys), on the border between Silesia and Lesser Poland, near Bielsko-Bia?a.^[2][3] It is considered an endangered language,^[2] possibly the most so of any of the Germanic languages.^[4] There are probably fewer than 20^[1] native users of Wymysorys, virtually all bilingual; the majority are elderly.^[2]

History

In origin, Wymysorys appears to derive from 12th-century Middle High German, with a strong influence from Low German, Dutch, Polish, Old English and perhaps Frisian.^[2][5] The inhabitants of Wilamowice are thought to be descendants of German, Flemish and Scottish settlers who arrived in Poland during the 13th century. However, the inhabitants of Wilamowice always denied any connections with Germany and proclaimed their Flemish origins.^[6] Although related to German, Wymysorys is not mutually intelligible with Standard German (that is the case for most other German dialects as well).^[7]

Wymysorys was the vernacular language of Wilamowice until World War 2. However, it seems it has been in decline since the late 19th century. In 1880 as many as 92% of the town's inhabitants spoke Wymysorys (1,525 out of 1,662 people), in 1890 - only 72%, in 1900 - 67%, in 1910 - 73% again.^[8] Although Wymysorys was taught in local schools (under the name of "local variety of German"), since 1875 the basic language of instruction in most schools in Austro-Hungarian Galicia was Polish.^[8] During World War II and the German occupation of Poland Wymysorys was openly promoted by the Nazi administration, but after the war the tables turned: local communist authorities forbade the use of Wymysorys in any form.^[8] The widespread bilingualism of the people saved most local residents from being forcibly resettled to Germany, many of them stopped teaching their children their language or even using it in daily life.^[9] Although the ban was lifted after 1956, Wymysorys has been gradually replaced by Polish, especially amongst the younger generation.

Acting on a proposal by Tymoteusz Król, the Library of Congress added the Wymysorys language to the register of languages on July 18, 2007.^[10] It was also registered in the International Organization for Standardization, where it received the wym ISO 639-3 code.^[3] In a 2009 UNESCO report Wymysorys has been reported as "severely endangered" and nearly extinct.^[10]

Wymysorys was the language of the poetry of Florian Biesik, during the 19th century.^[]

Revitalization

Some new revitalization efforts were started in the first decade of the 21st century, led by speaker Tymoteusz Król, whose efforts include private lessons with a group of pupils as well as compiling language records, standardizing written orthography and compiling the first ever dictionary of Wymysorys. Additionally, a new project called The Wymysiöery?y Akademyj - Accademia Wilamowicziana or WA-AW was established under the "Artes Liberales" program at the University of Warsaw with the intention of creating a unified scholastic body for the study of the Wymysorys language.^[11]

Phonology

Consonants

• Voiced stops, sibilant fricatives and affricates are regularly devoiced or voiceless in final position.
• The sounds of /x/ and /h/ are interchangeable among different speakers. The use of [x] is typically heard at the beginning of a word, possibly due to the influence of Polish, even though historically in Germanic languages, the glottal fricative [h] is typically heard.
• The series of palato-alveolar /?, ?, t/ and alveolo-palatal /?, ?, t/ fricative and affricate sounds, are heard interchangeably among various speakers.
• [ç] is heard in word-final position, as an allophone of /x/.
• The voiced affricates /d?z, dz?, d, d/ are only heard in Polish loanwords.
• A series of flat post-alveolar sibilants and affricates [s?, z?, ts?, dz?], are also heard in Polish loanwords, interchangeably with alveolar-palatal sounds /?, ?, t, d/.
• The labial-velar approximant /w/ is pronounced with a lesser degree of lip rounding than in English, and is more similar to the Polish pronunciation of ? [w].^[12]

Vowels

• The close-mid sound /?/ is phonetically more fronted as [].
• Mid central vowel sounds /?, ?/ are also heard close central sounds [?, ?], among speakers.^[12]

Alphabet

Wymysorys has been for centuries mostly a spoken language. It was not until the times of Florian Biesik, the first author of major literary works in the language, that a need for a separate version of a Latin alphabet arose. Biesik wrote most of his works in plain Polish alphabet, which he considered better-suited for the phonetics of his language.^[13] In recent times Józef Gara (1929-2013), another author of works in the local language, devised a distinct Wymysorys alphabet, consisting of 34 letters derived from the Latin script and mostly based on Polish as well:

Wilamowicean orthography includes the digraph "AO", which is treated as a separate letter.

Example words and their relationship to other languages

A sample of Wymysorys words with German, Dutch and English translations. Note that ? is read in Wymysorys like English w (as in Polish), and w like v (as in Polish and German):

Sample texts

Lord's Prayer in Wymysorys

Ynzer Foter, dü byst ym hymu?,

Daj noma zu? zajn gywajt;

Daj Kyngrajch zu? dö kuma;

Daj wy?a zu? zajn ym hymu? an uf der aot;

dos ynzer gywyn?ichys brut gao yns haojt;

an fercaj yns ynzer siu?da,

wi wir aoj fercajn y ynzyn siu?digia;

ny ?at yns cyn zynda;

zunder kaonst yns reta fum nistgüta.

[Do Dajs ej z Kyngrajch an dy maocht, ans ?aowa uf inda.]

Amen

A lullaby in Wymysorys with English translation:

öf maj buw?a fest!

Skumma fremdy gest,

Skumma muma ana fettyn,

Z' brennia nys?a ana epu?n,

öf maj Jasiu fest!

Sleep, my boy, soundly!

Foreign guests are coming,

Aunts and uncles are coming,

Bringing nuts and apples,

Sleep, my Johnny, soundly!

See also

• Alzenau dialect
• Silesian German
• Masurian dialect

References

Bibliography

• Wicherkiewicz, Tomasz (2003). The Making of a Language: The Case of the Idiom of Wilamowice, Southern Poland. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110170993.
• Andrason, Alexander (2016), "Where Germanic and Slavic Meet - New Polish-based Tenses in the Vilamovicean Language", Germanoslavica, 27 (1): 1-17
• Andrason, Alexander; Król, Tymoteusz (2016), A Grammar of Wymysorys (PDF), Slavic and East European Resource Center, Duke University
• (in German) Maria Katarzyna Lasatowicz, "Die deutsche Mundart von Wilamowice zwischen 1920 und 1987". Opole, 1992: Wy?sza Szko?a Pedagogiczna.
• (in German) Hermann Mojmir, "Wörterbuch der deutschen Mundart von Wilamowice" (Dictionary of a German dialect of Wilamowice), Kraków, 1930-1936: Polska Akademia Umiej?tno?ci.
• (in Polish) Ludwik M?ynek, "Narzecze wilamowickie", Tarnów. 1907: J.Pisz.
• (in Polish) Latosi?ski, Józef (1909). Monografia miasteczka Wilamowic: na podstawie ?róde? autentycznych: z ilustracyami i mapk?. Kraków: Drukarnia Literacka pod zarz?dem L. K. Górskiego.
• (in Polish) Kleczkowski, Adam (1920). Dialekt Wilamowic w zachodniej Galicji. Fonetyka i fleksja. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiej?tno?ci.
• (in Polish) Kleczkowski, Adam (1921). Dialekt Wilamowic w zachodniej Galicji. Sk?adnia. Pozna?: Uniwersytet Pozna?ski.

External links

• Wymysiöery? - jeszcze mowa nie zgina at YouTube. Agencja Fotograficzna Fotorzepa. Rzeczpospolita
• The founding ceremony of the Accademia Wilamowicziana at YouTube.
• Omniglot page.
• Central Europe's Most Mysterious Language via Culture.pl.