The Vistulan dialect () was a dialect of Low Prussian, which belongs to Low German. The dialect was spoken in West Prussia (today in Poland) around Zarnowitzer See, Danzig and Graudenz.Peter Wiesinger, Die Einteilung der deutschen Dialekte, sub-chapter 3.4.7. Das Niederpreußische, in: Werner Besch, Ulrich Knoop, Wolfgang Putschke, Herbert Ernst Wiegand (eds.), , here p. 892 It had a border to Mundart der Weichselwerder. It is related to Nehrungisch.
Geography East Pomeranian had a border to Low Prussian according to Ē- and Ō-vowels running from Zarnowitzer See via Karthaus, West of Schöneck, to Preußisch-Stargard, to Bromberg and south of Vistula to East of Thorn.Peter Wiesinger, Die Einteilung der deutschen Dialekte, in: Werner Besch, Ulrich Knoop, Wolfgang Putschke, Herbert Ernst Wiegand (eds.), , here p. 887 In West Prussian Kulmerland, East Pomeranian was spoken to Wąbrzeźno, Radzyń Chełmiński and Łasin.
It partly coincided with a transitional area of East Pomeranian and Low Prussian. The transitional area would end at about Chojnice (Konitz)."Abb. 20: Die Gliederung der deutschen Dialekte (Wiesinger)" [Not mentioning any of the here given places] Other places within this area included Bytów (Bütow), Lębork (Lauenburg), Bydgoszcz (Bromberg) and Toruń (Thorn). Within Low German in West Prussia, there was a major bundle of isoglosses in roughly the line Brodnica-Gardeja-Nowe and continuing somewhere between Kościerzyna and Chojnice.Walther Mitzka: Kleine Schriften zur Sprachgeschichte und Sprachgeographie. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1968, p. 185
The border of difference between a differentiation of nominative/accusative versus dative forms among strong masculine and neutral plurals ran from Lake Gardno (Garder See) to Kościerzyna (Berent) to Kartuzy (Karthaus) via Skarszewy (Schöneck) to Świecie (Schwetz).Wiesinger in: p. 890 The Eastern border of the dialect area having gerunds mainly coincided with the Western border of realization of Middle Low German i and u as e respectively o. Wiesinger in: p. 888/889 The border of realization of Middle Low German i and u as e respectively o apart from before Low German nt, ng nk and g for example op ran from Łebsko Lake (Lebasee), West of Lębork (Lauenburg)-Bytów (Bütow)-Kruschinsee-West of Starogard Gdański (Preußisch Stargard)-South and West of Vistula river. Wiesinger in: p. 887 There was gutturalization of -nd- to voiced velar nasal east of the border Wicko (lake)-East of Sławno-East of Polanów-North, East and South of Miastko-Biały Bór-North and East of Czarne-Człuchów-West and South of Debrzno-Kamień Krajeński-North and East of Sępólno Krajeńskie- North of Czersk-West of Nowe. Wiesinger in: p. 887
Phonology Left of Vistula river ben and sestər was spoken for am and sister.Walther Ziesemer: Die ostpreußischen Mundarten, Ferdinand Hirt, Breslau, 1924, p. 133 In Danzig (Gdańsk), it had High German a as ǫ before l in words such as ǫl for High German and hǫle for High German .Bernhard Jähnig and Peter Letkemann (eds.): Danzig in acht Jahrhunderten. Nicolaus-Copernicus-Verlag, 1985, p. 325 Another typical example is mǫn for High German . The dialect of Danzig also has mǭke for High German , nǭˠel for High German , šlǭˠen for High German inter alia. It had a and ä in cases such as nat and nät for High German Netz. It had ek ben I am for ek sī.
In Danzig in originally open syllables before k and x [ach-Laut], a became ɔ:.Walther Ziesemer: Die ostpreußischen Mundarten. Ferdinand Hirt, Breslau, 1924, p. 132
In Vistula Delta, the palatal plosive was usually back, which is closer to the Chortitza form;Roslyn Burns, Contrasting Spaces in Plautdietsch: Language Variation and Change, 2021, p. 3 the palatal plosive in some regions to the west of the Vistula River had a front variant which is closer to the Molotschna-Plautdietsch form.
s, z and comparable sounds were quite special near upper Drewenz river, the Southwestern corner of East Prussia, the extreme Southeast of Warmia, in the area around Stuhm, South of Marienburg, in some villages near Dirschau and another area.Mitzka, Walther. Grundzüge nordostdeutscher Sprachgeschichte. Elwert, 1959, p. 122 This was the Old Prussian-Polish border area. Danzig and Heubude changed for a in originally open syllables to a long o with a cedilla.Walther Ziesemer: Die ostpreußischen Mundarten, Ferdinand Hirt, Breslau, 1924, p. 132
History
Numerous words in the Danzig area were from Dutch, in particular nautical and commercial vocabulary.Curt Wiens, Niederländischer Wortschatz in der Mundart der Weichselwerder, Danzig, 1916 Towards the end of the 18th century, the language spoken at home in long-established merchant families in Danzig was still Low German, this changed. Use in Danzig has since then been restricted to workers and small artisans. It was barely understood in privileged circles, but best by those who had the opportunity to hear it with their subordinates every day. In the countryside, Low German was still spoken by the landowners, if they preserved the rural way of life. In the second half of the 19th century, Low German had a considerable decline. Already in the age of the Teutonic Order there were Dutch colonists in Danzig. [a doctor's thesis] Low German with Dutch remnants was often still spoken in Danzig by Mennonite families at home in the first half of the 19th century. In 1780 a German hymnbook was introduced, partly translated from Dutch. Until then, the Danzig congregation had used Dutch songbooks. Until the second half of the 18th century, Mennonite sermons were in Dutch. By 1586 there were Mennonite congregations in both Graudenz and Danzig.
There were numerous Mennonite congregations in West Prussia and East Prussia. Reimer distinguishes six West Prussian core groups according to families: The Flemish rural congregations, the Frisian rural congregations, the Frisian congregations in the upper Vistula lowlands, the Old Flemish congregations, the Flemish congregation of Danzig city area and the urban part of the Congregation of Elbing, the Frisian congregation of Danzig-Neugarten. p. 61 The Flemish Mennonites originated from a group of religiously persecuted Mennonites who had fled from Flanders and other parts of present-day Belgium to the Netherlands, the country of origin of the Mennonites, around the middle of the 16th century. Here many settled, especially in Friesland, and formed independent congregations in the towns of Franeker, Harlingen, Dokkum and Leeuwarden, which agreed on nineteen common articles of faith in 1560 and formed the association Ordinance der vier Steden. Among the agreements of the Ordinance was that a preacher elected by the local congregation should also be recognised in the other congregations of the association and thus had permission to work in them as well. It was also decided that conflicts within a single congregation should be settled by all the preachers of the associated congregations. In addition, a centralised welfare service for the poor was envisaged. The Frisian Brotherhood of Mennonite Congregations, saw especially in these three points of the Flemish the autonomy of the local congregation, one of its basic principles, in danger. Despite many efforts on various sides, a split could not be prevented. The schismatic tendencies in both groups were reinforced by the different practices of faith and life, but also by the fact that leading Mennonite personalities joined one or the other faction. For example, Leenaert Bouwens (1515-1582) sided with the Frisians, whereas Dirk Philips (1504-1568) on the side of the Flemish. In June 1567, the two parties separated and imposed a church ban on the other grouping. This split did not only affect Dutch Mennonitism, but continued in all Mennonite settlement areas. The attributes Flemish and Frisian had long ceased to be geographical designations of origin; they became intra-Mennonite denominational names. The Old Flemish Mennonites were a denomination originating from a split from the so-called Flemish Mennonites around 1586 in Franeker. The derisive name Huiskoopers, by which the Old Flemish were also referred to, originated from a controversial house purchase made by Thomas Bintgens, pp. 430 an elder of the Flemish Mennonite Church, had made and which led to a split among its members. The external cause was a house purchase that Thomas Bintgens (also spelled Byntgens or Bijntgens), elder of the Old Flemish Parish in Franeker, had made for 700 guilders, but had the seller issue him with a receipt for 800 guilders. Jacob Keest, Joos Jans and Jakob Berends, also members of the municipal council, condemned this behaviour as a serious breach of the duty to truth. Bintgens tried to justify himself; he had only wanted to prevent later bids on the house with the consent of the seller. He then told the council that he was sorry about the whole thing and that he would rather pay for the house twice than harm anyone. The opposing side did not accept these arguments, but additionally accused Bintgen of having bought the property from an indebted drunkard and profligate. He should have spent at least part of the purchase price to pay off the seller's creditors. Behind the specific accusations were probably also differences of opinion with regard to the church ban. Keest and his faction criticised Bintgens' strictness in this context. The dispute not only divided the local congregation; delegates from surrounding Flemish congregations tried to settle the disputes, but carried the conflict into their congregations. The factions were initially referred to by the names of their representatives (Thomas Bintgens volk; Jakob Keest volk) and later as Huiskoopers and Contra-huiskoopers. The name Contra-Huiskoopers soon fell into oblivion. The followers of Keest were then the Sachten (= gentle, mild) Flemish or simply the Flemish in contrast to the stricter Old Flemish around Bintgens.https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Contra-Huiskoopers&oldid=94235 Online The group around Bintgens became the nucleus of the Old Flemish Mennonites, which subsequently spread to the Netherlands, East Frisia, West and East Prussia. Despite the designation Old Flemish Mennonites, many of them were Hollanders. Furthermore, many were not Dutch-speaking. The Groningen Old Flemish split from the Flemish Mennonites in about 1630 because of their tendency to merge with other Mennonite groups. They soon founded the international Old Flemish Mennonite association Groninger Doopsgezinde Sociëteit with headquarters in Groningen. The internationally present Danzig Old Flemish, a grouping distinct from the Groningen Old Flemish, was given the designation Huiskoopers, which was no longer applied to the Groningen Old Flemish. Possibly in 1665, the Ukowallists denomination founded by Uko Walles merged with the Groningen Old Flemish. The term Ukowallists was thereafter also applied to the Old Flemish. In contrast to other Mennonite denominations, the Old Flemish practised a stricter form of church bans; they also stood for a stricter form of church orders and placed value on a simple way of life. Between the second half of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th century, the split was largely reversed in the aforementioned regions. The Old Flemish integrated into Mennonitism in general, Groningen Old Flemish Sociëteit having been dissolved in 1815. There were several languages spoken by Old Flemish Mennonites and several dialects of each. Within the coastal area from Gdańsk to Elbląg, the denomination Flemish Mennonites once predominated among the Mennonites, whereas in Vistula valley the denomination Frisian Mennonites did.Horst Penner: Weltweite Bruderschaft, Heinrich Schneider, Karlsruhe, 1952, p. 75