Prussian is an extinct Baltic language, once spoken by the inhabitants of the area that later became East Prussia (now north-eastern Poland and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia) prior to the German colonisation of the area which began in the 13th century. In Old Prussian itself, the language was called ?Pr?siskan? (Prussian) or ?Pr?siskai Bil?? (the Prussian language). A few experimental communities involved in reviving a reconstructed form of the language now exist in Lithuania, Poland, and other countries.
The Æsti, mentioned by Tacitus in his Germania, may have been a people who spoke Old Prussian. However, Tacitus describes them as being just like the Suebi (a group of Germanic peoples) but with a more Britannic-like (Celtic) language.
Old Prussian was closely related to the other extinct Western Baltic languages, Curonian and Sudovian. It is more distantly related to the surviving Eastern Baltic languages, Lithuanian and Latvian. Compare the Prussian word zem?[1], the Latvian zeme, the Lithuanian ?em?.
The language is called ?Old Prussian? to avoid confusion with the German dialects Low Prussian and High Prussian, and the adjective ?Prussian?, which also relates to the later German state. The Old Prussian name for the nation, not being Latinized, was Pr?sa. This too may be used to delineate the language and the Baltic state from the later German state.
Old Prussian began to be written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 13th century. A small amount of literature in the language survives.
Until the 1930s, when the Nazi government began a program of Germanization, and 1945, when the Soviets annexed Prussia and made Old Prussian place-names illegal[6], one could find Old Prussian river and place names in East Prussia, like Tawe, Tawelle, and Tawelninken.
Prussian-language geographical names within the territory of (Baltic) Prussia. The first basic study of these names was by Georg Gerullis, in Die altpreußischen Ortsnamen (The Old Prussian Place-names), written and published with the help of Walter de Gruyter, in 1922.
Separate words found in various historical documents.
Vernacularisms in the former German dialects of East and West Prussia, as well words of Old Curonian origin in Latvian, and West-Baltic vernacularisms in Lithuanian and Belarusian.
The so-called Basel Epigram[8]. It reads: Kayle rekyse. thoneaw labonache thewelyse. Eg. koyte poyte. nykoyte. pe^nega doyte; which may be: Ka?ls rik?se! Tu ni j?u laban asei t?welise, ik kwait?i p?iti, ni kwait?i pening? d?iti. (In English: "Hello Sir! You are no longer a nice uncle, if you want to drink but do not want to give a penny!"[9]) This is an inscription of the 14th century, most probably by a Prussian student studying in Prague, found by St. McCluskey in one of folios of the Basel university in 1974.
Various fragmentary texts:
Recorded in several versions by Hieronymus Maletius in Sudovian Nook in the middle of the 16th century, as noted by V. Ma?iulis, are
Beigeite beygeyte peckolle - Run, run, devils!
Kails naussen gnigethe - Hello our friend!
Kails poskails ains par antres - (a drinking toast, reconstructed as Ka?ls pas ka?ls, a?ns per ?ntran, or, in English : A healthy one after a healthy one, one after another!)
Kellewesze perioth, Kellewesze perioth - A carter drives here, a carter drives here!
Ocho moy myle schwante panicke (also recorded as O hoho Moi mile swente Pannike, O ho hu Mey mile swenthe paniko, O mues miles schwante Panick) - Oh my dear holy fire!
an expression from the list of the Vocabulary of friar Simon Grunau, an historian of the German Order: sta nossen rickie, nossen rickie, This (is) our lord, our lord.
A manuscript fragment of the first words of the Pater Noster in Prussian, from the beginning of the 15th century: Towe Nüsze kås esse andangonsün swyntins.
100 words (in strongly varying versions) of the Vocabulary by Simon Grunau, written ca. 1517?1526; these have been reconstructed into a more unified single system of spelling by V. Ma?iulis.
The so-called Elbing Vocabulary, which consists of 802 thematically sorted words and their German equivalents. This manuscript, copied by Peter Holcwesscher from Marienburg on the boundary of the 14th and 15th centuries, was found in 1825 by Fr. Neumann among other manuscripts acquired by him from the heritage of the Elbing merchant A. Grübnau; it was thus dubbed the ?Codex Neumannianus?. Again, the words have been reconstructed into a more unified single system of spelling by V. Ma?iulis, a scholar and contributor to the revival of the Prussian language.
The three Catechisms[10] printed in the Prussian language in Königsberg in 1545, 1545, and 1561 respectively. The first two consist of only 6 pages text in Prussian ? the second one being a correction of the first into another sub-dialect. The third one, however, consists of 132 pages of Prussian text, and is a translation by Abel Will of Martin Luther?s Enchiridion.
An adage of 1583, Dewes does dantes, Dewes does geitka. This is, in all probability, not Prussian ? the form does in the second instance corresponds to Lithuanian future tense duos ?will give? ? however it is included in this list because it is commonly thought of as Prussian. As for trencke, trencke! (Strike! Strike!), it too is in all probability Lithuanian, not Prussian.
Examples of Prussian
Here are several basic Prussian phrases :
Translation
Phrase
Prussian [language]
Pr?siskan
Hello
Ka?ls
Good morning
Ka?ls Ankste?nai
Good-bye
?rdiw
Thank you
D?nka
How much?
Kelli?
Yes
J?
No
Ni
Where is the bathroom?
Kw?i ast Spekt?stuba?
(Generic toast)
Ka?ls pas ka?ls a?ns per ?ntran
Do you speak English?
Bil?i t? ?ngliskan?
Prussian was a highly inflected language, as can be seen from the declination of the demonstrative pronoun stas, "that". (Note that translators of the Teutonic Order frequently misused stas as an article for the word "the".)
G. H. F. Nesselmann, Thesaurus linguae Prussicae, Berlin, 1873.
E. Berneker, Die preussische Sprache, Strassburg, 1896.
R. Trautmann, Die altpreussischen Sprachdenkmäler, Göttingen, 1910.
G. Gerullis, Die altpreussischen Ortsnamen, Berlin-Leipzig, 1922.
R. Trautmann, Die altpreussischen Personnennamen, Göttingen, 1925.
J. Endzel?ns, Senpr??u valoda. ? Gr. Darbu izlase, IV s?j., 2. da?a, R?ga, 1982. 9.-351. lpp.
V. Ma?iulis, Pr?s? 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 (nebaigtas, not finished).
V. Ma?iulis, Pr?s? kalbos etimologijos ?odynas, Vilnius, t. I-IV, 1988-1997.
M. Biolik, Zuflüsse zur Ostsee zwischen unterer Weichsel und Pregel, Stuttgart, 1989.
R. Przybytek, Ortsnamen baltischer Herkunft im südlichen Teil Ostpreussens, Stuttgart, 1993.
M. Biolik, Die Namen der stehenden Gewässer im Zuflussgebiet des Pregel, Stuttgart, 1993.
M. Biolik, Die Namen der fließenden Gewässer im Flussgebiet des Pregel, Stuttgart, 1996.
G. Bla?ien?, Die baltischen Ortsnamen in Samland, Stuttgart, 2000.
A. Kaukien?, Pr?s? kalba, Klaip?da, 2002.
V. Ma?iulis, Pr?s? kalbos istorin? gramatika, Vilnius, 2004.
LEXICON BORVSSICVM VETVS. Concordantia et lexicon inversum. / Bibliotheca Klossiana I, Universitas Vytauti Magni, Kaunas, 2007.
OLD PRUSSIAN WRITTEN MONUMENTS. Facsimile, Transliteration, Reconstruction, Comments. / Bibliotheca Klossiana II, Universitas Vytauti Magni / Lithuanians' World Center, Kaunas, 2007.
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