Warsaw subdialect
Warsaw subdialect | |
---|---|
gwara warszawska | |
Pronunciation | [ˈɡvara varˈʂafska] |
Native to | Poland |
Region | Warsaw |
Native speakers | close to extinction[citation needed] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
Glottolog | None |
The Warsaw subdialect (Polish: gwara warszawska [ˈɡvara varˈʂafska]), or Warsaw dialect (Polish: dialekt warszawski), is a regional subdialect of the Masovian dialect of the Polish language, centered on the city of Warsaw. It evolved as late as the 18th century, under notable influence of several languages spoken in the city. After the destruction of Warsaw in the aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 the subdialect has been in decline. It is estimated that in modern times it is almost extinct as the native language and is preserved mostly in literary works.
Classification
The Warsaw dialect is composed mostly of the
The dialect was composed of a variety of different class dialects: the language of the suburbs differed from the language of the city centre and each professional group used its own version of the dialect, slightly different from the others. It is therefore difficult to state the exact classification.
Geographic distribution
The dialect was originally spoken in and around Warsaw, Poland. After 1944 it became dispersed as most of the inhabitants of Warsaw were either killed in the Warsaw Uprising or resettled in other parts of Poland. Currently it is almost completely extinct as a primary language and is mostly used by authors and artists for stylisation in literature, poetry and songwriting.
History
The Warsaw dialect became a separate dialect of the Polish language some time in the 18th century, when the Polish
Until World War II the language spoken by different classes and professions of Warsaw evolved independently, although were eventually mixed and interlinked. After the Warsaw Uprising, when the majority of its speakers were either killed or expelled and resettled in other parts of the world, the dialect became separated from its geographical roots and its users dispersed. After the war only a small number of pre-war Varsavians returned there while the vast majority of the inhabitants of the city came from other parts of Poland. Because of that, the language spoken in Warsaw became heavily influenced by other dialects of the Polish language. The only boroughs of Warsaw where the dialect was preserved to some extent were Praga and Wola.
Since the 1960s the uniformisation of the language spoken throughout Poland under the influence of the mass media (such as the television and radio) lead to a rapid decline in speakers of all the dialects of Polish, the Warsaw dialect included.
Among the notable artists who used the Warsaw dialect in their books, songs and poems are
Sub-dialects
As mentioned above, the Warsaw dialect was further divided onto several sub-dialects. Those included:
- Sub-dialects of different boroughs – for instance the language of Praga, Wola, Powiśle
- Professional sub-dialects – for instance the language of printers or policemen
- Sub-dialects of criminals – a regional version of grypsera
- Jewish sub-dialect – a regional version of the Yiddish language, largely influenced by the Polish language
All of the above sub-dialects were constantly mixing with each other and the lexical basis of most of them was similar.
Derived dialects
Due to the large number of prisons in Warsaw, the influence of the Warsaw dialect on the evolution of grypsera was immense and to some extent the shape of the latter language is a distant relative of the former.
Phonology
The basic phonology of the Warsaw dialect was that of the standard Polish language, with several notable differences.
The most important differences between literary Polish and the Warsaw dialect are the following:
Difference | Sound affected (IPA) | Polish example | Warsaw dialect | English translation | Remarks | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vowels | |||||||||||||
disappearance of the nasal vowels, especially in word-final syllables | [ɔ̃], [ɛ̃] | ||||||||||||
palatalisation of velar consonants before [ɛ] and [ɛ̃], especially in ending syllable | [k], [ɡ] | rękę ([ˈrɛŋkɛ̃] or [ˈrɛŋkɛ] | rękie ([ˈrɛŋkʲe]) | hand or palm (Accusative) | |||||||||
replacement of the vowel cluster [ɔa] by [ua] or [uwa] | [ɔa], | zawoalowany ([ˌzavɔaloˈvanɨ]) | zawualowany ([ˌzavualoˈvani]) | veiled | |||||||||
replacement of the vowel [ɨ] with [i] or [ɪ] | [ɨ] | kochany ([kɔˈxanɨ]) |
kochany ([kɔˈxani] or [kɔˈxanɪ]) |
beloved |
Vocabulary
The Warsaw dialect has much of its lexicon borrowed from a variety of languages.[specify]
Writing system
The Warsaw dialect did not develop a literary form. It has been used by several authors in Polish literature and written with a standard set of Polish letters with different sounds denoted by approximation.
References
- Bronisław Wieczorkiewicz (1968). Gwara warszawska dawniej i dziś (in Polish). Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy. p. 516.
- Bronisław Wieczorkiewicz (1960). "Charakterystyka gwary warszawskiej XIX wieku". Przegląd Humanistyczny (in Polish) (6): 61–82.
- Bronisław Wieczorkiewicz (1963). Z badań nad gwarą warszawską XIX wieku (in Polish). Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe. p. 371.
- Bronisław Wieczorkiewicz (1966). Słownik gwary warszawskiej XIX wieku (in Polish). Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe. p. 487.
- Stanisław Dubisz; Halina Karaś; Nijola Kolis (1995). Dialekty i gwary polskie (in Polish). Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna. p. 175.
- Marian Kucała (1994). Twoja mowa cię zdradza; regionalizmy i dialektyzmy języka polskiego (in Polish). Kraków: Towarzystwo Miłośników Języka Polskiego. p. 120.
- Małgorzata Święcicka, ed. (2006). Miasto; przestrzeń zróżnicowana językowo, kulturowo i społecznie (in Polish). Bydgoszcz: ISBN 83-7096-607-1.