A case of Wends and Wendland

[ShinsukeNakamura]

As I mentioned above, I did my own list of Wendish names. Here they are as follows:

pommeranian = {
        graphical_cultures = { westernslavicgfx }
        color = { 0.4 0.6 0.4 }
        male_names = {
            Barnim Barnimir_Branimir Barnislaw_Bronislaw Boguslaw_Boguslaw Bogdan_Bogdan
            Bogumir_Bogumir Bolieslaw_Boleslav Boriwoj_Borijov Božydar_Theodat
            Brietislaw_Bretislaus Budisz Chotiebudz Chotiemir Czarnowăs Czăstibor Czedarg
            Cztibor_Ctibor Dalimir Dargowit_Drogovit Dobieslaw Dobromil_Dobromil
            Dobromir_Dobromir Dobromysl Domabor Domamir Drosuk Gniew Gniewomir Gostimir
            Gostomysl Grimislaw Jeromil Jeromir_Jaromir Jeroslaw_Jaroslav Kazmir_Casimir
            Krut Kriesimir Krieslaw Leszek Liub Liubomir_Lubomir Malek Malesz Milogost
            Miloslaw Miroslaw_Miroslaw Mstislaw_Mstislav Mstiwoj Nakon Niedamir Niepor
            Niklot Păczel Priedbor Priemysl_Premysl Prieslaw Pribygniew Pribyslaw Reslaw
            Retibor Redomil Redomir Redoslaw Rostislaw Sambor Siem Siemomysl Slawomir
            Sobieslaw_Sobeslaus Stanislaw_Stanislav Stojgniew Stojslaw Sulimir Sulislaw
            Swiătobor Swiătopolk_Svatopluk Swiătoslaw_Sviatoslav Tăgomir Tieslaw Tieszymir
            Tietier Unislaw Waclaw_Vaclav Wartislaw_Vratislav Wiczan Wislaw Witomir Witoliub
            Wlĺdyslaw_Vladislav Wlĺdimir _Vladimir Wojtech_Albert Wolczk Woligost Wyszemer
            Zbygniew_Zbynek Zdieslaw
        }
        female_names = {
            Boguslawa Boleslawa Boriăta Božena Barnislawa Brietislawa Dabrowka Damroka Dalimira
            Dobroniega Dargomira Gostimira Jerka Jermila Jeroslawa Kazmira Krieslawa Liuba
            Liudmila Malomira Milena Miroslawa Mstigniewa Pribyslawa Retibora Redomila Redomira
            Redoslawa Roža_Rosa Stibora Slawina Slawomira Smiechna Sobieslawa Stanislawa
            Swiătoslawa Tieszka Witoslawa Wlĺdislawa Wera Witoliuba Wojslawa Zdenka Zwinislawa
        }
        from_dynasty_prefix = "z "
        male_patronym = "owy"
        dukes_called_kings = yes
     
        count_titles_hidden = yes
        modifier = pommeranian_culture_modifier
        allow_looting = yes
        seafarer = yes
    }

ĺ is å, ă is ã , so i.e. Wlĺdyslaw is Wlådyslaw, Swiătopolk is Swiãtopolk and so on.

Making this namelist actually gave me a headache, because I had to take flexible approach to them. Some of them are common Slavic names, some are derived from possesive toponyms, and the rest are actual names of Polabian/Pomeranian rulers. As you can see, these names resemble Polish ones; it was intented, for these the languages form a Lekhitic branch of West Slavic languages. On the other hand they are different, because I reconstruted them using changes in phonology from Proto-Slavic to Polabian/Pomeranian. I did this because I wanted to give them more authentic feel by presenting them as they could sound in middle ages.
The question you may asking is "why you didn't use kashubian ones?". The answer is simple: Kashubian and Polabian were written down for the first time in 16th and in late 17th century respectively. Even back then, Kashubian lacked key features, that by which it is recognisable today and Polabian form late 16th century strayed far it's original Slavic core (it underwent rally whacky sound changes and it's vocabulary was heavily germanised) and went extinct in 1750s.

Edit: I post another parts during this may, so stay tuned!

 

[ShinsukeNakamura]

Hi, it’s me again. After last post, I thought that description of Wendish languages could clarify many things I write about.
So, what does “Vendi” mean? As wiki says here “Wends (Old English: Winedas; Old Norse: Vindr; German: Wenden, Winden; Danish: vendere; Swedish: vender; Polish: Wendowie) is a historical name for Slavs living near Germanic settlement areas. It does not refer to a homogeneous people, but to various peoples, tribes or groups depending on where and when it was used.”. In spirit of that, Pomeranians, Polabians and Sorbs are called Vendi in HIP, and this series I’ll use “Wends” for a lack of a better term when it comes to collectively talk about these people. As you can see, this term is an exonym coined by Germans to describe their Slavic neighbors. Unfortunately, we don’t know how Wends called themselves. In the context of this series, “Polabian” means dialects of Slavic population spoken between Elbe and Odra rivers, in the area called in Polish historiography “Połabie”.

You may ask “Why do you had to do a reconstruction?”. Medieval Wendish languages, with exception of Lower and Upper Lusatian, had never developed a written standard, while Polish and Czech did. Even more, there no written attestations of these language. The only traces that they preserved in, were toponyms.

Reconstruction for city of Wismar in Meklemburg. Vyšemir is personal name (Vyše “higher” + mer/mir “peace”) combined with -jь (possessive suffix), this gives us Vyšemerь, which means “Settlement belonging to Vyšemir”

You can find full map here https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/g13mmt
This map shows suffixes usually attributed to Slavic toponyms: -in, -itz, -ow. It clearly shows the extent of former Wendish habitat in what is now eastern Germany.

While doing research about these toponyms, linguists were able - to some extent - reconstruct Slavic dialects spoken there, mainly their phonology; the same was done for extinct Pomeranian dialects, spoken between lower Odra and Vistula rivers. But the results were ambiguous – because there was no literary standard, dialects formed a big dialectal continuum rather than separate languages, with various degrees of changes and differences from Polish. One linguist even wrote, that if Poland had successfully conquered Meklemburg, then its dialects would gradually be polonised, just like it happened to Kashubian, which in span of few centuries was in large extent influenced by Polish, that 50 years ago was considered by linguists as a very separate dialect of Polish language, rather than a language on its own. For this reason, as well as that literary standard was invented in 19th century (of course there were texts in Kashubian before that, but not that much), I didn’t include Kashubian features in my reconstruction.

For the same reason I didn’t include most of the features of Polabian language. In this context, “Polabian language” means the language that was spoken in Wendland on the left bank of Elbe river, around towns Wustrow, Lüchow and Dannenberg. These people were descendants of Drzewianie, tribe that was conquered by Carolingians in 8th/9th century. Drzewianie, as well as their language, were cut off from other Slavs in following centuries and through German overlordship, they gradually germanised. In the late 17th/early 18th century, immediately before the language became extinct, several people started to collect phrases and compile wordlists (interesting fact: one of them was famous philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz), and were engaged with folklore of the Polabian Slavs, but only one of them appears to have been a native speaker of Polabian (himself leaving only 13 pages of linguistically relevant material from a 310-page manuscript). The last native speaker of Polabian, a woman, died in 1756, and the last person who spoke limited Polabian died in 1825. About 2800 Polabian words are known; of prose writings, only a few prayers, one wedding song and a few folktales survive. There were several books written about Polabian and I don’t intend to write about it in extenso, so I’ll tell you this: it was really whacky, especially when it comes to phonology; if you are interested, you can read here comparison of Lord’s Prayer in several languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polabian_language#Example_of_Polabian (you will also see, how similar Kashubian is to Polish) or here https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Język_połabski (use google translate)

PS. I have big list of changes from Proto-Slavic to Polabian, Pomeranian, Kashubian and Polish, but it’s not in English. If there’s someone interested, I can translate it and explain my reconstruction of Wendish step by step.