Wiktionary:About Masurian

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Masurian is an ethnolect spoken in the northwestern regions of Poland as well as in Siberia. Its ancestor on Wiktionary is Old Polish, which see for more. It is a sister language to Polish as well as Silesian. The earliest known work in Masurian is {{RQ:zlw-mas:Ta Swenta Woyna}}, written in 1900. There have been various works written in or studying Masurian, many of which are mentioned in {{R:zlw-mas:SgOWiM}}, which is the largest dictionary on term in that region. However, terms from this dictionary need to be normalized to Masurian pronunciation. For details, see the template's documentation. For other sources, see Category:Masurian reference templates.

Normalization and writing system

Wiktionary uses the writing system mentioned at w:Masurian_dialects#Writing_system, which, in turn, is found in Piotr Szatkowski (Psioter ôt Sziatków) (2019) MAZURSKI FÉBEL abo MAZURSKÁ FIBLA, czyli ELEMENTARZ mowy mazurskiej‎^[1], Ełk: Ełckie Centrum Kultury, →ISBN, archived from the original on 18 November 2023, pages 25—29

Vowels

The hardest thing to keep in mind would be the differentiation between a and á (as well as ä, which is simple to predict), e and é, and, to a lesser extent, o and ó. The accented vowels derive from late Old Polish's so-called "pochylone" (slanted) vowels, which derive from historically long vowels that lost their length and gained new qualities. These result from:

1. being before a tautosyllabic voiced consonant, even if devoiced word-finally, e.g. brzég, lód;
2. on occasion, from Proto-Slavic *ě, e.g. léczyć;
3. contractions, such as stáć, ultimately from Proto-Slavic *stojati; these are the most frequent sources of "slanted vowels", but there are others;
   1. even though Middle Polish gerunds usually ended in -é, they do not appear in Masurian, giving -e instead;
   2. the prefix nie- has a reflex of nie- (as opposed to nié-).
   3. the prefix na-/ná- is very difficult to predict and one should look for phonetic quotations in the Kartoteka is possible. If the quality of the a cannot be determined for the given word, na- should be chosen by default.

The letter ä is used after velar consonants (k/g/ch) and represents [ʲæ] regionally and also may represent a historically short a. chä regionally is also represented as sia, i.e. chałupa -> siałupa. If there was a "pochylone" á after k/h/ch, then in Masurian remains á.

The letter y should go to i except in the following cases:

1. the letter ÿ (/i/) is used before s/z/c/n to mark them as hard (as ci is read as ći, etc.);
2. in the past ł-forms, such as był -> buł.

The nasal vowels assimilated before a consonant or disappeared word-finally, so:

1. ą/ę + p/m = ómb/ómb/emb/emb
2. ą/ę + c/dz = ónc/óndz/enc/endz
3. ą/ę + ć/dź = óncz/óndż/encz/endż
   1. the ending -nąć becomes -nóncz
4. ą/ę + cz/dż = ónc/ónd/enc/end
5. ą/ę + t/d = ónt/ónd/ent/end
6. ą/ę + k/g = ónk/óng/enk/eng

However, before ł/l, nasals were lost entirely, yielding ą > o and ę > e.

In Western Masuria, the same processes happened before sibilants, but elsewhere, there is an alveolar n.

The letter ô is derived from word-initial /ɔ/ and represents /wɔ/. Further prefixes may be applied, so it may occur word-medially at morpheme boundaries. The letter û works similarly, and represents /wu/.

Consonants

Consonants are easier to derive:

1. rz changed into rż, e.g. morze -> morże
2. soft w (/v/) become ź or ziV, e.g. człowiek -> cłoziek; similarly, soft p and b become pś (psi) and bź (bzi), respectively, e.g. pies -> psies and kobiéta -> kobziéta; this does not affect loan words, compare biksa;
3. most notably, w:Masuration occurs, so sz/ż/cz/dż become s/z/c/dz, respectively, e.g. możesz -> mozes, człowiek -> cłoziek, and dojeżdżać -> dojezdać;
4. similarly, soft sibilants are noted thusly: ś/ź/ć/dź -> sz/ż/cz/dż;
5. soft m > ń, e.g. miasto > niasto;
6. the clusters świ-/źwi > szw/żw, and the <i> disappears, leaving a hard <w>.

Other changes

The changes of ja- > je- and ra-> re- are highly lexicalized and each etymon should be checked individually. This can be done checking phonetic quotes at {{RQ:zlw-mas:KartotekaSgOWiM}}.

Similarly, an epenthetic j- is inserted before an initial i-/e- in highly lexicalized words, but not all words. One should check quotations.

Borrowings from German

1. German etymons ending with -ist end with isti and have adjectival declension.
2. The ending -ung is realized as -unek.
3. The German diphthong <ei> (/ai/) is borrowed with the spelling <ej>.
4. The German diphthong <au> (/au/) is borrowed with the spelling <ou> or, less frequently, <áu>.

Typical layout

There are four main headword templates. They work like their Kashubian counterparts. For all other parts of speech, use {{head}} (shortcut {{h}}):

1. {{zlw-mas-noun}} – for adding diminutives, augmentatives, relational adjectives, and any gender equivalents;
2. {{zlw-mas-verb}} – for adding any aspectual equivalents;
3. {{zlw-mas-adj}} – for adding comparatives and adverbs;
4. {{zlw-mas-adv}} – for adding comparatives.

==Masurian==

===Alternative forms===
* {{alt|zlw-mas|}}

===Etymology===
{{bor+|zlw-mas||}}.
{{dercat|zlw-mas|ine-bsl-pro|ine-pro|inh=2}}
{{inh+|zlw-opl|sla-pro|*}}. {{surf|zlw-mas|}}.
From {{af|zlw-mas|}}. Compare {{cog|pl|}}.

===Pronunciation===
* {{zlw-mas-IPA}}
* {{hyph|zlw-mas|caption=Syllabification|}}

===POS===
{{zlw-mas|}}

# {{lb|zlw-mas|}} [[]] {{gl|}} {{+preo|zlw-mas|prep|case|means=}} {{+obj|zlw-mas|case|means=}}
#: {{syn|zlw-mas|}}

====Derived terms====
{{col-auto|zlw-mas|title=adjectives|}}
{{col-auto|zlw-mas|title=adverbs|}}
{{col-auto|zlw-mas|title=nouns|}}
{{zlw-mas-derived verbs|}}

====Related terms====
{{col-auto|zlw-mas|title=adjectives|}}
{{col-auto|zlw-mas|title=adverbs|}}
{{col-auto|zlw-mas|title=nouns|}}
{{zlw-mas-derived verbs|}}

===Further reading===
* {{R:zlw-mas:MSGM}}
* {{R:pl:SgOWiM|+||}}
* {{R:zlw-mas:Donder||}}

{{C|zlw-mas|}}