[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Ger-Poland-Volhynia Digest, Vol 124, Issue 7

Wed Sep 11 10:45:02 PDT 2013

Mike, I along with my sister Lilly were born in Volhynia.  We have recently 
translated  into English and edited a journal that was written by my father 
in German or should I say East Prussian dialect.  It must be remembered that 
the modern "High German" language did not evolve until after the 
consolidation of  of the German states in 1870.  Prior to that point in 
history the "Germanic settlers " had their own dialect and expressions that 
came with them from whatever province or state that they originally came 
from but there was enough commonality between them so they could understand 
each other.
Now while the settlers were occupied with their own priorities the German 
people back in the homeland refined and standardized the language resulting 
in subtle and sometimes not so subtle differences  that when spoken or 
written by Volhynian settlers sounded and still sound different.  So it is 
that sometimes it became necessary for one who learned the new "High German" 
to ask for clarification from the now labeled "Volksdeutsche" person.
My father's journal was written with the old East Prussian style and 
expressions and therefore the translation process was or is not as simple as 
translating from "Hoch Deutch" to modern English.  This journal will shortly 
became available to the general public and should be of particular interest 
to SGGEE members because it describes in gripping detail what life was like 
for the settlers prior to 1915 and thereafter.  Since my forefathers settled 
in EAST VOLHYNIA
-----Original Message----- 
From: ger-poland-volhynia-request at sggee.org
Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2013 12:00 PM
To: ger-poland-volhynia at sggee.org
Subject: Ger-Poland-Volhynia Digest, Vol 124, Issue 7

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: GERMANS FROM RUSSIAN POLAND ACCENTS (MIKE MCHENRY)
   2. "Volhynian German" (Kerstin Petersen)
   3. Re: GERMANS FROM RUSSIAN POLAND ACCENTS (Ort Kolewe)
   4. Re: "Volhynian German" (Lloyd Friedrick)
   5.  GERMANS FROM RUSSIAN POLAND ACCENTS (Otto)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 11:08:09 -0400
From: "MIKE MCHENRY" <maurmike1 at verizon.net>
To: "'MIKE MCHENRY'" <maurmike1 at verizon.net>,
<ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] GERMANS FROM RUSSIAN POLAND ACCENTS
Message-ID: <011301ceae37$90410e60$b0c32b20$@net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

I would like thank everyone for the enlightening discussion. My grandparents
were Germans from Russian Poland (1901-2). They lived for quite some time in
Hoboken, NJ. Hoboken is one square mile in area. Prior to WWI it had an
estimated 24000 ethnic Germans. I often wonder based on list comments how
they might be accepted. Thanks again!

MIKE
maurmike1 at verizon.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Ger-Poland-Volhynia [mailto:ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at sggee.org] On
Behalf Of MIKE MCHENRY
Sent: Monday, September 09, 2013 8:18 PM
To: ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org
Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] GERMANS FROM RUSSIAN POLAND ACCENTS

Can anyone tell me if the accents of German people from Russian Poland were
very different from Germans of Germany? I recognize that German accents vary
across Germany. I guess what I'm asking is it instantly recognizable that
the person is from Russian Poland

MIKE

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------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 17:36:13 +0200
From: "Kerstin Petersen" <kerstin.petersen at mail.dk>
To: <ger-poland-volhynia at sggee.org>
Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] "Volhynian German"
Message-ID: <186EE9D7268041F08FDA5E5636C87594 at Win7EjnarPC>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

My grandparents ended in the northern part of Germany in Nordschlswig 1914. 
After 1920, after a referendum, Nordschleswig went to Denmark.
We all spoke german with our grandparents and people had no difficulty 
understanding the german they spoke and they did not have any funny accent.
I know the word schl?frig, but we also used m?de.

We live very close to the german border and here is a german minority.

My grandfather was called ?the russian?. Not because of his accent, but 
because of the way he drove his horse carriage. That was different from the 
danish and german farmers here in the area.

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 10:59:13 -0500
From: Ort Kolewe <okolewe at me.com>
To: MIKE MCHENRY <maurmike1 at verizon.net>
Cc: "ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org"
<ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] GERMANS FROM RUSSIAN POLAND ACCENTS
Message-ID: <EC95B346-643F-4B86-B798-E454F169751E at me.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

As long as they did not praise the Kaiser or the Prussian sense of order or 
ate too much sauerkraut and wurst the Germans blended in ...but you had a 
lot of Italians who didn't drink beer so it was hard to fit in.

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 10, 2013, at 10:08 AM, MIKE MCHENRY <maurmike1 at verizon.net> wrote:

> I would like thank everyone for the enlightening discussion. My 
> grandparents
> were Germans from Russian Poland (1901-2). They lived for quite some time 
> in
> Hoboken, NJ. Hoboken is one square mile in area. Prior to WWI it had an
> estimated 24000 ethnic Germans. I often wonder based on list comments how
> they might be accepted. Thanks again!
>
>
>
>
>
> MIKE
> maurmike1 at verizon.net
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ger-Poland-Volhynia [mailto:ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at sggee.org] 
> On
> Behalf Of MIKE MCHENRY
> Sent: Monday, September 09, 2013 8:18 PM
> To: ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org
> Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] GERMANS FROM RUSSIAN POLAND ACCENTS
>
> Can anyone tell me if the accents of German people from Russian Poland 
> were
> very different from Germans of Germany? I recognize that German accents 
> vary
> across Germany. I guess what I'm asking is it instantly recognizable that
> the person is from Russian Poland
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> MIKE
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ger-Poland-Volhynia site list
> Ger-Poland-Volhynia at sggee.org
> https://www.sggee.org/mailman/listinfo/ger-poland-volhynia
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ger-Poland-Volhynia site list
> Ger-Poland-Volhynia at sggee.org
> https://www.sggee.org/mailman/listinfo/ger-poland-volhynia

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 10:53:19 -0700
From: "Lloyd Friedrick" <lloydfriedrick at telus.net>
To: "Kerstin Petersen" <kerstin.petersen at mail.dk>
Cc: ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org
Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] "Volhynian German"
Message-ID: <CD9268CE47E741F5945913F2559F3E52 at LloydPC>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="utf-8";
reply-type=original

Hello Kerstin

Can you tell us more about the different horse arrangements with your
fathers carriage. This interests me, my father and Uncles immigrated from
Volhynia, Russia.
and farmed in Saskatchewan, Canada. One of my Uncles insisted on three horse
teams, while the others used two horses.

Lloyd Friedrick, Victoria, British Columbia

-----Original Message----- 
From: Kerstin Petersen
Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2013 8:36 AM
To: ger-poland-volhynia at sggee.org
Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] "Volhynian German"

My grandparents ended in the northern part of Germany in Nordschlswig 1914.
After 1920, after a referendum, Nordschleswig went to Denmark.
We all spoke german with our grandparents and people had no difficulty
understanding the german they spoke and they did not have any funny accent.
I know the word schl?frig, but we also used m?de.

We live very close to the german border and here is a german minority.

My grandfather was called ?the russian?. Not because of his accent, but
because of the way he drove his horse carriage. That was different from the
danish and german farmers here in the area.
_______________________________________________
Ger-Poland-Volhynia site list
Ger-Poland-Volhynia at sggee.org
https://www.sggee.org/mailman/listinfo/ger-poland-volhynia

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 14:58:18 -0400
From: Otto <otto at schienke.com>
To: SGGEElistserv list <ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia]  GERMANS FROM RUSSIAN POLAND ACCENTS
Message-ID: <69493AC6-583E-4A95-A2E0-AD5450F9679C at schienke.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Afternoon Listers,

We humans have the ability to use sounds to communicate, a bag of mental 
patterns.
Sounds peculiar to local groups.
The Volhynian settlement was too short a time period and of many mixed 
subgroups to have established an ethnocultural base.  Language, our familial 
communication sounds, are tumbling through generations to our mother and 
father's kitchen. Each marriage and geographical relocation, words are added 
and words are dropped as if a dance with many partners. How many of our 
computer-related terms existed fifty years ago?  People no longer live in a 
noble's village of five hundred years ago, developing a dialect peculiar to 
them.

Some basic facts.
-Language is a living organism, parts thereof constantly morphing, dying, 
while new sounds are being added in a speech community. Language change 
happens at all levels. It is natural and inevitable.

-Most, yes, most people are multilingual. Most languages exist in close 
contact with other languages.

-There is no clear distinction between a language and a dialect.

-No 'official' language existed in Germany until 1871 when Luther's 'hilly 
Saxon' was selected (many already owned his bible translation) for economic 
(nation building) reasons; High/Hoch-German/Deutsch, the dialects of the 
hill dwellers over the dialects of the lowland and the mountain peoples. 
Several thousand 'local languages/dialects existed among the speakers of 
'1800's German' at the time. (low german was the economic language for 
almost a thousand years)  For those that think there is a standardized 
spoken German in use other than a written textbook umbrella. . . travel the 
country.

-Germanic languages: German in its various forms of local dialects plus 
English, Frisian, Low Saxon, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Swiss, 
Afrikaans and so on and on. . .   How many Sanskrit roots can we identify? 
After all, it is Indo-Germanic. . . Whoops, excuse me, it is now the 
Indo-European family! Dagnabbit!  It morphed again.
So. . .
We'll leave the defining and hair-pulling research to the philologists and 
linguists.  (what if a king spoke with a lisp?. . )
DNA research will serve as an adjunct to our dusty past.
We can ask ourselves, "Why do many of Germany's rivers have Celtic names?"

What of Mike's original question?
Our given names and surnames contain a historical past. Research them.
Trace the past of persons in you pedigree.  These are all connections to 
their language sounds used.
DNA test (23andme) to establish your personal 'mixed bag' of genes.

Russian Poland has no unique spoken German, it was a mix of dialects spoken 
by a mixed bag of immigrants. . . Rozumiesz?
Neither does Germany, it only has an "official" written German.
Most spoken German is a mixed bag of dialects.
Let's not get into the Germanic languages of English, American, Canadian and 
Australian. . . Oi vay!

Standardizing a language in a sense is destruction of history for economic 
or political reasons only.
Those personal words. . . Bulldozes 'em over!

If you use words that seem peculiar to other speakers, be proud of them. 
Repeat them frequently!
You are bearers of historical symbols of the past. Cherish them. .  . while 
they last.

. . .   Otto
         " The Zen moment..." wk. of January 01, 2013-
                _____________________________________
                  "Answers out there . . .  Seeking us."

------------------------------

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End of Ger-Poland-Volhynia Digest, Vol 124, Issue 7
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