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    What is the reason why the Old Prussian language became extinct in the 17th century?

    Question #89117. Asked by author. (Nov 27 07 12:09 PM)


    zbeckabee

    		Because of the assimilation of the Old Prussians by Germans, Poles, and Lithuanians, the Old Prussian language became extinct before the end of the 17th century, but Bibles and poetry were written in the language beforehand.


    http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/Old_Prussians

    Nov 27 07, 12:16 PM
    AyatollahK

    		The Ostsiedlung (movement of German-speakers to Eastern Europe) certainly played a role -- none of this would have happened without it -- but the proximate cause was the merger of Brandenburg and Prussia in 1617, with Brandenburg as the dominant party, and its subsequent independence from Poland in the mid-1600s. Brandenburg was Germanic, and so German replaced Old Prussian.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg-Prussia

    Nov 27 07, 12:26 PM
    author

    		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 particularly Latvian.
    My question is still: Why did Curonian, Sudovian and Old Prussian get extinct, while Latvian and Lithuanian survived?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Prussian

    Nov 27 07, 8:35 PM
    AyatollahK

    		Same reason: the political winds shifted. Curonian was spoken right next to Old Prussian and became overrun with Latvian (and, to a lesser extent, Lithuanian) after the conquest of their lands by the Livonian Order.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curonians
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_language

    Sudovian is the Lithuanian name for the Jatvingian/Yotvingian language (Sud=south), spoken in the southern regions that became part of the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the language merged in part into Lithuanian, while the other part of Sudovia was overrun by Slavs.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudovia
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth

    Lithuanian survived because Lithuania was a regional power, at least until 1795 -- and because Russia permitted a polyglot state after it took over.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchy_of_Lithuania

    Latvian survived (barely) because the upper-class Baltic Germans wanted to retain their "special status" within Russia, which was closely associated with speaking German. Frankly, before 1918, both Latvian and Estonian were on life support as separate languages, because most of the "educated classes" learned German to blend in to the elite.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans


    Nov 27 07, 11:13 PM

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