Nidos kortelė Nr. 30084 Marburgo Pilypo universiteto vokiečių kalbos atlaso archyve: kalbos analizė
Language Analysis of Nida Questionnaire № 30084 in the Archive of the Linguistic Atlas of Germany at the Phillips University, Marburg

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses one of the few written monuments of the endangered Kursenieku language, Card No. 30084 from Nida/Nidden, which, along with other analogues from the 19th century German regions, was included in the file of the German language atlas (Deutsche Sprachatlas, or DSA) launched by Georg Wenker. The manuscript of this card, the circumstances of its creation and the orthography system were already presented by the author and co-author Christiane Schiller in the article published in 2015. The only Kursenieku language card in Wenker’s project was filled by Nida’s teacher Otto Pohlman. It was based on the information provided by local fisherman Mickel Peleikis. The article analyses the language of this manuscript on various levels (orthography, phonetics, morphology, lexis, and syntax). The author focuses on the authenticity of the language ‒ how the written text reflects the real situation of the Kursenieku language at the time, and which facts are to be considered as weaknesses of the documentation method (translation). The observed language peculiarities are compared with the study by Bezzenberger published a few years later and another study by Plakis published fifty years later. In Germany, the DSA digitization project (DiWA) has recently been implemented, and it is therefore thought that a comprehensive linguistic analysis of each card will also serve its purpose.

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