Yatvyazh language

K. Buga and Y. Otrembsky built the ethnonym "yatvyag" to the hydronym * Jātā, * Jātvā ^[1] .

In the 13th century, the Yatvyaz language was distributed mainly in the area east of Nadrovia, Galindia and Northern Mazovia, south of the modern city of Marijampole , west of the city of Volkovysk and northeast of the middle course of the Bug .

The exact boundaries of the Yatvyaz ethnic area are still the subject of discussion, but the core of the Yatvyaz territory was located between the Masurian Lakes , the middle reaches of the Neman and the Punsk - Vilnius line ^{[2] [3]} .

• Sudavian ( North Yatvizh ) - Sudavia (Sudovia, Sudovia, Sudowia, Sudowen, Sūduva, Suderland). Northeast of Poland , southwest of Lithuania , extreme southeast of the Kaliningrad region , including Dainava (Zemanemye, Dainavà) in Lithuania. At the end of the XIII century, its carriers were almost completely destroyed by the Teutonic Order (with the exception of the Dainava), few escaped to Lithuania and Sambia. After 1411, these lands were inhabited by Lithuanians, Germans, Belarusians, and a few yatvages. Finally crowded out by Lithuanian , German and Polish by the end of the XVI - beginning of the XVII century. Submitted by ^{[ where? ] a} few phrases of the XVI century.
• Yatvyazhsky proper (Southyatvyazhsky) - Yatva (Old Russian Yatvyagiya) (Jaćwież, Jotva): Northeastern Poland - Podlasie , Northwestern Belarus . It was supplanted by Polish and West Russian around the XVI-XVII centuries. Apparently represented by the dictionary Pogańske gwary z Narewu (over 200 words).

The first mention of the Yatvig refers to the II century BC. e. It was made by Ptolemy (Geography, III, 9), who, among other Baltic tribes, named the Sudavians ( dr. Greek Σουδινοί ).

In the Ipatiev Chronicle , the following names of Yatvyaz princes and elders are found:

• 1227 - Shyutr (Shutr), Mondunich, Stegut, Zebrovich Nebr;
• 1128 - Skomond and Borut;
• 1251 - Uncle
• 1255 - Steikint (Stekint, Steknt), Komat;
• 1256 - Ankad, Undil;
• 1274 - Mintel, Shyurp, Mudeyko, Pestila.

Most of the Yotvag were killed or driven from their lands by the Teutonic Order in 1283 . The territory of the Jatvyag in chronicles became known as the desert ( German: Wildnis , lat. Solitudo , desertum ).

After the conclusion of the Torun Treaty ( 1411 ), the Yatvyaz lands became part of Lithuania and began to be settled by Lithuanians, Masurians, Belarussians and Yatvingians returning to their homeland.

Jan Dlugosch in the Chronicle of the Glorious Kingdom of Poland (1455-1480) wrote:

“The Lithuanians, Zemait and Yotvyag , although they differ in names and are divided into many families, however, they were one tribe originating from the Romans and Italians ... Their language is Latin, which differs only in minor differences, because it, due to communication with neighboring tribes, is already inclined to the properties of Russian words. "

The librarian Theodor (1548) writes about the division of the Lithuanian language into 4 branches: 1) Yatvyaz (few residents live near the Drogichin castle); 2) Lithuanian-Zhemaysky; 3) Prussian; 4) Lotvo-Lotigolskaya (living in Livonia along the Dvina River and near Riga). They all understand each other, except for the chicken.

“ Linguagiu Lithuanicu est quadripartítum. Primum linguagium est Iaczuíngorum, uthorum qui circa castrum Drohicin inhabitarunt, & pauci supersunt. Alterum est Líthuanorum & Samagíttharum; Tertíum Prutenorum; Quartum in Lothua seu Loththola, hoc est, Lívonia circa fluuíum Dzuína & Rigam ciuitatem. Etho rum quanqua eadem fit lingua, unus tamen non plenè alterum íntelligit nisi cursíuus & qui uagatus est per illas terras. " - Bibiliander T. De ratione communi omnium linguarum et litterarum commentarius. - [Zurich], 1548.

Six short phrases in Yatvyazh were included in the middle of the XVI century by Jerome Malecki ( Polish. Hieronim Malecki , lat. Hieronymus Maletius ) in the book “Description of the Sudans” ^[4] .

The Yatvyaz language died out in the XVII-XVIII centuries. Although in 1860, according to the “Parish Lists” in the south of the Grodno province, 30,929 people. (74% in Kobrin district ) were artificially classified as Yatvag, these people spoke already in Slavic ^{[5] [6]} . The Yatvyazh self-identification of residents in this area is not recorded by ethnographers ^[7] .

The famous Belarusian traveler and writer of the XIX century Pavel Shpilevsky in his essays entitled "Traveling in Polesie and the Belarusian Territory" about the Yotvyag in Belovezhskaya Pushcha wrote the following:

“The inhabitants of the Pushcha for the most part are state-owned peasants and comprise some separate tribe, either Lithuanian or Russian; language ih - a mixture of ancient Lithuanian and Russian, Little Russian and Polesie; the clothes are Polesskaya ” ^[8] .

The Yatvyag language did not have its own written language and came to us only in the form of toponyms, personal names, six phrases recorded in the XVI century and the Polish-Yatvyaz dictionary discovered in 1978 ^[4] .

In 1978, a young collector V. Yu. Zinov bought a collection of Latin prayers on a farm near the village of Novy Dvor (Brest Region) , at the end of which there were several handwritten sheets entitled Pogańske gwary z Narewu ( Polish - pagan dialects over Narew ) . The text was a bilingual dictionary, one of the languages ​​was Polish, and the second was unknown to Zinov. For decryption, the collector rewrote the text in a notebook. Later, when Zinov served in the army, his parents threw away the book, so the original dictionary was lost. In 1983, Zinov wrote a letter to Vilnius University , believing that the second language of the dictionary could be Yatvyaz. Initially, in Vilnius it was suspected of a falsifier, but later the dictionary was recognized as genuine ^[9] .

According to Z. Zinkevičius , the first dictionary researcher, it was composed by a Catholic priest, a local resident who himself did not speak the Yatvian language at all or did not speak well ^[10] .

Altogether, Zinov wrote out 215 words from the dictionary, perhaps another 7-10 words were not rewritten ^[10] . Three words are polonisms , at least 18 are Germanisms ^[11] .

The Yatvyaz language is characterized by the coincidence of hissing and whistling ( š > s , ž > z ), the transition ť > k ' , ď > g' and the preservation of the diphthong ei (as opposed to its transition to ie in Lithuanian and Latvian) ^[12] .

Apparently, e went into Yatvyazh in ä , all other vowels of the Prabaltic language remained unchanged ^[13] .

• Zinkevičius Z. Polish-Yatvyaz dictionary? // Balto-Slavic studies-1983. - M .: Science, 1984.

• Joseph Pashka's Virdainas , a dictionary of the Sudovian (Jatvingian) language.
• Link to reconstructed Sudovian language