Samogitian Dialect - History

History

The Samogitian language, heavily influenced by Curonian, originated from the East Baltic proto-Samogitian dialect which was close to Aukstaitian dialects.

During the 5th century Proto-Samogitians migrated from the lowlands of central Lithuania, near Kaunas, into the Dubysa and Jūra basins, as well as into the Samogitian highlands. They displaced or assimilated the local, Curonian-speaking Baltic populations. Further north, they displaced or assimilated the indigenous, Semigallian speaking peoples. Assimilation of Curonians and Semigallians gave birth for the 3 Samogitian subdialects: "Dounininkų", "Donininkų" and "Dūnininkų".

In the 13th century Samogitia became a part of the Baltic confederation called Lietuva (Lithuania), which was formed by Mindaugas. Lithuania conquered the coast of the Baltic sea from the Livonian order. The coast was populated by Curonians, but became a part of Samogitia. From the 13th century onwards, Samogitians settled within the former Curonian lands, and intermarried with that population over the next three hundred years. The Curonians had a huge cultural influence upon Samogitian and Lithuanian culture, but they were ultimately assimilated by the 16th century.

The earliest writings in Samogitian language appeared in 19th century.

Samogitian and its subdialects preserved many features of the Curonian language, for example:

• widening of proto Baltic short i (i → ė sometimes e)
• widening of proto Baltic short u (u → o)
• preservation of West Baltic diphthong ei (standard Lithuanian ie → Samogitian ėi)
• no t' d' palatalization to č dž (Latvian š, ž)
• specific lexis, like cīrulis (lark), pīle (duck), leitis (Lithuanian) etc.
• retraction of stress
• shortening of ending -as to -s like in Latvian and Old Prussian (Proto-Indo-European o-stem)

as well as various other features not listed here.