High Prussian (German: Hochpreußisch) is a dialect of East Central German that developed in the region of East Prussia. The dialect developed from High German, brought in by Silesian German settlers in the 13th—15th centuries, and was influenced by the Baltic Old Prussian language. High Prussian was mostly spoken in the regions of Warmia and the Prussian Oberland.
High Prussian can be considered moribund due to the expulsion of Germans from East Prussia after World War II. The dialect has few remaining speakers today. It can be divided into the subdialects of Breslausch and Oberländisch.
Famous quotes containing the words high and/or dialect:
“The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it by and by.”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“The eyes of men converse as much as their tongues, with the advantage that the ocular dialect needs no dictionary, but is understood all the world over.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)