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:
“Humor does not include sarcasm, invalid irony, sardonicism, innuendo, or any other form of cruelty. When these things are raised to a high point they can become wit, but unlike the French and the English, we have not been much good at wit since the days of Benjamin Franklin.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“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)