The German Question, Part Ten

Rather than any major ruthless annihilation of foreign people (I'm not saying there weren't any killings), the German eastward expansion resulted in many of the various peoples, Slavic and Baltic, simply being absorbed into the German population and losing their “ethnic” identity, including their languages. There were some exceptions to this gradual “Germanization” process, however, and in some locations a few groups retained both their ethnic identity and their language, although there certainly were some influences passed back and forth between these groups and the nearby, or even mixed in, Germans. Much of the area of Prussia had already been occupied by Slavic people for a period, and some of these Slavs, the Kashubians and Masurians, for example, retained a certain amount of their own identity, but with a German influence over time. The original Prussians eventually were completely absorbed into Germandom, and, if I remember correctly, the last known speakers of their language, called Old Prussian (related to Lithuanian and Latvian), died in the 1700s. Further south, below Berlin, another group of Slavs, the Wends, lived in an area called “Lusatia” (“Lausitz,”* in German and "Luzica/Luzyca" in Sorbian Slavic). Over the centuries this Slavic community has been whittled down, but it still exists, even to this day,** as does their language, called Sorbian.

* "Supposedly" the word comes from a Slavic word for “wetlands/swamp.”

** Much of “Lusatia” is in Germany, but a part straddles the border with modern Poland, and even with the Czech Republic. While I can’t confirm this, I’ve read where the people who call themselves Wends is down to like 60-70,000 in Germany. For those interested in further info, the area in question is around the German cities of Forst and Cottbus.

WORD HISTORY:
Shoulder-The overall origins of this word remain unclear and it "might" be a West Germanic invention derived from the Old Germanic ancestor of "shield," which was "skelduz," with the reference being to the "shoulder blade," but this is not a certainty. What is known is that is goes back to West Germanic "skuldro/skuldr" (English is a West Germanic language). This gave Old English "sculdor," and later "shulder," before the modern version. Forms in other Germanic languages are: German has "Schulter," Low German has "Schuller," West Frisian has "skouder" and Dutch has "schouder." One source notes that a form of the word was "borrowed into" North Germanic, as Swedish has "skuldra" and Norwegian and Danish have "skulder." The verb form, meaning to take responsibility, or take on a burden ("shoulder the load or responsibility") came from the noun, perhaps initially in the 1300s, but most definitely was in use by the 1500s.