| Lwów dialect | |
|---|---|
| Gwara lwowska | |
| Region | Kresy |
| Dialects | Bałak |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| IETF | pl-u-sd-ua46 |
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TheLwów dialect (Polish:gwara lwowska, Yiddish:לעמבערג דיאלעקט) is asubdialect (gwara) of thePolish language characteristic of the inhabitants of the then Polish city ofLviv (Polish:Lwów, Yiddish:לעמבעריק), now inUkraine. Based on thesubstratum of theLesser Polish dialect,[1] it was heavily influenced by borrowings (mostly lexical) from other languages spoken inGalicia, notablyUkrainian (Ruthenian),German andYiddish.[2]
One of the peculiarities of the Lwów dialect was its popularity. Unlike many other Polish dialects, it was seen by its speakers as neither inferior to standard Polish nor denoting people of humble origin. That caused it to be used both by common people and university professors alike.[3][4] It was also one of the first Polish dialects to be properly classified and to have a dictionary published.[5] Despite that, the best known form of the Lwów dialect was thebałak, asociolect of the lower class (batiars), street hooligans and youngsters.[6]
The Lwów dialect emerged in the 19th century and gained much popularity and recognition in the 1920s and 1930s, in part due to countrywide popularity of numerous artists and comedians using it.[7] Among them wereMarian Hemar,Szczepcio, andTońcioSzczepcio i Tońcio also known as Szczepko i Tońko, the latter two being authors of the highly acclaimedWesoła lwowska fala weekly broadcast in thePolish Radio.Emanuel Szlechter, the screenwriter of many popular films, such asThe Vagabonds and songwriter of Polish pre-war hits, wrote some of his songs in the Lwów dialect ("Ni ma jak Lwów" "Nothing is like Lwow", a song fromThe Vagabonds[8]).
The dialect is one of the two main sources of galicisms (galicyzmy – words originating from theKingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria) in standard Polish. Some words of the dialect have entered into the vocabulary of modern Polish language, and many others were adopted by other regional and social varieties of Polish, notably thegrypsera. Some elements of the dialect remain in use in contemporary Ukrainian spoken in modern Lviv.[9][10]
In 1939, the city of Lwów was annexed by theSoviet Union and in the turbulent decade that followed the pre-war population structure of the city changed dramatically. With most of the Polish populationexpelled, the number of speakers of the dialect sharply declined, but the modern language of the members ofPolish minority in Ukraine living in Lviv still resembles the prewar Lwów dialect.[11] It is also cultivated by émigré circles abroad.[12] It remained not only a part of popular culture in post-war Poland thanks to numerous artists and writers, notablyWitold Szolginia,Adam Hollanek, andJerzy Janicki, but also part of the language of many notable personalities who were born in Lwów before the war. Speakers of the Lwów dialect can be found in such cities asWrocław andBytom, where the majority of the expelled Polish inhabitants of Lwów settled.[13]
Among the most characteristic phonological features of the Lwów dialect were the changes in vowel quality influenced byword stress. For example:[11][14]
In songs, the vowels of some words were pronounced inconsistently. Differing musical rhythms could change which syllable of a word was stressed, which is why, for example, one could hear bothpolicaj andpulicaj ("police") in the same song.[14]
Younger speakers of the Lwów dialect oftenpronounced the consonant⟨ł⟩ as asemivowel (u̯) syllable-finally and word-finally. Unlike today's Standard Polish, however, the older articulation as a denti-alveolar (ɫ) was preserved before vowels (in words likepudełeczko ("box", diminutive) andłuk "bow").[11]
The consonant⟨m⟩ before⟨i⟩, and⟨mi⟩ before other vowels, was pronounced as[mɲ]⟨mń⟩.[15] For example, Standard Polish⟨miód⟩[mʲut] was pronounced as[mɲut].[15]
In the Lwów dialect, as in other dialects, there were various phonological changes including assimilation, dissimilation and consonant cluster simplification.[11]
| Examples of assimilation and voicing changes[16][11] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| change | example | change | example |
| xt → kt | autochthony →autoktony | łń → mń | kołnierza → komnirza, żołnierz → żomnirz |
| mkn → nkn | zamknięty →zanknienty | mv → mb | tramwaj →trambaj |
| ks → xs | weksla →wechsla | ż → dz | żelazny →dzylazny |
| nz → ndz | benzyna →bendzyna | devoicing | nożyczki →noszyczki |
| word-initial voicing | tektura →dektura | word-medial voicing | wielki →wielgi |
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