How Old Prussian were the East Prussian Germans?

Hello,

as there is quite a bit of family history involved I sent you a direct message.

In short: our name is supposed to be from South Germany.


Kind regards,


Alfhari
Like I replied you in private. There is some interesting thing going on in geni.com, where part of possibly Baltic Reihs is managed by someone named von Zmuda, who comes from these guys:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmude_(Adelsgeschlecht)

Apparently they got related at some point, I could not find in geni.com how and why.

Von Zmuda/Schmude apparently were noble family, and to me sounds like they were from Samogitia (Lithuania) originally (Samogitia= "Zhmud" in ancient Russian texts).
 
Samogitia = Żmudź in polish language, so von Zmuda = von Żmuda. Only Poles have word dużo (much/many, a lot) in use. Other Slavs use word "mnogo", we Poles only as "mnożyć" = multiply. We have a few other old-prussian words in polish language.

edit:
in latvian - daudz
in lithuanian - daug
it sound similar to "dużo"
 
It is the same duzho - daug/daudz.
1) au - u
Draugs/draugas - drug
Sauss/sausas - suhoi
Ausas/auss - uho
2) g - zh (Slavic); g - dz (Latvian)
Gyvoti - zhitj/zhivatj; gyvoti - dzīvot

It is possible early form was smth like daugiai (because for g-dz/g-zh change g sound should have been followed by i/e; in draugas/draugs/drug such change did not happen since it was followed by a originally).
 
It is the same duzho - daug/daudz.
1) au - u
Draugs/draugas - drug
Sauss/sausas - suhoi
Ausas/auss - uho
2) g - zh (Slavic); g - dz (Latvian)
Gyvoti - zhitj/zhivatj; gyvoti - dzīvot

It is possible early form was smth like daugiai (because for g-dz/g-zh change g sound should have been followed by i/e; in draugas/draugs/drug such change did not happen since it was followed by a originally).

We Poles have word "druh" - companion in scout organisations. But we use word "kolega" not "druh" in everyday speaking.
On the other side Balts have plenty of fe(i)nno-ugrian languages, for example and from YT sources:
"
Происхождение летувисского языка:

Корни летувисского языка происходят от корней финоугорских языков народов Урала.
И. Ласков: -"Близкое соседство в прошлом с пермскими наречиями имеет и летувисский язык... Ещё одно хранилище пермских слов-язык латышский. Причём в нём встречаются такие слова которых нет в летувисском языке: например, riets "заход" (солнца) -коми рыт "вечер". В тоже время в латышском языке пермизмов заметно меньше, чем в летувисском языке. Это ясно указывает, что летувисские пермизмы пришли не через латышский язык с востока, а непосредственно из пермских диалектов.



Примеры слов летувисского языка слева, справа слова коми-зырянского и коми-пермяцкого языков обозначаемые буквой «к.», удмуртские буквой «у.».


Е в летувисском языке звук близкий к «я», ė-«e», y длинное «и», č –«ч», š –«ш», ž – «ж».


ramus (тихий, спокойный) к. рам (тихий)


Mazgoti (мыть пол, посуду) к. мыськыны (мыть)


Vyras (мужчина, муж) к. верöс (муж)


Erdvas (просторный) к. эрд (поляна в лесу)


Kurti (топить в печи) к. гор (печь)


Akėti(бороновать) к. агас (борона)


Šaunus (бравый, удалый, к. шань (славный, добрый)


славный)


Kutė (хлев) к. гид (хлев)


Lupa (губа) к. льöб (губа)


Meilė (любовь) к. мыл (желание)


Kopti(подниматься, лезть) к. кыпöдны (поднимать)


Ežia (граница) к. эжа (невспаханная земля)


Tošis (береста) к. туис (сосуд из бересты)


Turis (объём) к. турас (объём)


ačiu, древн. форма attiu (спасибо) к. аттьö (спасибо)


tekas(баран) к. така (баран)


gaselis (прим. лампа) к. гас (лампа)


ubas (поле опред. разм.) к. ыб (поле)


alsys (утомительный) у. альсыраны (утомлять)


andai (недавно) к. öнтай (недавно)


ardyti (распарывать) к. орйодлыны (рвать)


arti (около) к. орд (около)


baras (участок) к. бор (участок)


bigas (куцый) к. пегыш (маленький, низкорослый)


birus (сыпучий) к. пыриг (крошки)


brungzti (гудеть) к. брунгыны (гудеть)


burgėti (бить струёй) к. боргыны (течь)"
Sorry it was wrote in russian (so not slavic, russian is only 30% slavic) language. All nationalities are genetic soup now. I don't want to be misunderstood, it should not be taken as offensive. Maybe this one word is "летувиски язык" - but I am also not an expert of russian language.
 
It shows cognates of Baltic vs Permic, some of those not even cognates. It is obviously done by either amateur or agenda linguist. Some linguist proffessional with free time should take a closer look on who borrowed from whom. My intuition tells me it was Perm language who borrowed those words and also it tells me it might have borrowed those either from Lithuanians, Dniepr Balts, Slavs (?) or even some old Indo-Iranian tribes.
Rāms, Vīrs - those are in Sanscrit
Most others sound Baltic. Give me 5 random words from there, I will check them randomly to test this hypothesis, because I dont want to waste time on whole list.
Kipodni - seems to rather be cognate to podnjatj, not to kāpti :)

The only word which makes me wonder is aču (attiu). Need to check in etimological sources. Hm:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ačiū
"Etymology unclear. Related to Belarusian dialectal а́цю (ácju, “thank you”), а́цiць (ácicʹ, “to thank”), Polish dialectal aću, aciu (“thank you”) , although these may be Balticisms."

This might have come from Uralic languages, someone needs to check with Uralic cognates. Latvians use Paldies (help God!), Russians Spasibo (help God!).
 
Thanks for explanation. When I copied this, there was no answer over this youtube post. I wanted to find something but then I changed my goals for I1 and R1b people. It is a pity that I can not find money for genetic tests, so one time I try to be Celt, second - R1a and even N1c. But with my white pigmentation, gray eyes I should stay in North (west or east) Europe.
 
So Veneti were/are R1a M-558, Germans were R1a M-458 (look at Herodotus map - down, right corner) and Balts were N1c + M558 people? When Celts (and Normans with I1) won over west "German" tribe they named themselves "Germans" and mixed language?

I have a friend with Gajda name. it could be not only from bagpipe music instrument but also from old prussian Gaidys which means cock or wheat.

The venedi where too minor in numbers to be R1a-M558........but as stated by polish genetics, they where R1a-Z92
 
Tomenable said:
I will give more info on East Prussia's population's origins

As promised - based on several good history books and other sources I made a preliminary estimate of the origin of East Prussian population. My estimate is for population of originally ethnic Prussian territory, which later (after 1283) was located within the borders of the Teutonic Order's state in Prussia. So my estimate doesn't include descendants of Prussians and Yotvingians who stayed outside of those borders and it also doesn't include areas within those borders which were not originally part of ethnic Old Prussian territory. If we go by 1816 administrative borders then this area includes almost entire East Prussia - apart from the Memel county, and also seven north-eastern counties of West Prussia (Elbing, Marienburg, Stuhm, Rosenberg, Löbau, Marienwerder and Graudenz).

Basically we are talking about violet area located within blue political borders (map below):

Prussians.png


I stopped counting at 1816 because around that point in time (1815-1816) population of this area reached about 1 million people.

So I would need another graph for years after 1816, because natural growth was high and population was rocketing.

Also, in the 19th century (especially the 2nd half of it) emigration from this area considerably exceeded immigration to it (for the first time in history) - so probably proportions of various ancestries did not change much after 1816, at least not due to immigration.

Here is the result of my calculations - as of 1816 (the end of the period for which I made estimates): 32-33% Old Prussian ancestry, 28-29% German, 19-20% Polish, 16-17% Lithuanian, 1-2% Dutch & Scottish, 1-2% Huguenot & French, 1-2% other:

Estimated percentage of each ancestry within the total population pool throughout time:

East_Prussians.png


And size of the population during 600 years from the early 1200s to the early 1800s:

East_Prussians_B.png


This estimate is rather quite optimistic for Prussians, though - I actually expected to arrive at a lower figure of around 25% percent, but not lower than 20%. So consider 32% or 1/3 as high estimate (but probable one according to this model), 25% as medium estimate and 20% as low estimate. Some of Old Prussians were assimilated by Polish and Lithuanian immigrants to East Prussia throughout history. Later, however, most of Prussian Lithuanians and most of Prussian Poles became Germanized, so most of this ancestry is today in Germany anyway. But some of their descendants still live in Poland and Lithuania.

====================================

Now when it comes to languages:

During first 25 years of the 19th century only about 49-50% up to 60-64% of this area's population spoke German as first language. The rest spoke Polish (32/31% - 24/23%) and Lithuanian (19% - 13/12%) as first languages. Often German as secondary. Of course not everyone who spoke Polish or Lithuanian had purely Polish or Lithuanian ancestry. They had also assimilated groups of Prussians.
 
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Great job, very interesting. I actually counted on original Prussian population being around 80%. I didn't expect so many emigrants coming from Germany, Poland and Lithuania.

What happened in 1711? First graph shows decline only of Lithuanian population, percentage wise. Some disaster mostly felt by Lithuanian population?

What happened in 1660? Another big crises, but this time affecting all populations equally?
 
Great job, very interesting. I actually counted on original Prussian population being around 80%. I didn't expect so many emigrants coming from Germany, Poland and Lithuania.

What happened in 1711? First graph shows decline only of Lithuanian population, percentage wise. Some disaster mostly felt by Lithuanian population?

What happened in 1660? Another big crises, but this time affecting all populations equally?

this for 1711

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_War_plague_outbreak


this for 1660

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Northern_War

[/URL]
 
So, if my estimate is correct, then what approximate proportions haplogroups would a population of mixed origin like this have?
 
What happened in 1711? First graph shows decline only of Lithuanian population, percentage wise. Some disaster mostly felt by Lithuanian population?

Yes, it was a plague which affected eastern part of East Prussia more than other parts, and Lithuanians were unfortunate to be the majority of population there. So percent of Lithuanians decreased after that plague, and natural growth + immigration of new Lithuanians did not restore the pre-prague percent. Polish-speaking Masurians in southern part of East Prussia also suffered slightly more than average.

What happened in 1660? Another big crises, but this time affecting all populations equally?

It was the war of 1655 - 1660 and a plague plus a famine that followed.

Yes, it affected all populations more equally than the plague of 1708-1711. But slightly more affected were Polish-speakers in southern regions and Lithuanian in eastern, due to Tatar raids against those regions. Many people were killed and even more captured by Tatars.

Between 1405 and 1466 there were 5 wars against Poland-Lithuania and 3 plagues of epidemic diseases.

In 1226 - 1283 there was the original Prussian crusade during which they were conquered.

That crusade caused about 1/3 - 35% population loss (from 170,000 to 110,000) - including also refugees who escaped abroad.
 
How much of the genetics of the East Prussian Germans who left in the mid 20th century actually came from the native Old Prussians of the region? If it was little, these people were not native to the area, and were in many cases returning home. If it was a lot, then the expulsion displaced people whose roots extended into the region since prehistory. Which is it?

I think this is an answerable question. We have Y-DNA samples of both Old Prussian descendants and of East Prussian Germans, as well as a good enough understanding of the Y-DNA distribution in Northern Germany to use as a baseline. I found the following percentages for the three populations of the four main haplogroups relative to one another:

Population: R1a : R1b : N : I1
OldP: 46% : 13% : 39% : 1%
EastP: 32% : 24% : 28% : 16%
NGer: 28% : 46% : 2% : 24%
[East Prussian German percentages take into account only the apparent East Prussian Germans from the Ostpreussen project]

The distribution of all four haplogroups of the East Prussian Germans predictably falls between the Old Prussians and Northern Germans. We can then average the haplogroup distances to come to an estimate of the percentage contributed by the Old Prussians. A distance can be calculated using the formula: |(NGer% - EastP%)|/(|(OldP% - EastP%)|+|NGer% - EastP%|)

We get:
Per R1a: 22%
Per R1b: 67%
Per N: 70%
Per I1: 35%
Average: 49%

So there we have it. On the Y line, the East Prussian Germans were about half Old Prussian. Since I expect the German settlers there to have contributed disproportionately to the Y line, in terms of overall contribution, I'd be comfortable in saying that the Old Prussian contribution was at least about half.

Is there any chance that you have any ancestrydna percentages for the East Prussian Germans? If this hypothesis holds up, then the East Prussian Germans should have an average of 1/4 Finland/NW Russian & over 1/4% East European.
 
In case that is not speficied yet, Old Prussian, were mostly N- Y Z16981, ca. 2600 years old mutation. Most likely what is representative to them is also L 550 (2900 y BP) and L 1025 (2600 y BP) mutations. Old prussian are of finno ugric provenance (N1c1). Their culture (at least the language) is extinct but their genes not. Closest cousins are modern balts: lithuanian and latvians. So everytime that carries N Z16981 mutation most likely is a direct descendent of one of the following tribes: Pomesanians, Warmians, Pogesanians, Natangians, Sambians, Nadruvians, Bartians, Skalvians, Sudovians - Yotvingian, Galindians.

 
In case that is not speficied yet, Old Prussian, were mostly N- Y Z16981, ca. 2600 years old mutation. Most likely what is representative to them is also L 550 (2900 y BP) and L 1025 (2600 y BP) mutations. Old prussian are of finno ugric provenance (N1c1). Their culture (at least the language) is extinct but their genes not. Closest cousins are modern balts: lithuanian and latvians. So everytime that carries N Z16981 mutation most likely is a direct descendent of one of the following tribes
That Z16981 thing is based on what?

On a side note:
According to ftdna N project 7 of 8 (9) known N Latvians are under z16981.
 
That Z16981 thing is based on what?

On a side note:
According to ftdna N project 7 of 8 (9) known N Latvians are under z16981.

Well, FTDNA says so. 17 out of 17 BIG Y tested have Z16981 and it is considered to be the ground mutation for western balts.

 
Well, FTDNA says so. 17 out of 17 BIG Y tested have Z16981 and it is considered to be the ground mutation for western balts.

That would mean we are West Balts in Latvia. But I dont think majority of us come from Prussian tribes.
 
That would mean we are West Balts in Latvia. But I dont think majority of us come from Prussian tribes.

It would seem reasonable to me to suggest that N-Z16981 was an important haplogroup among Old Prussians, but was not exclusive to them.
 
It would seem reasonable to me to suggest that N-Z16981 was an important haplogroup among Old Prussians, but was not exclusive to them.
It is rather interesting haplogroup with its own story that I hope is told some day.
Right now to me it looks like there lived one group of Balts somewhere East Prussia/Modern Lithuania - Z16981 folk. Then arrived folk from East (the Lithuanian subclades of Baltic M2782+) and Z16981 like in billiard got pushed in all directions. Part into Latvia, other part into Prussia, some got as far South as Czech/Slovak, some stayed in place.

edit: of course another alternative is Z16981 expansion from West Baltic area into territories of modern Lithuania and more so Latvia.
 

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