Wow, I found a language so obscure that no Tintin adventure seems to have been translated into it, I mean not a single one. Blistering barnacles, I say!
The lingo in question is called Wymysorys (or Wilmesaurisch) and is only spoken by 20 people in the town of Wilamowice in Poland. Or perhaps a few more, since attempts to save the language have been launched by some enthusiasts.
I admit that I never heard of Wymysorys until I watched the above YouTube clip purely by chance. It´s classified as a Germanic language, and to an outsider like yours truly, sounds like a mixture of German and Dutch, with a few Polish loans. Except, of course, that I don´t understand a word of it anyway! I´m really refering to the accents here. It´s as if the speakers switch between three different ones while speaking.
The Vilamovians, as the speakers are called, may be descended from German, Flemish, Scottish, Dutch and Frisian settlers who moved to this particular region of Silesia already during the Middle Ages. The settlers were supposed to repopulate areas left devastated during the Mongol invasions. The peculiar nature of the language clearly reflects its origins. Apparently, linguists refer to the area in which Wymysorys is spoken as Die Bielitz-Bialaer Sprachinsel. German linguists, that is. The narrator of the video above prefers the designation Bielsko-Biala Linguistic Enclave...
You learned something new today. And so did I.
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