Kashubians

Kashubians
Kaszëbi
Flag and coat of arms of Kashubia
Population of Kashubians in Kashubia, 2005
Total population
in Poland between 500,000 (2007)[1] and 567,000 (2005)[2][3] of which 179,685 (2021)[4] claim as ethnic-national identity
Regions with significant populations
 Poland
 Germany
 United States (diaspora)
 Canada (diaspora)
Languages
Kashubian, Polish
Religion
Roman Catholicism, Protestantism
Related ethnic groups
Other West Slavs
Especially other Lechites

The Kashubians (Kashubian: Kaszëbi; Polish: Kaszubi; German: Kaschuben),[5] also known as Cassubians or Kashubs, are a Lechitic (West Slavic) ethnic group native to the historical region of Pomerania, including its eastern part called Pomerelia, in north-central Poland.[6] Their settlement area is referred to as Kashubia. They speak the Kashubian language, which is classified as a separate language[7] closely related to Polish.

The Kashubs are closely related to the Poles and sometimes classified as their subgroup. Moreover, the vast majority of Kashubians declare themselves as Poles and many of them have a Polish-Kashubian identity. The Kashubs are grouped with the Slovincians as Pomeranians. Similarly, the Slovincian (now extinct) and Kashubian languages are grouped as Pomeranian languages, with Slovincian (also known as Łeba Kashubian) either a distinct language closely related to Kashubian,[8] or a Kashubian dialect.[9][10]

  1. ^ "The Institute for European Studies, Ethnological institute of UW" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 March 2003. Retrieved 16 August 2012.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kaschuben heute was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference polen-analysen was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Tablice z ostatecznymi danymi w zakresie przynależności narodowo-etnicznej, języka używanego w domu oraz przynależności do wyznania religijnego". Statistics Poland. 28 September 2023. Retrieved 8 October 2024.
  5. ^ "Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Kashubes" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 693.
  6. ^ Agata Grabowska, Pawel Ladykowski, The Change of the Kashubian Identity before Entering the EU, 2002 [1] Archived 20 March 2003 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^ "Język kaszubski - Mniejszości Narodowe i Etniczne". Archived from the original on 11 October 2020. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
  8. ^ Dicky Gilbers, John A. Nerbonne, J. Schaeken, Languages in Contact, Rodopi, 2000, p. 329, ISBN 90-420-1322-2
  9. ^ Christina Yurkiw Bethin, Slavic Prosody: Language Change and Phonological Theory, pp. 160ff, Cambridge University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-521-59148-1.
  10. ^ Edward Stankiewicz, The Accentual Patterns of the Slavic Languages, Stanford University Press, 1993, p. 291, ISBN 0-8047-2029-0