Mazuration
[2] The feature is linked to the process of depalatalization (reduction of the number of palatalized consonants) similar to the phenomena of jabłonkowanie and kaszubienie [pl] in other dialects.
[4] In this article terms such as "non-mazurating", "without mazuration" are taken to refer to dialects which have a three way distinction among sibilants, as does Standard Polish.
It is present in Masovia including Masuria (former Ducal Prussia), all of Lesser Poland except the southeast areas bordering on Ukraine, eastern and northern Upper Silesia including Opole and Katowice, as well as the central Polish lands around Sieradz, Łęczyca and Łowicz.
[4][6][7] Non-mazurating territories in the west include Greater Poland, Kuyavia and the Lands of Chełmno and Dobrzyń, southwestern Upper Silesia, Pomeralia and former Royal Prussia (Warmia, areas around Ostróda and Lubawa).
These include the eastern reaches of Lesser Poland around the rivers San and Wisłok (around Rzeszów and Przemyśl; historically part of Red Ruthenia), areas east of Wieprz (Lublin Land), Podlachia and some areas in the Suwałki Region (Sejny, Puńsk).
[4][7] Standard (or literary) Polish has three symmetrical series of sibilant fricatives and affricates articulated by directing the airstream through the teeth.
The dentialveolar and postalveolar series are considered hard (unpalatalized) and can be followed by [ɨ], and never by [i] (except very recent borrowings).
These two sounds are nowadays usually analyzed as separate phonemes, but until recently they were considered allophones[8] and they are still largely in complementary distribution, contrasting mostly in positions after labials (unless palatalized labials are considered separate phonemes) and recent loanwords (see also: Polish phonology – a relevant section).
[9][10] To fully understand not only the phenomenon itself, but to be able to discuss its origins and chronology it is necessary to look at the phonological history of these sounds in Polish.
According to this theory mazuration was a feature of speech of Polonized Prussians in Mazuria (see Masurian dialects), and spread from there.
[27] Milewski rejects the latter two outright, as he deems them impossible to either prove or disprove based on historical records.
[31][32] It has also been proposed that this and similar mergers (jabłonkowanie, kaszubienie; see below) were caused by the overloading of the Old Polish phonological system by sibilants.
This hypothesis was first put forth by Rudnicki,[33] and later endorsed and continued by Vaillant[34] and Tadeusz Brajerski [pl],[35] the latter citing parallel developments in the history of Lower Sorbian.
[36] Together with Koneczna[29] and Kuryłowicz[37] he opines, however, that this cannot be the main cause of this phenomenon, as it did not affect the entirety of the Polish speaking area, in spite of the conditions being the same everywhere.
A unique theory proposed by Kuryłowicz[37] also states that the origin of mazuration is connected to the aforementioned depalatalization, but in a different way.
Those who wanted to rid their speech of this feature did not know which words should be pronounced using the postalveolar sounds – which were foreign to them – unless they heard it from a speaker with distinction, but in other cases they made frequent mistakes.
[16] Examples of attested words with szadzenie in Polish dialects noted in the Atlas of Polish Dialects (Atlas Gwar Polskich): proszo instead of proso ("millet, Panicum"), bydlęczy instead of bydlęcy ("bovine"), szmalec instead of smalec ("lard").
