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That is not much about the language!

What's it like? What kind of words does it have? How does it differ from other known languages? What's the writing and alphabet system like? What are the origins? Etc, etc... --grin 07:12, 2004 Apr 5 (UTC)

Anon inserted this in the article while removing See also, so I moved it here for someone to verify: Nikola 21:03, 8 October 2005 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The Upper Sorbian Language is one of the reminders of the languages which had been subsisting on the territory of actual Germany. It is spoken by more than 20.000 people. However, no special census has been made to show how many Sorbs there are actually today! This language was standardized by using the dialects from the alentours of the city of Bautzen (Budysin). It has some grammatical relikts and therefore it is an intersting language!

Let me try to explain it a little bit ... (sorry for my English)

after ca. 600 several Slavic tribes moved to the west, roughly to the river 'Elbe' (don't know what it is called in English). In the middle ages (from about 1100-1200 onwards) the kings of the 'Heiliges Römisches Reich' (foundet in 800 by 'Karl dem Großen') started to colonise this Slavic areas east of the Elbe, to expand the territory of the Kingdom, all under the official explanation to bring Christianity to the still non-christian Slavs.

Along with Christianisation, the slavic tribes were defeated, absorbed oder 'blown out' - and with them their languages. The last Slavic languages to survive in a German-speaking-area were the Polabian Language (Area of Hannover, so-called 'Wendland') until mid-18th century, the Slovincian Language in today's West Poland (until the beginning of the 20th century), and both the upper- and lower sorbian Language (until today) in East Germany. Kashubian (Kaschubisch), still spoken west of Danzig in Poland, is also a west-slavic language that fits into that context, but I'm not sure whether the Kasubian people was surrounded by German-speaking areas at any time to a considerable extend.

Lower Sorbian is in fast decline, there are approximately not more than 6-8.000 Speakers left, of which almost all are aged over 70. In fact, there is one single Gymnasium ('high school'), that teaches the language, and also a handful of younger people having lower Sorbian as their mother tongue. (all are bilingual). I've been in the "heartland" of Lower Sorbian for many times, but almost never really heard a spoken word of the language - you just come across it on road signs etc.

Upper Sorbian is a completely different language (unintelligble to lower Sorbian), with some 10.000 speakers - the language is in a quite better state than its "sister"; I would say, it's endangered, but not moribund. There still are children learning it, and it's still in use as a community language (but with its area eroding).

Today both are recognised as a minority language in Germany, but there's almost nothing done to preserve them. It's not used in education etc., and the official language to use in authorities (? 'Behörden, Ämter'), school etc. is always German.

There are numbers of ca. 60.000 Sorbs (of that 20.000 Low Sorbs) in Germany, but it's just a kind of guess, as the nationality is not asked for in census data etc.

Informations especially about Upper Sorbian can be found e.g. in the German Wikipedia, under "Sorbische Sprache". As I actually don't speak one word of any Slavic language, I can't tell anything more about the language itself (strucutres, grammatic, vocabulary etc) without copying from anywhere ...

hth!

Greetings from Germany: e-bost at gmx dot de 80.131.75.153 09:58, 24 October 2005 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There is a bug report at Bugzilla requesting the creation of Wikipedias for Lower Sorbian (dsb:) and Upper Sorbian (hsb:). If anyone else is interested in seeing these Wikipedias created, please log on to Bugzilla and vote for the bug. User:Angr 10:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I am surprised that there is no German-language article about this language, since it's a language of Germany! Can somebody please start one, even if a stub?--Sonjaaa 16:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]

de:Obersorbisch --Obersachse 11:37, 5 April 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Not a bad little article, but the english is a bit wierd and I don't know what it all means. Sorry I can't stop to get into it but for example: "the nationality affiliations in Germany are not officially siezed" looks like it is directly translated from some language using a dictionary and I honestly don't know what this means (I am english).IceDragon64 19:53, 29 April 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It means that German law forbids official registration of individuals based on ethnicity (a law introduced by the Allied powers after defeating Germany in World War II). Hence, no official statistics can tell you the size of Germany's Sorbian minority or any other minority. 80.163.68.22 (talk) 09:46, 3 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes the whole thing is a fragment of the bigger German W/P article put through a translator. It's a bit of a hodge podge of the bigger article. Some of the language figures really include upper and lower Sorbian. I'll try to rewrite/translate it and find some online references as well. Ozdaren 09:59, 6 July 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Is there a source tracing the relationship of Sorbian as it is documented in the high Middle Ages to the Slavic groups in the region pre-Charlemagne? It seems a bit of a stretch for me to assert this connection without evidence. Jperrylsu (talk) 00:27, 29 January 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If you're interested, use Stone (2002:601–603) as a source to write these sections. I'm too lazy to do that, and I want to move on to other languages. Peter238 (talk) 18:51, 27 April 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

and either lead to 404s or site not available 2A02:908:1252:BC40:CC52:780D:931D:A5D6 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:49, 25 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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