Upper Sorbian

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Upper Sorbian (Hornjoserbsce) is a minority language spoken in Germany in the historical province of Upper Lusatia, today part of Saxony. A West Slavic language, it strongly resembles Czech.

A bilingual sign; the lower part is in Upper Sorbian language

History

The history of the Upper Sorbian language in Germany began with the Slavic migrations during the 6th Century AD. Since the 12th Century, there was a massive influx of rural Germanic settlers from Flanders, Saxony, Thuringia and Franconia. The preceding devastation of the country by martial actions, began the slow decrease of the Upper Sorbian language. Besides, in the Saxony region, the Sorbian language was legally subordinated to the German language. Language prohibitions were later added: In 1293, the Sorbian language was forbidden in Berne castle before the courts, in 1327 that language was forbidden in Zwickau and Leipzig, and from 1424 in Meissen. Further there was the condition in many guilds of the cities of the area to accept only members of German-language origin. The central areas of the Milzener and Lusitzer, in the area of the today's Lausitz, was relatively little affected by the new German language settlements and from legal restrictions. The language had therefore flourished there. By the 17th Century, the number of Upper Sorbian speakers there grew to over 300,000. The oldest evidence of the Upper Sorbian written language is the „Burger Eydt Wendisch” monument, and was discovered in the city of Bautzen since the year 1532.

The Upper Sorbian language in Germany

There are estimated to be 60,000 speakers of Upper Sorbian, of which approximately 40,000 live in Saxony and approx. 20,000 live in Brandenburg of Germany. This puts Upper Sorbian as the third largest minority language of Germany, after Turkish and Danish, but before Frisian. Since the nationality affiliations in Germany are not officially recorded and Upper Sorbian nationality is self-identified, these figures are only estimations . The number of the active speakers may be substantially smaller. Some scholars predict that Upper Sorbian is in danger of extinction. Computer forecasts predict that in 20-30 years time, there will only be 7,000 speakers of Lower Sorbian and 13,000 Upper Sorbian left in the world (They also believe that Lower Sorbian may have gone extinct by that time). In the opinion of language experts, by the end of the 21st century Upper Sorbian will not have become extinct yet . Nevertheless at present, no further future reliable forecasts can be made.

See also

• Sorbian alphabet
• Lower Sorbian language

External links

Upper Sorbian edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Ethnologue on Upper Sorbian

Dictionaries

• (German)(Upper Sorbian)Hornjoserbski dictionary
• (German)(Upper Sorbian)SorbWord
• (German)(Upper Sorbian)Sorbian 'language practice' page Leipzig University's
• (German)(Upper Sorbian)Sorbian information page Leipzig University's
• (German)(Upper Sorbian)Wortschatz.de

Deutsch-Serbski

• (German)(Upper Sorbian)at sibz.whyi.org
• (German)(Upper Sorbian)at Böhmak.de

Serbski-Deutsch

• (German)(Upper Sorbian)at Böhmak.de
• (German)(Upper Sorbian)at sibz.whyi.org