Polabian language
Encyclopedia
The Polabian language is an extinct
West Slavic
language that was spoken by the Polabian Slavs
in present-day North-Eastern Germany
around the Elbe
(Laba in Slavic) river, from which derives its name ("po Labe" - along the Elbe). It was spoken approximately until the mid-18th century, when it was superseded by German
, in the areas of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, central Brandenburg
(Mittelmark
) and eastern Saxony-Anhalt
(Wittenberg
), as well as in eastern parts of Lower Saxony
(Wendland
) and Schleswig-Holstein
(Ostholstein
and Lauenburg). In the south it bordered on the Sorbian languages
area in Lusatia
.
Lechitic
Polabian was in some respects markedly different from other Slavic languages
, most notably in having a strong German
influence. It was close to Pomeranian
and Kashubian
, and attested only in a handful of manuscripts, dictionaries and various writings from the 17th and 18th centuries. As can be seen in the comparisons of the Lord's Prayer below, Polabian contained many German loanwords, such as Wader (Father) and Rîk (Kingdom).
, but only one of them appears to have been a native speaker of Polabian (himself leaving only 13 pages of linguistically relevant material from a 310-page manuscript). The last native speaker of Polabian, a woman, died in 1756, and the last person who spoke limited Polabian died in 1825.
The most important monument of the language is the so-called Vocabularium Venedicum (1679—1719) by Christian Hennig.
The language left some traces to this day in toponymy; for example, Wustrow "Place on the island", Lüchow
(Polabian: Ljauchüw), Sagard
, Gartow
etc. It is also a likely the origin of the name Berlin, from the Polabian stem berl-/birl- (“swamp”).
in Polabian and related Lechitic languages
is:
style="font-size:80%;"
Polabian
Nôße Wader,
ta toy giß wa Nebisgáy,
Sjungta woarda tügí Geima,
tia Rîk komma,
tia Willia ſchinyôt,
kok wa Nebisgáy,
tôk kak no Sime,
Nôßi wißedanneisna Stgeiba doy nâm dâns,
un wittedoy nâm nôße Ggrêch,
kak moy wittedoyime nôßem Grêsmarim,
Ni bringoy nôs ka Warſikónye,
tay löſoáy nôs wit wißókak
Chaudak.
Amen.
Extinct language
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...
West Slavic
West Slavic languages
The West Slavic languages are a subdivision of the Slavic language group that includes Czech, Polish, Slovak, Kashubian and Sorbian.Classification:* Indo-European** Balto-Slavic*** Slavic**** West Slavic***** Czech-Slovak languages****** Czech...
language that was spoken by the Polabian Slavs
Polabian Slavs
Polabian Slavs - is a collective term applied to a number of Lechites tribes who lived along the Elbe river, between the Baltic Sea to the north, the Saale and the Limes Saxoniae to the west, the Ore Mountains and the Western Sudetes to the south, and Poland to the east. They have also been known...
in present-day North-Eastern Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
around the Elbe
Elbe
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
(Laba in Slavic) river, from which derives its name ("po Labe" - along the Elbe). It was spoken approximately until the mid-18th century, when it was superseded by German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, in the areas of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, central Brandenburg
Brandenburg
Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...
(Mittelmark
Mittelmark
Mittelmark is a historical region in present-day eastern Germany that was the core territory of the Margraviate of Brandenburg between the Oder and Elbe rivers....
) and eastern Saxony-Anhalt
Saxony-Anhalt
Saxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...
(Wittenberg
Wittenberg (district)
Wittenberg is a district in the east of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Neighboring districts are Anhalt-Bitterfeld, the district-free city of Dessau-Roßlau, the districts of Potsdam-Mittelmark, Teltow-Fläming and Elbe-Elster in Brandenburg, and the district of Nordsachsen in the Free State of Saxony.-...
), as well as in eastern parts of Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...
(Wendland
Lüchow-Dannenberg
Lüchow-Dannenberg is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany which is usually referred to as Hannoversches Wendland or Wendland. It is bounded by the districts of Uelzen and Lüneburg and the states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt Lüchow-Dannenberg is a district in...
) and Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...
(Ostholstein
Ostholstein
Ostholstein is a district in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Stormarn, Segeberg and Plön, the Baltic Sea and the city of Lübeck.-History:...
and Lauenburg). In the south it bordered on the Sorbian languages
Sorbian languages
The Sorbian languages are classified under the Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. They are the native languages of the Sorbs, a Slavic minority in the Lusatia region of eastern Germany. Historically the language has also been known as Wendish or Lusatian. Their collective ISO 639-2 code...
area in Lusatia
Lusatia
Lusatia is a historical region in Central Europe. It stretches from the Bóbr and Kwisa rivers in the east to the Elbe valley in the west, today located within the German states of Saxony and Brandenburg as well as in the Lower Silesian and Lubusz voivodeships of western Poland...
.
Lechitic
Lechitic languages
The Lechitic languages include three languages spoken in Central Europe, mainly in Poland, and historically also in the eastern and northern parts of modern Germany. This language group is a branch of the larger West Slavic language family...
Polabian was in some respects markedly different from other Slavic languages
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
, most notably in having a strong German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
influence. It was close to Pomeranian
Pomeranian language
The Pomeranian language is a group of dialects from the Lechitic cluster of the West Slavic languages. In medieval contexts, it refers to the dialects spoken by the Slavic Pomeranians...
and Kashubian
Kashubian language
Kashubian or Cassubian is one of the Lechitic languages, a subgroup of the Slavic languages....
, and attested only in a handful of manuscripts, dictionaries and various writings from the 17th and 18th centuries. As can be seen in the comparisons of the Lord's Prayer below, Polabian contained many German loanwords, such as Wader (Father) and Rîk (Kingdom).
History
About 2800 Polabian words are known (but of prosaic writings, only a few prayers, one wedding song and a few folktales). Immediately before the language went extinct several people started to collect phrases, compile wordlists and were engaged with folklore of the Polabian SlavsPolabian Slavs
Polabian Slavs - is a collective term applied to a number of Lechites tribes who lived along the Elbe river, between the Baltic Sea to the north, the Saale and the Limes Saxoniae to the west, the Ore Mountains and the Western Sudetes to the south, and Poland to the east. They have also been known...
, but only one of them appears to have been a native speaker of Polabian (himself leaving only 13 pages of linguistically relevant material from a 310-page manuscript). The last native speaker of Polabian, a woman, died in 1756, and the last person who spoke limited Polabian died in 1825.
The most important monument of the language is the so-called Vocabularium Venedicum (1679—1719) by Christian Hennig.
The language left some traces to this day in toponymy; for example, Wustrow "Place on the island", Lüchow
Lüchow
Lüchow is a city in northeastern Lower Saxony, in Germany. It is the seat of the Samtgemeinde Lüchow , and is the capital of the district Lüchow-Dannenberg. Situated approximately 13 km north of Salzwedel, Lüchow is located on the German Framework Road...
(Polabian: Ljauchüw), Sagard
Sagard
Sagard is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Rügen district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.-External links:*...
, Gartow
Gartow
Gartow is a municipality in the district Lüchow-Dannenberg, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the easternmost tip of Lower Saxony, on the river Elbe, approx. 30 km northeast of Salzwedel, and 20 km west of Wittenberge...
etc. It is also a likely the origin of the name Berlin, from the Polabian stem berl-/birl- (“swamp”).
Phonology
For Polabian the following segments are reconstructable:
|
|
|
|
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Labiodental Labiodental consonant In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Dental | Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Post-palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | t' | d' | k | g | ||||
| ṕ | b́ | |||||||||||
| Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
c | ʒ | ć | ʒ́ | ||||||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
f | v | s | z | š | ś | ź | x́ | x | |||
| - | v́ | |||||||||||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ń | |||||||||
| ḿ | ||||||||||||
| Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l | |||||||||||
| ĺ | ||||||||||||
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
r | |||||||||||
| ŕ | ||||||||||||
| Semi-vowel | j | |||||||||||
Example of Polabian
The Lord's PrayerLord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer is a central prayer in Christianity. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it appears in two forms: in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the discourse on ostentation in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Gospel of Luke, which records Jesus being approached by "one of his...
in Polabian and related Lechitic languages
Lechitic languages
The Lechitic languages include three languages spoken in Central Europe, mainly in Poland, and historically also in the eastern and northern parts of modern Germany. This language group is a branch of the larger West Slavic language family...
is:
style="font-size:80%;"
Polabian
Nôße Wader,
ta toy giß wa Nebisgáy,
Sjungta woarda tügí Geima,
tia Rîk komma,
tia Willia ſchinyôt,
kok wa Nebisgáy,
tôk kak no Sime,
Nôßi wißedanneisna Stgeiba doy nâm dâns,
un wittedoy nâm nôße Ggrêch,
kak moy wittedoyime nôßem Grêsmarim,
Ni bringoy nôs ka Warſikónye,
tay löſoáy nôs wit wißókak
Chaudak.
Amen.
- Upper Sorbian:
- Wótče naš,
- kiž sy w njebjesach.
- Swjeć so Twoje mjeno.
- Přińdź Twoje kralestwo.
- Stań so Twoja wola,
- kaž na njebju,
- tak na zemi.
- Wšědny chlěb naš daj nam dźens.
- Wodaj nam naše winy,
- jako my tež wodawamy swojim winikam.
- A njewjedź nas do spytowanja,
- ale wumóž nas wot złeho.
- Amen.
- KashubianKashubian languageKashubian or Cassubian is one of the Lechitic languages, a subgroup of the Slavic languages....
:
- Òjcze nasz,
- jaczi jes w niebie,
- niech sã swiãcy Twòje miono,
- niech przińdze Twòje królestwò,
- niech mdze Twòja wòlô
- jakno w niebie
- tak téż na zemi.
- Chleba najégò pòwszednégò dôj
- nóm dzysô
- i òdpùscë nóm naje winë,
- jak i më òdpùszcziwóme naszim winowajcóm.
- A nie dopùscë na nas pòkùszeniô,
- ale nas zbawi òde złégò.
- Amen.
- PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
:
- Ojcze nasz,
- któryś jest w niebie,
- święć się imię Twoje,
- przyjdź królestwo Twoje,
- bądź wola Twoja
- jako w niebie
- tak i na ziemi.
- Chleba naszego powszedniego daj nam dzisiaj;
- i odpuść nam nasze winy,
- jako i my odpuszczamy naszym winowajcom.
- I nie wódź nas na pokuszenie,
- ale nas zbaw ode złego.
- Amen.
- 'English
- Our Father who art
- in heaven,
- hallowed be thy name.
- Thy kingdom come,
- thy will be done
- on earth
- as it is in heaven.
- Give us this day our daily bread, and
- forgive us our trespasses
- as we forgive those who trespass against us,
- and lead us not into temptation
- but deliver us from evil.
- Amen.
See also
- WendsWendsWends is a historic name for West Slavs living near Germanic settlement areas. It does not refer to a homogeneous people, but to various peoples, tribes or groups depending on where and when it is used...
- Polabians (tribe)Polabians (tribe)The Polabians were a constituent Lechitic tribe of the Obotrites who lived between the Trave and the Elbe. The main settlement of the Polabians was Racisburg , named after their Prince Ratibor...