Polabian language
Spoken in
- Indo-European Slavic Westslawisch Polabische language
-
Sla
Pox
As Polabian refers to the languages of West Slavic tribes who inhabited areas of what is now northeastern Germany and northwestern Poland since the 7th century.
Together with the Kashubian (also Slowinski ) and the Polish, it is once again presented to the Lechitic branch of the West Slavic.
Distribution area
Until the 10th century the area of distribution ranged in the west to about the same, and bordered to the south ( approximately at the level of Wittenberg) to areas with also Slavic language, but which one assigns to the Sorbian.
Known tribes ( tribes ) were the Obodrites in West Mecklenburg and Holstein, the Lutizen in Ostmecklenburg, the northern and southern Vorpommern Brandenburg, the Hevelli in Western Brandenburg, as well as the Ranen ( Rujanen ) of Pomerania and in the northern Vorpommern. The language of today Kashubian called Pomeranians east of the Oder, Kashubian, is closely related to the polabischen languages , but is usually regarded as a separate group.
The word Polabian goes on the name of a tribe originally only east of Hamburg - the Polabs - back and describes the position of Polabs ' on the Elbe ' ( po ' to ' Laba ' same '). Hence the designation is elbslawisch common.
Displacement
With the German eastern settlement in the 10th and 12th centuries the polabischen languages began to be suppressed. The many into the country fetched settlers from northern Germany and the Netherlands as well as the sole use of German dialects as a city and official language (partial bans were adopted language ) soon displaced the Polabische to a few enclaves. In the cities in the Berlin- Brandenburg, the Slavs called " reversal" could only exercise the trade of fisherman and. Demarcated only in residential areas, the (fishing ) re-establish Kietzen where thus received Polabian to the 17th century On the Rügen Polabische died out in the 15th century at the latest. In Lower Saxony, east of Lüneburg (based on the range of hills Drawehn ) was spoken until the mid-18th century Drawänopolabisch, making this region was named Wendland for their Slavic inhabitants. The last speaker died, according to church records in 1756 at the age of 88 years.
Today, remember, just like in the Sorbian area, countless place and field names in the formerly Slavic languages spoken there (eg, Rostock, Potsdam, Usedom).
Written records
The Polabische has never developed a written language. Only shortly before the extinction, researchers became interested in the language, for example, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who asked an informant to a glossary and polabische version of the Our Father. The most detailed records are from the acting in Wustrow evangelical Christian pastor of Henning Jessen, another important source are the records of the polabischen farmer Johann Parum Schultze from Sühten.
Special linguistic features
The long separate development, the Polabische had from the other Slavic languages: Firstly German influence is clearly felt. So were about in Drawänopolabischen ö and ü to the sound system, as well as diphthongs. ( Just like the transition from Middle to High German and Middle to Modern English long u and i to au or ai. Were ) Secondly, have linguistic changes that have affected all other Slavic languages , not enforced due to the peripheral location in Polabischen. The typical for the ancient Slavic "law of increasing Silbensonorität ", according to which every syllable must end with a full vowel, has not fully enforced in Polabischen so that the Liquidametathese, ie the replacement of urslawischem -or- and ol - by - ro - was and lo - or -ra and la, not fully implemented here (see the place names Stargard, Sagard, and Gartow Garditz, which includes gard ' fortress ' the word treated under Gradec equivalent ).
The vocabulary contained a large number of German and particularly the Low German loanwords.
Below is a table with some examples of drawänopolabischen dialect (1st half of the 17th century ) and the Polabischen (8th to 14th century):