fbpx
Wikipedia

Lower Sorbian language

February 16, 2024

"Lower Sorbian" redirects here. For the people, see Lower Sorbs.
Not to be confused with Serbian language.

Lower Sorbian (endonym: dolnoserbšćina) is a West Slavic minority language spoken in eastern Germany in the historical province of Lower Lusatia, today part of Brandenburg.

Lower Sorbian
dolnoserbšćina, dolnoserbski
Pronunciation[ˈdɔlnɔˌsɛrskʲi]
Native toGermany
RegionBrandenburg
EthnicitySorbs
Native speakers
6,900 (2007)[1]
Latin (Sorbian alphabet)
Language codes
ISO 639-2dsb
ISO 639-3dsb
Glottologlowe1385
ELPLower Sorbian
Linguasphere53-AAA-ba < 53-AAA-b < 53-AAA-b...-d (varieties: 53-AAA-baa to 53-AAA-bah)
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Standard Lower Sorbian is one of the two literary Sorbian languages, the other being the more widely spoken standard[clarify] Upper Sorbian. The Lower Sorbian literary standard was developed in the 18th century, based on a southern form of the Cottbus dialect.[2] The standard variety of Lower Sorbian has received structural influence from Upper Sorbian.[2]

Lower Sorbian is spoken in and around the city of Cottbus in Brandenburg. Signs in this region are typically bilingual, and Cottbus has a Lower Sorbian Gymnasium where one language of instruction is Lower Sorbian. It is a heavily endangered language.[3] Most native speakers today belong to the older generations.

Phonology edit

 
Bilingual road sign in Cottbus, Germany

The phonology of Lower Sorbian has been greatly influenced by contact with German, especially in Cottbus and larger towns. For example, German-influenced pronunciation tends to have a voiced uvular fricative [ʁ] instead of the alveolar trill [r]. In villages and rural areas, German influence is less marked, and the pronunciation is more "typically Slavic".

Consonants edit

  • /m, mʲ, p, pʲ, b, bʲ/ are bilabial, whereas /f, v/ are labiodental,[4] /w, wʲ/ are labiovelar,[6] although the latter may be a labial–palatal approximant.
  • Consonants in parentheses are allophones of another consonant before another consonant or vowel, for example /m/ may palatalize to /mʲ/ before front vowels or /j/, and /n/ may assimilate to /ŋ/ before velar consonants.
  • The Proto-Slavic contrasts between /m, p, b, v/ and their palatalized counterparts has been lost phonetically in Lower Sorbian, with the marginal phonemes occurring only before certain vowels. The contrasts between /t, d/ and their palatalized counterparts has evolved into a contrast between /t, d/ and /ɕ, ʑ/. The contrast between /l/ and its palatalized counterpart has evolved into a contrast between /w, l/ while the contrasts between /n, r/ and their palatalized counterparts has remained intact and the contrasts between /s, z/ and their palatalized counterparts no longer exists.[7]
  • /n, nʲ, l, r, rʲ/ are alveolar [n, nʲ, l, r, rʲ], whereas /t, d, t͡s, s, z/ are dental [t̪, d̪, t̪͡s̪, s̪, z̪].[4]
  • /t͡ʃ, ʃ, ʒ/ have been variously transcribed with ⟨t͡ʃ, ʃ, ʒ⟩[8][9] and ⟨t͡ʂ, ʂ, ʐ⟩.[10] Their actual phonetic realization is flat postalveolar [t͡ʃ˖, ʃ˖, ʒ˖][11] in all of the Lower Sorbian-speaking area. This is unlike in standard Upper Sorbian, where these are palato-alveolar [t͡ʃ, ʃ, ʒ].[12][13]

Final devoicing and assimilation edit

Lower Sorbian has both final devoicing and regressive voicing assimilation:[14]

  • dub /dub/ "oak" is pronounced [dup]
  • susedka /ˈsusedka/ "(female) neighbor" is pronounced [ˈsusetka]
  • licba /ˈlit͡sba/ "number" is pronounced [ˈlʲid͡zba]

The hard postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ is assimilated to [ɕ] before /t͡ɕ/:[15]

  • šćit /ʃt͡ɕit/ "protection" is pronounced [ɕt͡ɕit]

Vowels edit

The vowel inventory of Lower Sorbian is exactly the same as that of Upper Sorbian.[16] It is also very similar to the vowel inventory of Slovene.

  • /i/ is retracted to [ɨ] after hard consonants.
  • /e, o/ are diphthongized to [i̯ɛ, u̯ɔ] in slow speech.[16]
  • The /e–ɛ/ and /o–ɔ/ distinctions are weakened or lost in unstressed syllables.[17]
  • /a/ is phonetically central [ä].[16]

Stress edit

Stress in Lower Sorbian normally falls on the first syllable of the word:[18]

  • Łužyca [ˈwuʒɨt͡sa] "Lusatia"
  • pśijaśel [ˈpɕijaɕɛl] "friend"
  • Chóśebuz [ˈxɨɕɛbus] "Cottbus"

In loanwords, stress may fall on any of the last three syllables:[18]

  • internat [intɛrˈnat] "boarding school"
  • kontrola [kɔnˈtrɔla] "control"
  • september [sɛpˈtɛmbɛr] "September"
  • policija [pɔˈlʲit͡sija] "police"
  • organizacija [ɔrɡanʲiˈzat͡sija] "organization"

Most one-syllable prepositions attract the stress to themselves when they precede a noun or pronoun of one or two syllables:[18]

  • na dwórje [ˈna dwɨrʲɛ] "on the courtyard"
  • pśi mnjo [ˈpɕi mnʲɔ] "near me"
  • do města [ˈdɔ mʲɛsta] "into the city" (the [iɪ̯] of město [ˈmʲiɪ̯stɔ] becomes [ɛ] when unstressed)

However, nouns of three or more syllables retain their stress:

  • pśed wucabnikom [pɕɛd ˈut͡sabnʲikɔm] "in front of the teacher"
  • na drogowanju [na ˈdrɔɡowanʲu] "on a journey"

Orthography edit

The Sorbian alphabet is based on the Latin script but uses diacritics such as the acute accent and caron.

Sample edit

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Lower Sorbian:

Wšykne luźe su lichotne roźone a jadnake po dostojnosći a pšawach. Woni maju rozym a wědobnosć a maju ze sobu w duchu bratšojstwa wobchadaś. (All people are born free and equal in their dignity and rights. They are given reason and conscience and they shall create their relationships to one another according to the spirit of brotherhood.)[19]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Lower Sorbian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ a b Björn Rothstein, Rolf Thieroff (2010). Mood in the Languages of Europe. John Benjamins Publishing. pp. 376–377. ISBN 9789027205872.
  3. ^ Moseley, Christopher, ed. (2010). Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger (3rd ed.). Paris: UNESCO Publishing. ISBN 978-92-3-104096-2.
  4. ^ a b c Stone (2002), p. 605.
  5. ^ Zygis (2003), pp. 180–181.
  6. ^ Niedersorbische Aussprache, Serbski Institut
  7. ^ Iskarous, Khalil, and Kavitskaya, Darya, Sound Change and the Structure of Synchronic Variability: Phonetic and Phonological Factors in Slavic Palatalization (PDF), Linguistic Society of America{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ Hannusch (1998).
  9. ^ Stone (2002).
  10. ^ Zygis (2003).
  11. ^ This transcription follows Laver (1994:251–252). Other scholars may transcribe these sounds differently.
  12. ^ Zygis (2003), pp. 180–181, 190–191.
  13. ^ Šewc-Schuster (1984), pp. 40–41.
  14. ^ Hannusch (1998), p. 12.
  15. ^ Hannusch (1998), p. 13.
  16. ^ a b c d Stone (2002), p. 600.
  17. ^ Stone (2002), pp. 606–607.
  18. ^ a b c Hannusch (1998), p. 14.
  19. ^ Omniglot

Bibliography edit

  • Hannusch, Erwin (1998), Niedersorbisch praktisch und verständlich, Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag, ISBN 3-7420-1667-9
  • Laver, John (1994), Principles of Phonetics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-45655-X
  • Šewc-Schuster, Hinc (1984), Gramatika hornjoserbskeje rěče, Budyšin: Ludowe nakładnistwo Domowina
  • Stone, Gerald (2002), "Sorbian (Upper and Lower)", in Comrie, Bernard; Corbett, Greville G. (eds.), The Slavonic Languages, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 593–685, ISBN 9780415280785
  • Zygis, Marzena (2003), (PDF), ZAS Papers in Linguistics, 3: 175–213, archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-10-11, retrieved 2015-04-21

External links edit

 
Lower Sorbian edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
For a list of words relating to Lower Sorbian language, see the Lower Sorbian language category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
 
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Lower Sorbian
  • Online course for Lower and Upper Sorbian (English, Sorbian, German)
  • Dolnoserbski radio program (RealAudio) (in German and Lower Sorbian)
  • Lower Sorbian Vocabulary List (from the World Loanword Database)
  • Lower Sorbian DoReCo corpus compiled by Hauke Bartels and Marcin Szczepański. Audio recordings of narrative texts, with transcriptions time-aligned at the phone level and translations.

Dictionaries edit

Czech-Lower Sorbian and Lower Sorbian-Czech edit

  • (in Czech and Lower Sorbian)

German–Lower Sorbian edit

  • Deutsch-Niedersorbisches Wörterbuch at dolnoserbski.de (in German and Lower Sorbian)
  • Korpus GENIE – GEsprochenes NIEdersorbisch/Wendisch (in German and Lower Sorbian)

Lower Sorbian–German edit

  • Dolnoserbsko-nimske słowniki at dolnoserbski.de] (in German and Lower Sorbian)
  • Lexikalische Übungen und Terminologie at the Universität Leipzig (in German and Lower Sorbian)

February 16, 2024
lower, sorbian, language, lower, sorbian, redirects, here, people, lower, sorbs, confused, with, serbian, language, lower, sorbian, endonym, dolnoserbšćina, west, slavic, minority, language, spoken, eastern, germany, historical, province, lower, lusatia, today. Lower Sorbian redirects here For the people see Lower Sorbs Not to be confused with Serbian language Lower Sorbian endonym dolnoserbscina is a West Slavic minority language spoken in eastern Germany in the historical province of Lower Lusatia today part of Brandenburg Lower Sorbiandolnoserbscina dolnoserbskiPronunciation ˈdɔlnɔˌsɛrskʲi Native toGermanyRegionBrandenburgEthnicitySorbsNative speakers6 900 2007 1 Language familyIndo European Balto SlavicSlavicWest SlavicSorbianLower SorbianWriting systemLatin Sorbian alphabet Language codesISO 639 2 span class plainlinks dsb span ISO 639 3 a href https iso639 3 sil org code dsb class extiw title iso639 3 dsb dsb a Glottologlowe1385ELPLower SorbianLinguasphere53 AAA ba lt a href Sorbian languages html title Sorbian languages 53 AAA b a lt a href West Slavic languages html title West Slavic languages 53 AAA b d a varieties 53 AAA baa to 53 AAA bah This article contains IPA phonetic symbols Without proper rendering support you may see question marks boxes or other symbols instead of Unicode characters For an introductory guide on IPA symbols see Help IPA Standard Lower Sorbian is one of the two literary Sorbian languages the other being the more widely spoken standard clarify Upper Sorbian The Lower Sorbian literary standard was developed in the 18th century based on a southern form of the Cottbus dialect 2 The standard variety of Lower Sorbian has received structural influence from Upper Sorbian 2 Lower Sorbian is spoken in and around the city of Cottbus in Brandenburg Signs in this region are typically bilingual and Cottbus has a Lower Sorbian Gymnasium where one language of instruction is Lower Sorbian It is a heavily endangered language 3 Most native speakers today belong to the older generations Contents 1 Phonology 1 1 Consonants 1 1 1 Final devoicing and assimilation 1 2 Vowels 1 3 Stress 2 Orthography 3 Sample 4 See also 5 References 6 Bibliography 7 External links 7 1 Dictionaries 7 1 1 Czech Lower Sorbian and Lower Sorbian Czech 7 1 2 German Lower Sorbian 7 1 3 Lower Sorbian GermanPhonology edit nbsp Bilingual road sign in Cottbus GermanyThe phonology of Lower Sorbian has been greatly influenced by contact with German especially in Cottbus and larger towns For example German influenced pronunciation tends to have a voiced uvular fricative ʁ instead of the alveolar trill r In villages and rural areas German influence is less marked and the pronunciation is more typically Slavic Consonants edit Consonant phonemes 4 5 Labial Dental Alveolar Postalveolar Dorsal Glottalhard soft hard soft hard soft hard softNasal m mʲ n nʲ ŋ ŋʲ Plosive voiceless p pʲ t tʲ k kʲ voiced b bʲ d dʲ ɡ ɡʲ Affricate t s t ʃ t ɕFricative voiceless f fʲ s ʃ ɕ x xʲ hvoiced v vʲ z ʒ ʑTrill r rʲApproximant w wʲ l lʲ j m mʲ p pʲ b bʲ are bilabial whereas f v are labiodental 4 w wʲ are labiovelar 6 although the latter may be a labial palatal approximant Consonants in parentheses are allophones of another consonant before another consonant or vowel for example m may palatalize to mʲ before front vowels or j and n may assimilate to ŋ before velar consonants The Proto Slavic contrasts between m p b v and their palatalized counterparts has been lost phonetically in Lower Sorbian with the marginal phonemes occurring only before certain vowels The contrasts between t d and their palatalized counterparts has evolved into a contrast between t d and ɕ ʑ The contrast between l and its palatalized counterpart has evolved into a contrast between w l while the contrasts between n r and their palatalized counterparts has remained intact and the contrasts between s z and their palatalized counterparts no longer exists 7 n nʲ l r rʲ are alveolar n nʲ l r rʲ whereas t d t s s z are dental t d t s s z 4 t ʃ ʃ ʒ have been variously transcribed with t ʃ ʃ ʒ 8 9 and t ʂ ʂ ʐ 10 Their actual phonetic realization is flat postalveolar t ʃ ʃ ʒ 11 in all of the Lower Sorbian speaking area This is unlike in standard Upper Sorbian where these are palato alveolar t ʃ ʃ ʒ 12 13 Final devoicing and assimilation edit Lower Sorbian has both final devoicing and regressive voicing assimilation 14 dub dub oak is pronounced dup susedka ˈsusedka female neighbor is pronounced ˈsusetka licba ˈlit sba number is pronounced ˈlʲid zba The hard postalveolar fricative ʃ is assimilated to ɕ before t ɕ 15 scit ʃt ɕit protection is pronounced ɕt ɕit Vowels edit The vowel inventory of Lower Sorbian is exactly the same as that of Upper Sorbian 16 It is also very similar to the vowel inventory of Slovene Vowel phonemes 16 Front Central BackClose i uClose mid e oOpen mid ɛ ɔOpen a i is retracted to ɨ after hard consonants e o are diphthongized to i ɛ u ɔ in slow speech 16 The e ɛ and o ɔ distinctions are weakened or lost in unstressed syllables 17 a is phonetically central a 16 Stress edit Stress in Lower Sorbian normally falls on the first syllable of the word 18 Luzyca ˈwuʒɨt sa Lusatia psijasel ˈpɕijaɕɛl friend Chosebuz ˈxɨɕɛbus Cottbus In loanwords stress may fall on any of the last three syllables 18 internat intɛrˈnat boarding school kontrola kɔnˈtrɔla control september sɛpˈtɛmbɛr September policija pɔˈlʲit sija police organizacija ɔrɡanʲiˈzat sija organization Most one syllable prepositions attract the stress to themselves when they precede a noun or pronoun of one or two syllables 18 na dworje ˈna dwɨrʲɛ on the courtyard psi mnjo ˈpɕi mnʲɔ near me do mesta ˈdɔ mʲɛsta into the city the iɪ of mesto ˈmʲiɪ stɔ becomes ɛ when unstressed However nouns of three or more syllables retain their stress psed wucabnikom pɕɛd ˈut sabnʲikɔm in front of the teacher na drogowanju na ˈdrɔɡowanʲu on a journey Orthography editThe Sorbian alphabet is based on the Latin script but uses diacritics such as the acute accent and caron Sample editArticle 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Lower Sorbian Wsykne luze su lichotne rozone a jadnake po dostojnosci a psawach Woni maju rozym a wedobnosc a maju ze sobu w duchu bratsojstwa wobchadas All people are born free and equal in their dignity and rights They are given reason and conscience and they shall create their relationships to one another according to the spirit of brotherhood 19 See also editUpper Sorbian languageReferences edit Lower Sorbian at Ethnologue 18th ed 2015 subscription required a b Bjorn Rothstein Rolf Thieroff 2010 Mood in the Languages of Europe John Benjamins Publishing pp 376 377 ISBN 9789027205872 Moseley Christopher ed 2010 Atlas of the World s Languages in Danger 3rd ed Paris UNESCO Publishing ISBN 978 92 3 104096 2 a b c Stone 2002 p 605 Zygis 2003 pp 180 181 Niedersorbische Aussprache Serbski Institut Iskarous Khalil and Kavitskaya Darya Sound Change and the Structure of Synchronic Variability Phonetic and Phonological Factors in Slavic Palatalization PDF Linguistic Society of America a href Template Citation html title Template Citation citation a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Hannusch 1998 Stone 2002 Zygis 2003 This transcription follows Laver 1994 251 252 Other scholars may transcribe these sounds differently Zygis 2003 pp 180 181 190 191 Sewc Schuster 1984 pp 40 41 Hannusch 1998 p 12 Hannusch 1998 p 13 a b c d Stone 2002 p 600 Stone 2002 pp 606 607 a b c Hannusch 1998 p 14 OmniglotBibliography editHannusch Erwin 1998 Niedersorbisch praktisch und verstandlich Bautzen Domowina Verlag ISBN 3 7420 1667 9 Laver John 1994 Principles of Phonetics Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 45655 X Sewc Schuster Hinc 1984 Gramatika hornjoserbskeje rece Budysin Ludowe nakladnistwo Domowina Stone Gerald 2002 Sorbian Upper and Lower in Comrie Bernard Corbett Greville G eds The Slavonic Languages London and New York Routledge pp 593 685 ISBN 9780415280785 Zygis Marzena 2003 Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of Slavic Sibilant Fricatives PDF ZAS Papers in Linguistics 3 175 213 archived from the original PDF on 2017 10 11 retrieved 2015 04 21External links edit nbsp Lower Sorbian edition of Wikipedia the free encyclopedia nbsp For a list of words relating to Lower Sorbian language see the Lower Sorbian language category of words in Wiktionary the free dictionary nbsp Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Lower Sorbian Online course for Lower and Upper Sorbian English Sorbian German Dolnoserbski radio program RealAudio in German and Lower Sorbian Lower Sorbian Vocabulary List from the World Loanword Database Lower Sorbian DoReCo corpus compiled by Hauke Bartels and Marcin Szczepanski Audio recordings of narrative texts with transcriptions time aligned at the phone level and translations Dictionaries edit Czech Lower Sorbian and Lower Sorbian Czech edit Slovnik DolnoLuzicka Srbstina lt gt Cestina in Czech and Lower Sorbian German Lower Sorbian edit Deutsch Niedersorbisches Worterbuch at dolnoserbski de in German and Lower Sorbian Korpus GENIE GEsprochenes NIEdersorbisch Wendisch in German and Lower Sorbian Lower Sorbian German edit Dolnoserbsko nimske slowniki at dolnoserbski de in German and Lower Sorbian Lexikalische Ubungen und Terminologie at the Universitat Leipzig in German and Lower Sorbian Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Lower Sorbian language amp oldid 1205251914, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.