Lower Sorbian Language

Lower Sorbian language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Lower Sorbian)
Not to be confused with Serbian language.
Lower Sorbian
Dolnoserbski, Dolnoserbina
Pronunciation [dlnsrski]
Native to Germany
Region Brandenburg
Ethnicity Sorbs
Native speakers 6,900 (2007)[1]
Language Indo-European
family
Balto-Slavic
Slavic
West Slavic
Sorbian
Lower Sorbian
Writing system Latin (Sorbian alphabet)
Language codes
ISO 639-2 dsb
ISO 639-3 dsb
Glottolog lowe1385[2]
Linguasphere 53-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.
Lower Sorbian (Dolnoserbski) is a Slavic minority language spoken in eastern Germany in
the historical province of Lower Lusatia, today part of Brandenburg. It is one of the two
literary Sorbian languages, the other being Upper Sorbian.
Lower Sorbian is spoken in and around the city of Cottbus in Brandenburg. Signs in this
region are usually bilingual, and Cottbus has a Gymnasium where one language of
instruction is Lower Sorbian. It is a heavily endangered language.[3] Most native speakers
are in the oldest generation today.
Contents
[hide]
1Phonology
o 1.1Consonants
1.1.1Final devoicing and assimilation
o 1.2Vowels
o 1.3Stress
2Orthography
3Sample
4See also
5References
6Bibliography
7External links
o 7.1Dictionaries
7.1.1Czech-Lower Sorbian and Lower Sorbian-Czech
7.1.2GermanLower Sorbian
7.1.3Lower SorbianGerman
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 [] 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]
Dental/
Labial Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal
Alveolar
hard soft hard soft hard soft hard hard
Nasal m m n n
voiceless p p t k
Plosive
voiced b b d
Affricate voiceless ts t t
voiceless f s x h
Fricative
voiced v z
Trill r r
Approximant w w l j
/m, m, p, p, b, b, w, w/ are bilabial,[are /w, w/ bilabial or labialized velar?] whereas /f, v/ are labiodental.[4]
/n, n, l, r, r/ are alveolar [n, n, l, r, r], whereas /t, d, ts, s, z/ are dental [t , d, t s, s, z].[4]
/t, , / are laminal retroflex (flat postalveolar) [t, , ] in all of the Lower Sorbian
speaking area. This is unlike in standard Upper Sorbian, where these are palato-
alveolar [t, , ].[6][7]
/h/ is voiceless [h], unlike Upper Sorbian, where it is voiced [].[8][9]
Final devoicing and assimilation[edit]
Lower Sorbian has both final devoicing and regressive voicing assimilation:[10]
dub /dub/ "oak" is pronounced [dup]

susedka /susedka/ "(female) neighbor" is pronounced [susetka]
licba /litsba/ "number" is pronounced [lidzba]
The retroflex fricative // is assimilated to [] before /t/:[11]
it /tit/ "protection" is pronounced [tit]

Vowels[edit]
The vowel inventory of Lower Sorbian is exactly the same as that of Upper Sorbian.[12] It is
also very similar to the vowel inventory of Slovene.
Vowel phonemes[12]
Front Central Back
Close i u
Close-mid e o
Open-mid
Open a
/i/ is retracted to [][is it really []? It is [] in Upper Sorbian.] after hard consonants.
/e, o/ are diphthongized to [i , u] in slow speech.[12]
The /e/ and /o/ distinctions are weakened or lost in unstressed syllables.[13]
/a/ is phonetically central [].[12]
Stress[edit]
Stress in Lower Sorbian normally falls on the first syllable of the word:[14]
uyca [wutsa] "Lusatia"

pijael [pijal] "friend"
Chebuz [xbus] "Cottbus"
In loanwords, stress may fall on any of the last three syllables:[14]
internat [intrnat] "boarding school"

kontrola [kntrla] "control"
september [sptmbr] "September"
policija [plitsija] "police"
organizacija [ranizatsija] "organization"
Most one-syllable prepositions attract the stress to themselves when they precede a noun
or pronoun of one or two syllables:[14]
na dwrje [na dwr] "on the courtyard"

pi mnjo [pi mn] "near me"
do msta [d msta] "into the city" (note that
the [i] of msto [mist] becomes [] when unstressed)
However, nouns of three or more syllables retain their stress:
ped wucabnikom [pd utsabnikm] "in front of the teacher"

na drogowanju [na drowanu] "on a journey"
Orthography[edit]
The Sorbian alphabet is based on the Latin script but uses diacritics such as acute
accent and caron.
Sample[edit]
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Lower Sorbian:
Wykne lue su lichotne roone a jadnake po dostojnosi a pawach. Woni maju rozym a
wdobnos a maju ze sobu w duchu bratojstwa wobchada.
(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.)[15]
See also[edit]
Upper Sorbian language
References[edit]
1. Jump up^ Lower Sorbian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Jump up^ Hammarstrm, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Lower
Sorbian". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human
History.
3. Jump up^ Moseley, Christopher, ed. (2010). Atlas of the Worlds Languages in Danger (3rd
ed.). Paris: UNESCO Publishing. ISBN 978-92-3-104096-2.
4. ^ Jump up to:a b c Stone (2002), p. 605.
5. Jump up^ Zygis (2003), pp. 180181.
6. Jump up^ Zygis (2003), pp. 180181, 190191.
7. Jump up^ ewc-Schuster (1984), pp. 4041.
8. Jump up^ Stone (2002), pp. 600, 605.
9. Jump up^ ewc-Schuster (1984), pp. 43, 46.
10. Jump up^ Hannusch (1998), p. 12.
11. Jump up^ Hannusch (1998), p. 13.
12. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Stone (2002), p. 600.
13. Jump up^ Stone (2002), pp. 606607.
14. ^ Jump up to:a b c Hannusch (1998), p. 14.
15. Jump up^ Omniglot
Bibliography[edit]
Hannusch, Erwin (1998), Niedersorbisch praktisch und verstndlich, Bautzen: Domowina-
Verlag, ISBN 3-7420-1667-9
ewc-Schuster, Hinc (1984), Gramatika hornjo-serbskeje re, Budyin: Ludowe nakadnistwo
Domowina
Stone, Gerald (2002), "Sorbian (Upper and Lower)", in Comrie, Bernard; Corbett, Greville
G., 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: 175213
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
wordsin Wiktionary, the
free dictionary.
Wikibooks has a book

on the topic of: Lower
Sorbian
(in German) (in Lower Sorbian) Dolnoserbski radio program (RealAudio)

Lower Sorbian Vocabulary List (from the World Loanword Database)
Dictionaries[edit]

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Lower Sorbian Language

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Lower Sorbian language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with Serbian language.

Native speakers 6,900 (2007)[1]

Writing system Latin (Sorbian alphabet)

ISO 639-2 dsb

ISO 639-3 dsb

Linguasphere 53-AAA-ba < 53-AAA-b <53-AAA-

Bilingual road sign in Cottbus, Germany

dub /dub/ "oak" is pronounced [dup]

it /tit/ "protection" is pronounced [tit]

uyca [wutsa] "Lusatia"

internat [intrnat] "boarding school"

na dwrje [na dwr] "on the courtyard"

ped wucabnikom [pd utsabnikm] "in front of the teacher"

Wikibooks has a book

(in German) (in Lower Sorbian) Dolnoserbski radio program (RealAudio)

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