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Upper Sorbian (endonym: hornjoserbšćina), occasionally referred to as Wendish,[2] is a minority language spoken by Sorbs, in the historical province of Upper Lusatia, which is today part of Saxony, Germany. It is grouped in the West Slavic language branch, together with Lower Sorbian, Czech, Polish, Silesian, Slovak, and Kashubian.
 | You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. (November 2012) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
| Upper Sorbian | |
|---|---|
| hornjoserbšćina, hornjoserbsce | |
| Pronunciation | [ˈhɔʁnʲɔˌsɛʁpʃtʃina] |
| Native to | Germany |
| Region | Saxony |
| Ethnicity | Sorbs |
Native speakers | 13,000 (2007)[1] |
Indo-European
| |
| Latin (Sorbian alphabet) | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Regional language in Saxony |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | hsb |
| ISO 639-3 | hsb |
| Glottolog | uppe1395 |
| ELP | Upper Sorbian |
| Linguasphere | 53-AAA-bb < 53-AAA-b < 53-AAA-b...-d (varieties: 53-AAA-bba to 53-AAA-bbf) |
The history of the Upper Sorbian language in Germany began with the Slavic migrations during the 6th century AD. Beginning in the 12th century, there was a massive influx of rural Germanic settlers from Flanders, Saxony, Thuringia and Franconia. This so-called "Ostsiedlung" (eastern settlement or expansion) led to a slow but steady decline in use of the Sorbian language. In addition, 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 it was forbidden in Zwickau and Leipzig, and from 1424 on it was forbidden in Meissen. Further, there was the condition in many guilds of the cities of the area to accept only members of German-language origin.
However, the central areas of the Milzener and Lusitzer, in the area of today's Lusatia, were relatively unaffected by the new German language settlements and legal restrictions. The language therefore flourished there. By the 17th century, the number of Sorbian speakers in that area grew to over 300,000. The oldest evidence of written Upper Sorbian is the Burger Eydt Wendisch document, which was discovered in the city of Bautzen and dates to the year 1532.
There are an estimated 20,000 to 25,000[citation needed] speakers of Upper Sorbian. Almost all of these live in the state of Saxony, chiefly in the district of Bautzen (Budyšin). The stronghold of the language is the village of Crostwitz (Chrósćicy) and the surrounding municipalities, especially to the west of it. In this core area, Upper Sorbian remains the predominant vernacular.
Vowels
The vowel inventory of Upper Sorbian is exactly the same as that of Lower Sorbian.[3]
- Word-initial vowels are rare, and are often preceded by a non-phonemic glottal stop [ʔ], or sometimes [h]. /i, u, ɛ, ɔ/ appear in word-initial position only in recent borrowings, whereas the diphthongs never occur in this position.[5]
- The near-close /ɪ, ʊ/ can also be analyzed as diphthongs /iɪ, uʊ/.[4] Here, they are analyzed as monophthongs.
- The diphthongal allophones of /ɪ, ʊ/ are falling: [iɪ̯, uʊ̯]. [iɪ] occurs only under strong sentence stress in monosyllabic words. Conversely, [uʊ] is a more common realization of /ʊ/ than [ʊ].[4]
- /ɛ/ has three allophones:
- /ɔ/ has two allophones:
- Additional diphthongs arise from r-vocalization, as in German. For instance, uniwersita 'University' may be pronounced [unʲiˈwɛɐ̯sita].[8]
- The distinction between /ɛ, ɔ/ on the one hand and /ɪ, ʊ/ on the other is weakened or lost in unstressed syllables.[9]
- /a/ is phonetically central [ä].[3][10] It is somewhat higher [ɐ] after soft consonants.[11]
Consonants
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Palatal | Velar/ Uvular |
Glottal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| hard | soft | hard | soft | soft | hard | soft | hard | ||
| Nasal | m | mʲ | n | nʲ | |||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | pʲ | t | k | ||||
| voiced | b | bʲ | d | ɡ | |||||
| Affricate | voiceless | t͡s | (t͡sʲ) | t͡ʃ | |||||
| voiced | (d͡z) | d͡ʒ | |||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | x | h | |||
| voiced | (v) | z | (zʲ) | ʒ | ʁ | ʁʲ | |||
| Approximant | w | wʲ | l | j | |||||
- /m, mʲ, p, pʲ, b, bʲ, w, wʲ/ are bilabial, whereas /f, v/ are labiodental.[13]
- /mʲ, pʲ, bʲ/ are strongly palatalized.[14]
- /w/ is a somewhat velarized bilabial approximant [β̞ˠ], whereas /wʲ/ is a strongly palatalized bilabial approximant [ɥ].[15]
- /v/ is very rare. Apart from loanwords, it occurs only in two Slavonic words: zełharny /ˈzɛvarnɨ/ 'deceitful' and zełharnosć /ˈzɛvarnɔst͡ʃ/ 'deceitfulness', both of which are derivatives of łhać /ˈfat͡ʃ/ 'to lie'. Usage of these words is typically restricted to the Bautzen dialect, as speakers of the Catholic dialect use łžeć /ˈbʒɛt͡ʃ/ and its derivatives.[16][17]
- /n, l/ are alveolar [n͇, l͇], /nʲ/ is alveolo-palatal [n̠ʲ], whereas /t, d, t͡s, d͡z, t͡sʲ, s, z, zʲ/ are dental [t̪, d̪, t̪͡s̪, d̪͡z̪, t̪͡s̪ʲ, s̪, z̪, z̪ʲ].[3][18][19]
- /t, d, l/ before /i/ (in the case of /l/ also before /ɛ, ɪ/) are weakly palatalized [tʲ, dʲ, lʲ]. Šewc-Schuster (1984) also reports palatalized [fʲ, vʲ, kʲ, ɡʲ, xʲ, hʲ] as allophones of /f, v, k, ɡ, x, h/.[20] Among these, the labiodental [fʲ, vʲ] are extremely rare.[5]
- /n, nʲ/ are velar [ŋ, ŋʲ] in front of velar consonants.[21]
- /d͡z/ is very rare. In many cases, it merges with /z/ into [z].[22][23]
- /t͡sʲ, zʲ/ are very rare.[22][23] According to Stone (2002), the phonemic status of /t͡sʲ/ is controversial.[5]
- In most dialects, /t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ, ʃ, ʒ/ are palato-alveolar. This is unlike Lower Sorbian, where these consonants are laminal retroflex (flat postalveolar) [t͡ʂ, ʂ, ʐ] (Lower Sorbian /t͡ʂ/ does not have a voiced counterpart).[24][25] Laminal retroflex realizations of /ʃ, ʒ/[what about the affricates /tʃ, dʒ/?] also occur in Upper Sorbian dialects spoken in some villages north of Hoyerswerda.[14][26]
- /k, ɡ, x/ are velar, whereas /r, rʲ/ are uvular.[27][28]
- An aspirated [kʰ] is a morpheme-initial allophone of /x/ in some cases, as well as a possible word-initial allophone of /k/.[29]
- /x/ is typically accompanied with trilling of the uvula [ʀ̝̊], so that brach /ˈbrax/ 'fault' is typically pronounced [bʁaʀ̝̊].[30]
- /x/ does not occur word-initially, whereas /h/ does not occur word-finally.[31]
- /r, rʲ/ are typically realized as fricatives [ʁ, ʁʲ] or approximants [ʁ̞, ʁ̞ʲ]. They can be trilled [ʀ, ʀʲ] in clear and careful pronunciation. Furthermore, /r/ can also be realized as a voiceless fricative [χ]. It can also be vocalized in the syllable coda, as in uniwersita [unʲiˈwɛɐ̯sita] 'University'.[32] They are never alveolar [r, rʲ], which is an archaic pronunciation.[33]
- Soft /rʲ/ is strongly palatalized.[14]
- An epenthetic /j/ is inserted before a post-vocalic soft consonant, yielding a diphthong. If the soft consonant occurs before /ɛ/ or /ɪ/, it is often realized as hard, and the vowels merge to [ɛ̝].[5][example needed]
- In literary language, the contrast between hard and soft consonants is neutralized in word-final position. For instance, the letter ⟨ń⟩ represents the /jn/ sequence in this position (as in dźeń /ˈd͡ʒɛjn/ 'day'), not a single phoneme /nʲ/.[5]
Final devoicing and assimilation
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Upper Sorbian has both final devoicing and regressive voicing assimilation, both word-internal and across word boundaries.[5][34] In the latter context, /x/ is voiced to [ɣ]. Regressive voicing assimilation does not occur before sonorants and /h/.[34]
Stress
| This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2015) |
The Lord's Prayer in 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.
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Upper Sorbian:
- Wšitcy čłowjekojo su wot naroda swobodni a su jenacy po dostojnosći a prawach. Woni su z rozumom a swědomjom wobdarjeni a maja mjezsobu w duchu bratrowstwa wobchadźeć.
(All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.)[37]
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