- Lower Sorbian language
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Lower Sorbian Dolnoserbski, Dolnoserbšćina Pronunciation [ˈdɔlnɔˌsɛrskʲi] Spoken in Germany Region Brandenburg Native speakers 7,000 (1995) Language family Indo-European- Balto-Slavic
- Slavic
- West Slavic
- Sorbian
- Lower Sorbian
- Sorbian
- West Slavic
- Slavic
Writing system Latin (Sorbian alphabet) Language codes ISO 639-2 dsb ISO 639-3 dsb Linguasphere 53-AAA-ba < 53-AAA-b <53-AAA-b...-d (varieties: 53-AAA-baa to 53-AAA-bah) This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. 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 the language of instruction is Lower Sorbian.
Contents
Phonology
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], and a "clear" [l] that is not especially palatalized instead of [lʲ]. In villages and rural areas German influence is less marked, and the pronunciation is more "typically Slavic".
Consonants
The consonant phonemes of Lower Sorbian are as follows:
Bilabial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Postalveolar Alveolo-palatal Palatal Velar Glottal plain pal. plain pal. plain pal. plain pal. Plosive voiceless p pʲ t k kʲ voiced b bʲ d ɡ ɡʲ Affricate voiceless t͡s t͡ʃ t͡ɕ voiced d͡ʒ d͡ʑ Nasal m mʲ n nʲ Fricative voiceless f fʲ s ʃ ɕ x h voiced v vʲ z ʒ ʑ Rhotic r rʲ Approximant lʲ j Lower Sorbian has both final devoicing and regressive voicing assimilation:
- /dub/ "oak" is pronounced [dup]
- /susedka/ "(female) neighbor" is pronounced [susetka]
- /lʲit͡sba/ "number" is pronounced [lʲid͡zba]
The postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ is assimilated to [ɕ] before /t͡ɕ/:
- /ʃt͡ɕit/ "protection" is pronounced [ɕt͡ɕit]
Vowels
The vowel phonemes are as follows:
Monophthongs Front Central Back Close i ɨ u Open-mid ɛ ɔ Open a Diphthongs Centering Ending
in /j/Ending
in /w/Starting close iɪ ij ɨj uj iw ɨw uw Starting mid ej ɔj ɛw ow Starting open aj aw Stress
Stress in Lower Sorbian normally falls on the first syllable of the word:
In loanwords, stress may fall on any of the last three syllables:
- internat /intɛrˈnat/ "boarding school"
- kontrola /kɔnˈtrɔlʲa/ "control"
- september /sɛpˈtɛmbɛr/ "September"
- policija /pɔˈlʲitsija/ "police"
- organizacija /ɔrɡanʲiˈzatsija/ "organization"
Orthography
The Sorbian alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet but uses diacritics such as acute accent and caron. The standard character encoding for the Lower Sorbian alphabet is ISO 8859-2 (Latin-2).
External links
- Lower Sorbian language at Ethnologue
- (German) (Lower Sorbian) Dolnoserbski radio program (RealAudio)
- Lower Sorbian Vocabulary List (from the World Loanword Database)
Dictionaries
German–Lower Sorbian
- (German) (Lower Sorbian) at dolnoserbski.de
- (German) (Lower Sorbian) at Korpus GENIE
Lower Sorbian–German
- (German) (Lower Sorbian) Lexikalische Übungen
Slavic languages History West Slavic East Slavic South Slavic Bulgarian · Church Slavonic · Macedonian · Old Church Slavonic · Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian · Croatian · Montenegrin · Serbian) · SloveneConstructed languages Separate dialects and
Slavic microlanguagesBanat Bulgarian · Burgenland Croatian · Chakavian · East Slovak · Kajkavian · Lachian · Molise Croatian · Prekmurian · Resian · Slavic dialects of Greece · Shtokavian · West Polesian · TorlakianCategories:- Lower Sorbian language
- Sorbian languages
- Languages of Germany
- West Slavic languages
- Sorbian people
- Endangered Slavic languages
- Balto-Slavic
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