Following an intensive literature review process and the first fact-finding fieldwork in Lower Lusatia in July-August 2020, we have compiled the first project report that is now available for download here.
The report offers a concise summary of the information on the Lower Sorbian language from the sociolinguistic perspective and on the ethnic group of Lower Sorbs living in the East of Germany to be found in various publications in English, German and Polish. Most of these texts (the most important being, among others, Glaser 2007 and Mercator 2016 in English, Marti 1990 and publications by Budarjowa, Elle, or Neumann in German, Dołowy-Rybińska 2012, 2014 and Lewaszkiewicz 2014 in Polish, as well as the publications within the framework of the SMiLE project) focus on both Lower and Upper Sorbs/Sorbian languages. In general, Upper Sorbian has received more scholarly attention and is better documented than Lower Sorbian. Although also endangered, Upper Sorbian is in a slightly better “health” than Lower Sorbian, since it still functions as the language of family and community in some villages. Sometimes, what is known about Upper Sorbian or Upper Lusatia is understood to apply to Lower Sorbian or Lower Lusatia as well, which results in an overly positive/optimistic view of their situation. The goal of the present document is, therefore, to glean the information on Lower Sorbian and Lower Sorbs out of the available sources and collate it in one place.
The linguistic description of Lower Sorbian is mostly to be found in grammars written in German, e.g. Janaš 1984 or Starosta 1999. There is an online Sorbian language course available that covers Lower Sorbian levels A1, A2 and B1 in German and English (sprachkurs.sorbischlernen.de).
Sorbian Street in Cottbus
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