Polabe

The polabe is a language disappeared pertaining to the north-Western branch from the Slavic Langues, sub-group poméranien.

One arranges under the name of polabe the languages of the Western Slavic tribes which populated since the 7th century of the areas located in the North-East of current Germany and the North-West of current Poland.

With the Kachoube, the Slovince (also disappeared) and the Polish it belongs to the connects lechitic Slavic Westerner.

Until the 10th century, the zone of diffusion extended to the west to Elba and touched in the south (about with the height of Wittenberg) of the areas also speaking a Slavic language, the sorabe.

The known tribes were the Obodrites in the Western Mecklembourg and the Holstein, the Lutices in space around Berlin and in the north of Berlin, of which Hevelli in the Western Brandebourg, Poméranes in Eastern Mecklembourg and Poméranie as well as the Ranes (or Rujanes) on the island of Rügen. In certain tables, the language of the two last tribes is not taken into account the polabe, but is indicated with the cachoube like a language pomorane.

The word Polabe originally indicated only one tribe in the south of Hamburg and indicated the geographical location of Polabes “along Elba” ( Po : along + Laba : Elba).

With the German expansion towards the east with the S, the languages polabes were évincées little by little. The arrival in the country of many colonists originating in Germany in North and Holland, as well as the exclusive use of the German dialects like languages used in the cities and as administrative languages (with in certain cases of official prohibitions) reduced soon the polabe to some linguistic small islands. In the cities located in Berlin-Brandebourg space, the “Wendes” called Slaves could exert only the trade of fisherman and had the right to settle only in quite precise centres of population, which explains why until the 17th century the polabe was preserved at the place called Kietzen (or Fischerkietzen). On the island of Rügen, the polabe was still of use until the beginning of the 15th century. In Lower Saxony in the east of Lunebourg, the polabe of the Drawehn was preserved until the middle of the 18th century and this area received for this reason the name of Wendland which referred to its Slavic inhabitants.

Today still, as in the area sorabe, of innumerable river and place names recall the Slavic languages that one spoke there formerly (for example, Rostock, Potsdam, Usedom).

The polabe never developed like clean written language. It is only little of time before its disappearance that researchers started to be interested in the language, for example, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz which required of a reliable witness examples of vocabulary and the version polabe of our-Father. The most detailed notes come us from Pasteur protesting in exercise in Wustrow, Christian Henning von Jessen, another source important are the notes of a peasant polabe Johann Parum Schultze of Sühten. According to the parochial register the last speaker died in 1756, at the 88 years age.

Because of its a long time separate development the dravénopolabe especially had moved away in a notable way of the other Slavic languages: there the German influence is clearly felt with the membership of the vowel system of the shapes of ö and U as well as Diphtongue S. (Exactly as at the time of the passage of average high-German to the modern High-German and of the Middle English to modern English U and I became with and have.) Elsewhere, the linguistic changes which have affected all the other Slavic languages did not intervene because of the peripheral situation of Polabes. The typical law for the Protoslave of the rising sonority of the syllables, according to which any syllable must end in a full vowel, was not essential completely in polabe so that the Métathèse of the liquids, therefore the replacement of the protoslave - gold and - ol by - ro and - lo or - ruffle and it were not carried out there completely (see the place names Stargard, Sagard, Gartow and Garditz whose element gard (castle) corresponds to the word Gradec which underwent the modification).

The vocabulary contained a great number of words borrowed from German and especially from low-German.

The “Our-Father” in polabe

Aita our, tâ you jis wâ nebesai, sjętü wordoj tüji jaimą; tüji rik komaj; tüja wüľa Mo są ťüńot kok wâ nebesai tok No zemi; nosę wisedanesnę sťaibę doj nam dâns; has wütâdoj nam nose greche, kok me wütâdojeme nosim gresnarem; nor bringoj our wâ warsükongę; you losoj our wüt wisokag chaudag. Pritü tüje ją you ťenądztwü one million u.a. a câst, warchni Büzac, nekąda in nekędisa. Amen.

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