Slovincians , also known as Łeba Kashubians , is a near-extinct ethnic subgroup of the Kashubian people , who originated from the north western Kashubia , located in the Pomeranian Voivodeship , Poland , from the area around the lakes of Łebsko and Gardno . In the aftermath of World War II , Slovincians emigrated en masse to Germany , with the last families emigrating there in the 1980s. They originally spoke the Slovincian language , which went extinct in the early 20th century, as well as Kashubian , Polish , and German .
41-829: The ancestors of the Slovincians, the West Slavic Pomeranians , moved in after the Migration Period . Following the Ostsiedlung , the Slovincians like most of the other Wends gradually became Germanized. The adoption of Lutheranism in the Duchy of Pomerania in 1534 distinguished the Slovincians from the Kashubes in Pomerelia , who remained Roman Catholic . In the 16th century, "Slovincian"
82-581: A gens , Sclavini merely a genus , and there was no "Slavic" gens . He further states that " Wends occur particularly in political contexts: the Wends, not the Slavs, made Samo their king." Other such alleged early West Slavic states include the Principality of Moravia (8th century–833), the Principality of Nitra (8th century–833), and Great Moravia (833–c. 907). Christiansen (1997) identified
123-568: A Polish translation of some works of Martin Luther and biblical texts, which also contained Kashubian elements. Other biblical texts were published in 1700 by Sporgius, pastor in Schmolsin. His Schmolsiner Perikopen , most of which is written in the same Polish-Kashubian style of Krofey's and Brüggemann's books, also contain small passages ("6th Sunday after Epiphanias") written in pure Kashubian. Hilferding (1862) and Parczewski (1896) confirmed
164-401: A few attestations of collective numerals exist: The endings for -cte / -cti and -dist 11-19 originates from to Proto-Slavic * desęte (prepositional of desętе “ten”). The multiple endings are the result of different placements of stress within the numeral, which is motivated by Polabian processes of stress movement. The numeral thirty is attested only by the construction pöl ťüpĕ , (“half
205-494: A handful of manuscripts, dictionaries and various writings from the 17th and 18th centuries. About 2800 Polabian words are known; of prose writings, only a few prayers, one wedding song and a few folktales survive. Immediately before the language became extinct, several people started to collect phrases and compile wordlists, and were engaged with folklore of the Polabian Slavs , but only one of them appears to have been
246-567: A native speaker of Polabian (himself leaving only 13 pages of linguistically relevant material from a 310-page manuscript). The last native speaker of Polabian, a woman, died in 1756, and the last person who spoke limited Polabian died in 1825. The most important monument of the language is the so-called Vocabularium Venedicum (1679–1719) by Christian Hennig. The language left many traces to this day in toponymy; for example, Wustrow (literally 'island', Polabian: Våstrüv ), Lüchow (Polabian: Ljauchüw ), Sagard , Gartow , Krakow etc. It
287-465: A number of archaic features, such as the presence of nasal vowels , a lack of metathesis of Proto-Slavic *TorT ; the presence of an aorist and imperfect verb tenses, traces of the dual number , and some prosodic features, as well as by some innovations, including diphthongization of closed vowels, a shift of the vowels o to ö, ü and a to o; a softening of the consonants g, k in some positions to d', t', an occasional reduction of final vowels, and
328-468: A pile”), and sixty is attested only as ťüpă (“pile”). The original word for hundred (Proto-Slavic * sъto ) was not preserved; instead it was replaced by disą(t)diśǫt , literally, “ten tens,” or pąt stíďə , where stíďə is a borrowing from the Middle German stige (“twenty, two tens”). The remaining terms for hundreds are unattested. The original term for thousand (Proto-Slavic * tysǫti )
369-563: A progressive language shift in the Kashubian population from their Slavonic vernacular to the local German dialect ( Low German Ostpommersch or High German , in eastern Kashubian areas also to Low Prussian ). By the 1920s, the Slovincian villages had become linguistically German, though a Slovincian consciousness remained. The area remained within the borders of Germany until becoming part of Poland after World War II ended in 1945 and
410-668: Is also a likely origin of the name Berlin , from the Polabian stem berl- / birl- ('swamp'). Though unorganized language revitalization for the Polabian language is occurring in small groups. As of 2023, the language has few limited speakers, but is growing due to more resources being accessible to learn the language. Polabian retains some archaic features from Proto-Slavic: Polabian also has many innovations, in part due to neighboring German and in part due to being more remote: The Proto-Slavic vowels developed thusly: The Proto-Slavic consonants developed thusly: For Polabian
451-428: Is formed by adding the past participle form with * -lъ from the main verb and the present tense form of the verb “to be”: ją plokol (“cried”), ją våi̯ai̯dål (“went out”). Not many such complex perfect forms are attested, and were replaced by forms formed by combining participial forms with their corresponding personal pronouns: joz plokol (“I cried”), joz sijol (“I sat down”), vån jedål (“he ate”). The perfect II
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#1732775657097492-508: Is not found in any of the surviving texts. The imperative may be formed with a null morpheme or with -ai̯ , which may be followed by an enclitic: ai̯plot (“pay”), püd (“go”), ricai̯-mĕ (“tell him”), jimai̯ jĕg (“catch him”), ai̯plotai̯- mĕ (“pay me”). The passive voice form is formed mainly with the help of the auxiliary verb vardot , borrowed from German werden (become): kǫsonĕ vardol ("was bitten"), vårdă zazonă ("was lit"). There are several examples of forms formed by combining
533-576: The Chronicle of Fredegar and Paul the Deacon are neither clear nor consistent in their ethnographic terminology, and whether "Wends" or "Veneti" refer to Slavic people, pre-Slavic people, or to a territory rather than a population, is a matter of scholarly debate. The early Slavic expansion reached Central Europe in the 7th century, and the West Slavic dialects diverged from common Slavic over
574-514: The Bavarian Geographer made a list of West Slavic tribes who lived in the areas of modern-day Poland , Czech Republic , Germany and Denmark : Polabian language The Polabian language , also known as Drevanian–Polabian language , Drevanian language , and Lüneburg Wendish language , is a West Slavic language that was spoken by the Polabian Slavs ( German : Wenden ) in present-day northeastern Germany around
615-696: The Cyrillic alphabet . Linguistically, the West Slavic group can be divided into three subgroups: Lechitic , including Polish , Silesian , Kashubian , and the extinct Polabian and Pomeranian languages ; Sorbian in the region of Lusatia ; and Czecho–Slovak in the Czech lands . In the Early Middle Ages , the name " Wends " (probably derived from the Roman-era Veneti ) may have applied to Slavic peoples. However, sources such as
656-561: The Elbe , from which the term Polabian comes from. It was spoken approximately until the rise to power of Prussia in the mid-18th century – when it was superseded by Low German – in the areas of Pomoré (Mecklenburg-West Pomerania) , central ( Mittelmark ) part of Branibor (Brandenburg) and eastern Saxony-Anhalt ( Wittenberg originally part of Béla Serbia ), as well as in eastern parts of Wendland ( Lower Saxony ) and Dravänia (Schleswig-Holstein) , Ostholstein and Lauenburg ). Polabian
697-551: The Pagan sanctuaries of the closed (long) type, while the East Slavic sanctuaries had a round (most often open) shape ( see also : Peryn ). Early modern historiographers such as Penzel (1777) and Palacky (1827) have claimed Samo's Empire to be first independent Slavic state in history by taking Fredegar's Wendish account at face value. Curta (1997) argued that the text is not as straightforward: according to Fredegar, Wends were
738-663: The Poles , Czechs , Slovaks , Silesians , Kashubians , and Sorbs . From the ninth century onwards, most West Slavs converted to Roman Catholicism , thus coming under the cultural influence of the Latin Church , adopting the Latin alphabet , and tending to be more closely integrated into cultural and intellectual developments in western Europe than the East Slavs , who converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity and adopted
779-492: The prepositional ; the vocative case in Polabian was lost, being replaced by the nominative. Nouns were used mainly only in combination with prepositions, not only in the prepositional case, as in most Slavic languages, but also in the instrumental. Within the inflectional endings, two paradigms exist, one of a masculine-neuter type, the other a feminine type; neither inflectional types are homogeneous. Masculine and neuter nouns are divided into two groups: those ending in -ă in
820-560: The 1980s. West Slavs The West Slavs are Slavic peoples who speak the West Slavic languages . They separated from the common Slavic group around the 7th century, and established independent polities in Central Europe by the 8th to 9th centuries. The West Slavic languages diversified into their historically attested forms over the 10th to 14th centuries. Today, groups which speak West Slavic languages include
861-465: The area became Polish . Some Slovincians were expelled along with the German population , some were allowed to remain. In the 1950s, mainly in the village of Kluki (formerly Klucken), a few elderly people still remembered fragments of Slovincian. The remaining Slovincians began to ask for the right to emigrate to West Germany, and virtually all of the remaining Slovincian families had emigrated there by
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#1732775657097902-716: The domination of the Holy Roman Empire after the Wendish Crusade in the Middle Ages and had been strongly assimilated by Germans at the end of the 19th century. The Polabian language survived until the beginning of the 19th century in what is now the German state of Lower Saxony . Various attempts have been made to group the West Slavs into subgroups according to various criteria, including geography, historical tribes, and linguistics. In 845
943-931: The following West Slav tribes in the 11th century from "the coastlands and hinterland from the aby of Kiel to the Vistula, including the islands of Fehmarn, Poel, Rügen, Usedom and Wollin", namely the Wagrians , Obodrites (or Abotrites), the Polabians , the Liutizians or Wilzians, the Rugians or Rani, the Sorbs, the Lusatians, the Poles, and the Pomeranians (later divided into Pomerelians and Cassubians). They came under
984-590: The following centuries. The West Slavic tribes settled on the eastern fringes of the Carolingian Empire , along the Limes Saxoniae . Prior to the Magyar invasion of Pannonia in the 890s, the West Slavic polity of Great Moravia spanned much of Central Europe between what is now Eastern Germany and Western Romania. In the high medieval period, the West Slavic tribes were again pushed to the east by
1025-523: The following segments are reconstructable: The nature of the Polabian accent remains a controversial issue. There are three theories: Due to the poor attestation of Polabian, it is difficult to reconstruct a full morphology. Presented here is a general overview. As in all Slavic languages, Polabian has three grammatical genders : masculine, feminine and neuter. Polabian nouns may also be animate or inanimate, and decline for six cases : nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , instrumental and
1066-457: The formation of complex tenses, many which are associated with the influence of the German language . Polabian also has a large number of Middle Low German borrowings. By the 18th century, Lechitic Polabian was in some respects markedly different from other Slavic languages , most notably in having a strong German influence. It was close to Pomeranian and Kashubian , and is attested only in
1107-404: The future tense could also be formed with the auxiliary verb met (“to have”): joz mom sijot (“I will sew”), K. Polyansky considered the verb met in these cases is a modal verb - “I must sew.” The use of the imperfect joz tех (“I wanted”), mes (“had”), ni-băs (“I wasn’t”) and the aorist ( sådĕ (“went”), våzą (“took”), påci (“fell”)) attested by a few examples. The perfect I tense
1148-451: The incipient German Ostsiedlung , decisively so following the Wendish Crusade in the 11th century. The early Slavic expansion began in the 5th century, and by the 6th century the groups that would become the West, East , and South Slavic groups had probably become geographically separated. One of the distinguishing features of the West Slavic tribes was manifested in the structure of
1189-422: The nominative singular those ending in anything else. Nouns ending in -ă probably took a feminine declension in the singular, as in other Slavic languages, but this is difficult to assert due to the fact that such nouns are known in the documents only in the nominative singular form. The second group of nouns is divided into a number of subtypes. The dual forms of masculine and neuter nouns are not attested. Within
1230-448: The passive participle with the verb båi̯t (“to be”), perhaps also being forms of the passive voice. Also, forms of the passive voice are formed using reflexive verbs with the particle să ,: vinai̯ biją-să (“they are being hit”). In Polabian, forms such as the infinitive , the active present participle , the passive participle and the gerund are attested. T. Lehr-Spławiński, based on the fact that most infinitive forms have stress on
1271-401: The penultimate syllable, with the exception of verbs with enclitics, in which the stress goes to the last syllable. This type of stress explains the presence of conjugations formed with -ĕ- || -i- (from * -e- ) and with -o- || -ă- (from * -a(je)- ). The alternation in the verbs of these conjugations of full vowels and reduced vowels depends both on the presence or absence of enclitics, and on
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1312-536: The prefix nĕ -/ ni - , which phonetically cannot continue the Proto-Slavic * ni -, which would have developed as * nai -. K. Polański believed that nai - was supplanted by ni - under the influence of the negative particle ni (“not”). As with other inflections, complete verb paradigms cannot be reconstructed due to a lack of attestation. Below is a general overview. Verbs may be either perfective or imperfective in aspect , expressed by different structures of
1353-445: The presence of consonants or whole syllables after the vowel. The differences in the types of conjugations concern only the forms of the 1st person singular. The future tense is formed by adding the auxiliary verb cą (“I want”) to the infinitive of the main verb of the present tense form: ci sneg ai̯t (“it will snow”), vån ci-să sḿot (“he will laugh”). According to T. Lehr-Spławiński, A. E. Suprun and some other scholars, forms of
1394-453: The singular, the following can be seen: Within the plural, the following can be seen: There are three types of declension of feminine nouns. The first includes nouns with endings -o or -ă in the nominative singular case: bobo (“woman”), zenă (“wife”, “woman”). The second ends in -åi̯ , -ĕ , or -ai̯ : motai̯ (“mother”), bant'åi̯ (“bench”). The third has a zero ending: vås (“louse”), t’üst (“bone”), vas (“village”). Within
1435-459: The singular, the following can be seen: Within the plural, the following can be seen: Within the dual, the following can be seen: Adjectives agree in gender, case and number. A few instances of short adjectives are attested. Adjectives can also inflect for the comparative and superlative. The following adjectival inflections are attested: Short forms of adjectives are formed from the stems of full adjectives and by adding gender endings in
1476-543: The singular. These forms agrees with the noun to which it refers in case as well: Among the surviving masculine and neuter forms, the instrumental case ( tai̯xåm (“quiet”)) and the locative case ( cai̯ste (“pure”); dübre (“good”)) are attested. The comparative of adjectives is formed with -i̯sĕ , -sĕ , and -ésĕ , and the superlative is formed from the comparative by adding na- : navoi̯sĕ (“highest”), lepsĕ (“better”), zai̯mnésǎ (“colder”), nastăresĕ (“eldest”). Polabian has both cardinal and ordinal numerals, and
1517-458: The verb stem: zarăt (imperfective) and vizrăt (perfective) (“look, see”); dvai̯zĕ (imperfective) and dvai̯gnǫt (perfective) (“to move”); våzdet-să (imperfective) and våzdevot-să (perfective) (“to dress”). Polabian verbs may inflect for present tense , future tense and three forms of the past tense: imperfect , aorist , as well as two perfect tenses, called perfect I and perfect II. The stress in present tense verbs always falls on
1558-735: Was also applied to the Slavic speakers in the Bytów (Bütow) region further south. In the 16th and 17th century Michael Brüggemann (also known as Pontanus or Michał Mostnik), Simon Krofey (Szimon Krofej) and J.M. Sporgius introduced Kashubian into the Lutheran Church. Krofey, pastor in Bytów (Bütow), published a religious song book in 1586, written in Polish but also containing some Kashubian words. Brüggemann, pastor in Schmolsin , published
1599-516: Was also relatively long (until the 16th century) spoken in and around the cities of Bukovéc (Lübeck) , Starigard (Oldenburg) and Trava (Hamburg) . The very poorly attested Slavic dialects of Rügen seemed to have had more in common with Polabian than with Pomeranian varieties. In the south, it bordered on the Sorbian language area in Lusatia . Polabian is characterized by the preservation of
1640-470: Was probably formed under the influence of the perfect of the German language (formed using the verbs haben (“to have”) or sein (“to be”): ich habe geschrieben (“I wrote”)), as in Polabian it is also formed by the combination of the auxiliary verbs met (“to have”) and båi̯t (“to be”) and the passive participle: vån mo nodenă (“he found”), ją våpodenă (“fell”), ją ai̯ḿartĕ (“died”). The indicative and imperative moods are attested. The subjunctive mood
1681-903: Was replaced by the construction disąt pątstiďə . The following personal and reflexive pronouns are attested: The pronoun jai̯ was borrowed from Middle Low German jī . There were two demonstrative pronouns in Polabian: sǫ , so , sü (“this”) and tǫ , to , tü (“that”). The attested possessive pronouns are: müj , müjă , müji (“mine”); tüj , tüjă , tüji (“yours (singular)”); süji ("one's own (reflexive possesive pronoun"); nos ("our"); vosă (“yours” (plural)). The interrogative pronouns are: kåtü (“who”); cü (“what”); koťĕ (“which”, “what”, “what kind”). The determinative pronouns are: vis (“all”), visoťă (“anything”), kozdümĕ (“everyone” (dative)). The negative pronouns are: nĕkătü (“nobody”), nic (“nothing”), nijadån (“not one, no”), niťidĕ (“nowhere”); all were formed using