Wendish (unless otherwise specified, Wendish = Upper Sorbian) has three adverbs for “year”: loni (“last year”) lětsa (“this year”) klětu (“next year”) Two other words one might easily confuse are lěto (“year”) and lěćo (“summer”). Also, don’t confuse the above words with lěs/lěsk (“forest”/”copse of trees”). The latter is a good example of the diminutive in Wendish. It means literally “little forest.”
Wendish Adverbs for “Year” Read More »
In a small area near the Central Texas town of Giddings, some fifty miles east of Austin, there exists a trilingual ethnic group on the rapid verge of extinction: the Sorbs (or to employ the term in use in the area, the Wends). The three languages involved are Upper Sorbian, English, and German. An extremely small number of individuals still speak Upper Sorbian and to the best of my knowledge there are no families today in which Sorbian is the principal language of communication. The Upper Sorbian language in Texas, forced to compete with not one, but two, dominant languages, is on the verge of extinction.
The Upper Sorbian Language in Texas Read More »
