Lower Sorbian language

Lower Sorbian (endonym: dolnoserbšćina) is a West Slavic minority language spoken in eastern Germany in the historical province of Lower Lusatia, today part of Brandenburg.

Standard Lower Sorbian is one of the two literary Sorbian languages, the other being the more widely spoken Upper Sorbian. The Lower Sorbian literary standard was developed in the 18th century, based on a southern form of the Cottbus dialect. The standard variety of Lower Sorbian has received structural influence from Upper Sorbian. Lower Sorbian differs from Upper Sorbian at all levels of the language system: in phonetics (the spread of the plosive consonant g; the merger of the affricate č with the hardened fricative c; the change of hard r after p, t, k into hard š; the change of ć, ʒ́ into soft fricative sibilants ś, ź), in morphology (the presence of the supine; absence of aorist and imperfect forms in dialects), and in vocabulary (bom "tree"; twarc "carpenter"; gluka "happiness" and so on, contrasted with the corresponding Upper Sorbian štom, ćěsla, zbožo). The formation of the Lower Sorbian literary norm was greatly influenced by the Upper Sorbian language. Unlike Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian is less standardized and strictly codified, characterized by instability and greater variability.

Lower Sorbian is spoken in and around the city of Cottbus in Brandenburg. Signs in this region are typically bilingual, and Cottbus has a Lower Sorbian Gymnasium where one language of instruction is Lower Sorbian. It is a heavily endangered language. Most native speakers today belong to the older generations. The younger and middle generations only know the learned literary language, with German being their native language. The assimilation process in Lower Lusatia has reached such a level that one can speak of a threat to the existence of the Lower Sorbian language.

A writing system based on the Latin alphabet was created in the 16th century. The first grammar of the language in history was written in 1650 by the Lutheran pastor Jan Hoinan. The regulator of the literary language is the Lower Sorbian Language Commission, currently operating under the Sorbian cultural and educational society Matica serbska.