The were a number of "Polabian" tribes
("Elbslaven") in the early Middle Ages (Obodrites, Veleti = "Wilzen", Libushans,
Vagrians, Drevliani, Havolians, Redarians, Volinians, Sprevians, the Ranians of
Rügen, and others), living between the Elbe system and the Oder, from the Baltic
coast in the north to Brandenburg in the south. Nearly all of them became
Germanicised between the 10th and the 16th centuries. The last surviving Slavic
dialect of that area was that of the Drevians (a.k.a. Draveno-Polabian or simply
Polabian), spoken until the 18th century on the western bank of the Elbe (near
Hanover) and recorded by German authors in glossaries and short texts (there's a
complete four-volume collection of these -- Rheinhold Olesch. 1983-1987.
Thesaurus Linguae Dravaenopolabicae. Vienna: Böhlau).
Western Slavs used to live all over
Brandenburg and Saxony (east of the Saale). In the region of Lusatia,
between the Elbe and the Neisse, the Sorbian languages have survived till now --
High and Low Sorbian, rather different from each other, and each having a
standard literary variety; they are also called Wend or Lusatian by some
authors. They have been recorded since the 16th century and used to have more
than 100,000 speakers, but are now highly endangered (there are almost no
monolingual speakers and the prestige of German is overwhelming) despite their
authorised use as officially accepted minority languges in schools and local
administration.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 12:45 AM
Subject: [tied] Slavs in East Germany
What information do
you haveon what Slavic peoples were where in what until 1990 was East Germany? I
heve heard of: Obotrites or Obodric^i in Mecklenburg; Havolane and Sprevjane in
Brandenburg (named after the rivers Havol and Sprevja, now Havel and Spree);
other peoples in the south. Another source mentions a people called the
Wiltzes.