On October 21, the second session of the Hitz Adina Mintzo cycle, organized by Mintzo, took place in Vitoria-Gasteiz. About Sorabre spoke Ivan Igartua (Vitoria, 1972), senior professor of Slavic Philology at the UPV/EHU.

He has published studies on the Slavic languages and historical grammar of Russian, among others, and has carried out stays of researchers and professors in Moscow, Paris, Leipzig and Tbilisi. At the conference, within the Western Slavic, he spoke about the High Sorbian and Deaf Bass who form a special sub-group together with the Lekite and Slovak Czech languages.

Alto Sorabi and Bajo Sorbí are spoken in eastern Germany, near Cottbus/Chóśebuz and Bautzen/Budyšin. And before we start to belittle the number, Igartua told us a few words of revenue: “In the states of Saxony and Brandenburg they are official languages, but they have a very limited number of speakers, about 20,000, which accounts for 1% of the population.” As for the lower deafness, however, the language is weaker, even in danger of extinction, according to UNESCO, with 2,000-4,000 speakers in small towns. “Under the influence of the Third Reich, domestic transmission was interrupted and today only those over a considerable age know of the low shell.” And another loss, untouchable, that comes from the loss of language: “Linguistic biodiversity is lost, among other things. Or what the linguist Rudi Keller said, that languages are third-order objects, that is, they are not pure natural elements, like trees or mountains, or artificial elements, like a table. They constitute a third area closely linked to culture.” Hence the loss of diversity in this area.

Legal recognition

Undoubtedly, in the 19th century the high creation was able to make the towns into the city, following in general the call of the cultural renaissance. In 1912, on the other hand, a prestigious association was created in favor of language, Domowina. “The meaning of the word is homeland. That is when we have the first steps to revitalize the crib, the first firm works to analyze the linguistic system”, says the professor.

Igartua has given us a picture of the Slavic languages before moving on: “On the one hand we have the Eastern languages: Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian; on the other hand we have the Southern languages: Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin and Macedonian”. And along with them, the Western languages divided into three groups: “One formed by Czech and Slovak; another formed by Polish, Cacubí and Polish lost in the 19th century, and, apart from that, the Sorabí, which has two literary languages, and several dialects and variants of transition”. Another thing is if they already have the recognition, and that's what the professor has tied to. “About 25 years ago, two people of Basque origin, always at the local level, received legal recognition, and they are officials: In Brandenburg the Lower Sorabi, the Upper Sorabi in Saxony.” Recognition has had a partial impact on administration and the media. They have written press, monolingual and television. However, legal recognition has had its greatest influence on education.

Educational program ‘Witaj’

It seems that the educational situation changed after World War II. “In East Germany, these regions were left under the Soviet Union and integrated into education.” On the one hand, a bilingual model was put in place for those who were born, while for those who were not, a teaching was established that would guarantee a minimum knowledge of the deaf-open person. They've recently taken a step further since the 1990s: the system of immersion. His name is Witaj. Program “Ongi etorri”, that is, “welcome to language, welcome to culture”. It is integrated between secondary and early childhood education studies. As the guessman knows, the Witaj project has good results in terms of high creation and is insufficient in terms of low deafness, as its state is so weak. At the end of the 19th century, there were 150,000 Sorbians. At present, 20,000, as noted above. Germanization, industrialization, prohibitions of persecution in the Nazi era... There have been several factors. Currently, the main goal is to keep the number of speakers and, secondly, to win the new speakers.

Say the Future

In the professor ' s view, the sorbibles would only want to go down a narrow and abrupt path. “They have no strength, everything or almost everything, they have weakness.” They have the least number of speakers among the Slavic languages. However, in the eyes of the linguist they are shown to be attractive: “They have never been a large community, they are in part unique and isolated – particularly far removed from the rest of the Slavic countries – which can be more visible with the maintenance of some features. Unlike most Slavic languages, they have retained the forms of the verbal past, and besides being singular and plural, they have a dual number, that of the denomination of two objects. Except for the two Sorabias, the other language does not.” The Slovenian, it must be said, has two and a half million speakers. “It is known that the Germanic have taken different elements, both in the lexicon, the syntax and in the phonology.” It is the result of a relationship that has been extended over the centuries, obviously, even if the influence is unidirectional, from German to Deaf.

From revitalization, seven powers are being made with regard to high creation, and the result appears in the new generations, derived from the educational system. “Among young people it seems that yes, the new speakers are winning at the top, even in trumpets. Sorabia's families send their sons and daughters to the bilingual model or dive. Another thing is that they are not Sorbian families, but there is also a certain movement there. There are families who complain that they do not have access to the world of the Sorabi or the Sorbí”. Igartua tells us about his reading in sociolinguistic surveys, as in the message of the future black promising Xabier's disbelief. That's Orixe, after all. “Let’s say the future / it was a people / or we will breathe for it to last.”

The size of Sorabre on the street

The non-conflicting language seems to be that there are two open languages. Despite the autonomous movements in the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the speakers have no courage or surprises. On the streets of the big cities it is hard to hear about sordoxia. In the event of a street measurement, the result would be zero percent. The truth of Ivan Igartua: “Something else would be in small towns. In cities, the mysticism should be around the institute, to listen to sorrow. Maybe.” In other words, we would not be sure there either.