Polabian language

The Polabian language was a West Slavic language that was spoken by the Polabian Slavs (German: Wenden) in present-day northeastern Germany around the Elbe (Łaba/Laba/Labe in Slavic) river, from which derives its name ("po Labe" – unto Elbe or [traveling] on Elbe). It was spoken approximately until the rise to power of Prussia in mid-18th century – when it was superseded by Low German – in the areas of Pomoré (Mecklenburg-West Pomerania), compare the related Morini and Veneti of Armorica), central (Mittelmark) part of Branibor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 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.[1] In the south, it bordered on the Sorbian language area in Lusatia.

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. (June 2012) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Russian article. Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 2,534 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Wikipedia article at [[:ru:Полабский язык]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|ru|Полабский язык}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Polabian
Slüvensťă rec / Vensťĕ
The first page of Vocabularium Venedicum
Pronunciation	/slyˈvɛˑn.stʲɐ rɛt͡s/
Native to	Germany
Extinct	18th century
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic West Slavic Lechitic Polabian
Language codes
ISO 639-3	pox
Linguist List	pox
Glottolog	pola1255
Linguasphere	53-AAA-bc
Grey: Former settlement area of the Polabian Slavs. Green: Uninhabited forest areas. Darker shade just indicates higher elevation.

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 a handful of manuscripts, dictionaries and various writings from the 17th and 18th centuries.