The Sorbs are a small, Slavonic minority residing in the region known as Lusatia, primarily Eastern Germany. Once a part of the Wends (also known as Polabians), a greater group of Western Slavs, they are now the last remnant of those ancient tribes. Today, they are one of the four recognized national minorities within Germany. Unlike many minorities, they have never had a true nation of their own, in the past or the present. Their existence has almost always been subject to outside cultures, usually the Germans. Despite having assimilated certain cultural traditions from the Germans, Poles, and Czechs over time, the Sorbs have managed to maintain their own sense of culture and tradition that still survives today. Their origins are relatively…show more content… In 1848, nationalistic and liberal revolts popped up all across Europe, but the Sorbs chose to remain loyal to their Saxon and Prussian overlords during this period, in hopes that they would be rewarded for this loyalty, and granted new privileges as a result. While some of these privileges were eventually received, the biggest changes came in an internal, cultural shift. The crown prince and future king of Saxony, Albert von Wettin was known to have personally studied Sorbian at this time, which is credited with helping elevate the status of the language past something that only poor Slavic peasants spoke (Stone 1972, 25). At this time small, Sorbian nationalist student associations began springing up around Lusatia, with the goal of preserving their culture and language. The first rule of the charter of the Serbowka, one of the largest of these associations, was to: “improve knowledge of the mother-tongue, and inspire patriotism”. It was these student societies that Gerald Stone credits with forming the core of future Sorbian…show more content… 40,000 of those being Upper Sorbs, and the remaining 20,000 being Lower Sorbs. This number includes all people who consider themselves to be ethnically Sorbian, and those who have some basic Sorbian language ability. However, this number is probably not accurate, as the German government no longer collects detailed population information on minorities (Cunningham 2013, 29). Because of this, it is difficult to know if the Sorbian language and culture has been maintaining itself or shrinking, and has been left to speculation by academics. Veeramah et al. suggests that there were around 25,000 total speakers of the language in
