Lusatia - Sorbian-Lusatian People

Sorbian-Lusatian People

More than 60,000 of the Sorbian Slavic minority continue to live in the region. Historically their ancestors are the Serbs and possibly Milceni, that settled in the region between Elbe and Saale. Many still speak their language (though numbers are dwindling and Lower Sorbian especially is considered endangered), and road signs are usually bilingual. However, note that the number of all the inhabitants of this part of eastern Saxony is fast declining, 20% in the last 10 to 15 years. Sorbians try to protect their typical culture shown in traditional clothes and the style of village houses. The coal industry in the region, needing vast areas of land, destroyed dozens of Lusatian villages in the past and threatens some of them even now. The Sorbian language is taught in many primary and some secondary schools and at two universities (Leipzig and Prague). Project "Witaj" ("welcome!") is a project of eight preschools where Sorbian is currently the main language for a few hundred Lusatian children.

There is a daily newspaper in the Sorbian language (Serbske Nowiny); a Sorbian radio station (Serbski Rozhłós) uses local frequencies of two otherwise German speaking radio stations for several hours a day. There are very limited programs on television (once a month) in Sorbian on two regional television stations (RBB and MDR TV).