History
About 2800 Polabian words are known (but of prosaic writings, only a few prayers, one wedding song and a few folktales). Immediately before the language went extinct several people started to collect phrases, compile wordlists and were engaged with folklore of the Polabian Slavs, but only one of them appears to have been a native speaker of Polabian (himself leaving only 13 pages of linguistically relevant material from a 310-page manuscript). The last native speaker of Polabian, a woman, died in 1756, and the last person who spoke limited Polabian died in 1825.
The most important monument of the language is the so-called Vocabularium Venedicum (1679—1719) by Christian Hennig.
The language left some traces to this day in toponymy; for example, Wustrow "Place on the island", Lüchow (Polabian: Ljauchüw), Sagard, Gartow etc. It is also a likely the origin of the name Berlin, from the Polabian stem berl-/birl- (“swamp”).
Read more about this topic: Polabian Language
Famous quotes containing the word history:
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...
the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
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asking the clay all questions but her own.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“To history therefore I must refer for answer, in which it would be an unhappy passage indeed, which should shew by what fatal indulgence of subordinate views and passions, a contest for an atom had defeated well founded prospects of giving liberty to half the globe.”
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“There is no history of how bad became better.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)