Comparison of UPPER SORBIAN and LOWER SORBIAN
Hey @languagemoose ! Here you go, as I promised!
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Upper and Lower Sorbian both have their own alphabet. They are generally similar, with a few differences as to the existence of one letter in either language.
The letter “Ź” is fairly common in Lower Sorbian, however, in Upper Sorbian, “ź” only exists in the digraph “dź”, and will never be found standing on its own, without the “d” (pun not intended), in a word. It is generally not treated as a separate letter in Upper Sorbian, and as far as I know it is not taught as part of the alphabet either.
The letter “Ř” onlx exists in Upper Sorbian. Contrary to what you Czech speakers and learners might be thinking now, the letter is not pronounced like the “Eř” (Erzh), but rather like “Š”. Now you may argue that it was pointless to have the “Ř” in Upper Sorbian if it’s pronounced like “Š” anyway, however, the Upper Sorbians must have had some reason as to why they added it to their alphabet.
This letter is unique to Upper Sorbian only, while Lower Sorbian just commonly substitute it with “Š”. (Smart, I know, right?)
The letter “Ŕ” is unique to Lower Sorbian only. It is pronounced something like [rʲ]. Sorry if you can’t read IPA, I just didn’t find any other way to explain it. (If it makes you feel better, I can also just read very few IPA characters.)
The letter “Ś” is also unique to Lower Sorbian. Upper Sorbian uses “Š” in any case where “Š” and “Ś” are used in Lower Sorbian. (Yes, Lower Sorbian also uses “Š”.)
Now the “W” is used in both, Lower and Upper Sorbian. While the Upper Sorbs pronounce it like a “V” and sometimes like an “F”, in Lower Sorbian it is pronounced “V” or just remains silent. It mostly occurs that, when “W” stands in the beginning of a word, it is pronounced like a “V”. When preceded by vowels such as “O”, it remains silent, which in this case means it may be pronounced like the English “W” or actually just be silent. I know, Lower Sorbian is messed up.
It is generally believed, that Upper Sorbian is closer to Czech and Slovak, while Lower Sorbian is closer to Polish. Geographically speaking this makes perfect sense, however, I personally feel that both, Upper and Lower Sorbian are closer to Polish in a GENERAL context, while Upper Sorbian of course has more Czech and Slovak influences than Lower Sorbian does. In the long run however, I still see more similarity between Polish and the two Sorbian languages, than Czech and the two Sorbian languages.
VOCABULARY AND GRAMMATICAL DIFFERENCES
UPPER SORBIAN - LOWER SORBIAN
Dobre ranje - Dobre zajtšo (Good morning)
Dobry dźeń - Dobry źeń (Good day/afternoon)
Dobry wječor - Dobry wjacor (Good evening)
Witaj - Witaj (Informal) (Welcome)
Witajće - Witajšo (Formal) (Welcome)
Dobru nóc - Dobru noc (Good night)
Hač do jutřišeno - Až do witśego (See you tomorrow)
Rjany dźeń - Rědny žeń (Have a good day)
To je moja mać - To jo moja maś (This is my mother)
To staj mojej staršej - To stej mojej starjejšej (These are my parents | This is dual mode by the way)
Přećel - Pšijaśel (Boyfriend)
Dźakuju so - Žekujom se (Thank you)
Rjane jutry - Rědne jatšy (Happy Easter)
Wjele zboža k narodninam - Wjele gluki k narodnemu dnju** (Happy Birthday)
**I just really feel like pointing out how Lower Sorbian turned German “Glück” for “Luck” into “Gluki”, and how it sounds adorable.
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I hope I could help you understand the differences, or at least explain how they differ from one another. One thing we have to be clear about here though is that they are TWO DIFFERENT languages, and not two versions of the same language. Basically they are like Catalan and Occitan, maybe just a little bit closer than those two actually, but you get what I mean. We tend to use the Schirmbegriff “Sorbian” very often and talk about Sorbian as a language, however, Sorbian is the language branch, and Upper Sorbian is one language belonging to it, while Lower Sorbian is another language inside it. So just as a friendly advice to all of you out there, do not call Upper and Lower Sorbian the same language, it is wrong.
Thanks for the question, @languagemoose! :)
