Sorbisch lernen digital: Sprachressourcen im Internet Zehn Jahre niedersorbisch.de als Sprachportal

Abstract

Learning Sorbian Digitally: Language Resources on the Internet. Ten years of the Language Portal niedersorbisch.de

Lower Sorbian is a Western Slavonic minority language under great threat. Current attempts to revitalize the language are strained to their limits by continuing falls in the number of speakers, as well as by a lack of well-trained teachers. Hope of maintaining the language therefore rests on a growing number of engaged individuals who are willing to learn, whether as teachers or new learners of the language, by helping them to create their own programme for improving their knowledge of the language and thereby reach a high linguistic level enabling them to communicate in everyday life. Against this background, the article describes the digital linguistic resources which have been created in the last ten years and made accessible on the Internet, above all with the intention of enabling independent language learning, as well as of promoting the active use of Lower Sorbian. To do this, the Lower Sorbian language portal, www.dolnoserbski.de, provides the main resource.