Locale Hsb De

Reference data for the Upper Sorbian (Germany) locale — endonym Hornjoserbšćina (Němska), written in the Latin script, left-to-right (LTR).

Identifiers

• BCP 47 tag: hsb-DE
• ISO 639-1: not assigned
• ISO 639-3: hsb
• Script: Latn (Latin)
• Region: DE (Germany)
• Text direction: ltr — left-to-right (LTR)

Speakers (approximate)

• L1 (native): 13,000
• L2 (additional): 7,000
• L1+L2 (total): 20,000

Pluralization

CLDR plural categories for this locale: one, two, few, other (4 forms).

• one — v = 0 and i % 100 = 1 or f % 100 = 1 (e.g. 1, 101, 201, 301, …)
• two — v = 0 and i % 100 = 2 or f % 100 = 2 (e.g. 2, 102, 202, 302, …)
• few — v = 0 and i % 100 = 3..4 or f % 100 = 3..4 (e.g. 3, 4, 103, 104, …)
• other — everything else (e.g. 0, 5~19, 100, 1000, …)

See Unicode Messageformat for writing plural messages using these categories.

Translating into this locale

Upper Sorbian (hornjoserbsce, hsb) is a West Slavic language spoken in Upper Lusatia, Saxony. It is a minority language of Germany with its own norms and a stronger institutional base than Lower Sorbian (Sorbian Institute, Domowina, Witaj). This guidance is lower-confidence; have a native reviewer check it.

Translate ideas, not words.

• Translate into Upper Sorbian rather than copying German word order and German loanwords. Use Sorbian terminology where it exists.
• Re-express idioms by meaning.

Grammar.

• Upper Sorbian has the dual number in nouns, pronouns, and verbs in addition to singular and plural; use the dual when two things or people are meant.
• Seven cases; adjectives and nouns agree; verbs have perfective and imperfective aspect.

Register.

• "Ty" is the informal singular, "wy" the polite form and plural. Public-facing text uses "wy".

Orthography and typography.

• Alphabet: Latin with diacritics (č, ć, dź, ě, ł, ń, ó, ř, š, ž); never strip them.
• Quotation marks „…“; decimal comma; euro.

Common pitfalls

• Dropping the dual or the diacritics.
• Translating through German.
• Mixing Upper and Lower Sorbian forms.

Learn more

• Locale for BCP 47 identifiers, locale-sensitive formatting, pluralization, and text-direction concepts that apply across all locales.
• Unicode Messageformat for writing plural/selection messages correctly for this locale's grammar.
• Serbski institut / Sorbisches Institut (https://www.serbski-institut.de)
• Domowina (https://www.domowina.sorben.com)