Erkner ( German pronunciation: [ˈɛʁknɐ] ) is a town in the Oder-Spree District of Brandenburg , Germany , located on the south-eastern edge of the German capital city Berlin .
31-633: The town is located between the lakes Dämeritzsee , a part of the river Spree , and Flakensee, surrounded by a mainly forested landscape. Neighbouring municipalities are Woltersdorf in the north, Grünheide (Mark) in the east, Gosen-Neu Zittau in the south and Berlin in the west. In 1579, Erkner was first mentioned in the Rüdersdorf church records as "Arckenow", a fishermen's place of residence ( „Mittwoch s post Convers, Pauli hat Hans der Fischer im Arckenow taufen lassen Und ist genant Maria.“ ). This field name developed to Erkenau-Erkener-Erkner. Until 1701
62-498: A Mulberry plantation with 1,500 trees, of which only one is still standing in today's Friedrichstraße. From 1815 to 1947, Erkner was part of the Prussian Province of Brandenburg . The village grew up to 260 inhabitants in 1805. At this time Erkner was a barge-men's village with several localities: „The Erkner“, Neu Buchhorst, Schönschornstein, Alte Hausstelle, Hohenbinde, Jägerbude and until 1884 Woltersdorfer Schleuse. Along
93-449: A number of trends that go against language vitality. There are policies that have led to "unstable diglossia ". There has been a loss of language domains in which speakers have the option to use either language, and there is a disruption of the patterns by which the Sorbian language has traditionally been transmitted to the next generation. Also, there is no strong written tradition and there
124-541: A single language which later diverged to two major dialects, others consider these dialects two separate languages. There exist significant differences in phonology , morphology , and lexicon between them. Several characteristics in Upper Sorbian language indicate a close proximity to Czech language which again are absent in Lower Sorbian language . According to some researchers the archaeological data cannot confirm
155-619: A stretch of about 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of and flowing through Fürstenwalde, the river forms part of the Oder-Spree Canal . On this reach, and on the reach west of the confluence with the River Dahme at Köpenick, the river forms part of secondary commercial link between Berlin and the River Oder and hence Poland . The canal diverges from the Spree just east of Fürstenwalde and later joins
186-691: Is wen . The two Sorbian languages, each having its own literary standard , are Upper Sorbian ( hornjoserbsce ), spoken by about 20,000–25,000 people in Saxony , and Lower Sorbian ( dolnoserbski ), spoken by about 7,000 people in Brandenburg . The area where the two languages are spoken is known as Lusatia ( Łužica in Upper Sorbian, Łužyca in Lower Sorbian, or Lausitz in German ). After
217-767: Is a river in Germany and the Czech Republic . With a length of approximately 400 kilometres (250 mi), it is the main tributary of the Havel River. The Spree is much longer than the Havel, which it flows into at Berlin - Spandau ; the Havel then flows into the Elbe at Havelberg . The river rises in the Lusatian Highlands , in the Lusatian part of Saxony , where it has three sources:
248-561: Is an island in the Spree. In 2004 the Badeschiff floating swimming pool opened on the Spree in Berlin. Small craft, such as punts , are widely used in wetlands of the Spreewald. Larger craft can reach as far upstream as Leibsch, although the upper reaches are relatively shallow and are generally only used by leisure craft. Some intermediate reaches are unnavigable and by-passed by canals. For
279-404: Is not a broadly accepted formal standardized form of the language(s). There is a perception of the loss of language rights, and there are negative attitudes towards the languages and their speakers. Both Upper and Lower Sorbian have the dual for nouns , pronouns , adjectives , and verbs ; very few living Indo-European languages retain this as a productive feature of the grammar. For example,
310-536: Is the centre of Upper Sorbian culture. Bilingual signs can be seen around the city, including the name of the city, "Bautzen/ Budyšin ". To the north, the city of Cottbus/Chóśebuz is considered the cultural centre of Lower Sorbian; there, too, bilingual signs are found. Sorbian was also spoken in the small Sorbian ("Wendish") settlement of Serbin in Lee County, Texas , however no speakers remain there. Until 1949, newspapers were published in Sorbian. The local dialect
341-775: Is the main river of Berlin, Brandenburg, Lusatia, and the settlement area of the Sorbs , who call the river Sprjewja ; the name derives ultimately from Proto-Germanic * spreutaną "to spring forth". For a very short distance close to its sources, the Spree constitutes, as Spréva , the border between Germany and the Czech Republic . The Spree's longest tributaries are Dahme (confluence in Berlin- Köpenick ) and Schwarzer Schöps ( Čorny Šepc ; confluence in Boxberg/O.L. - Sprey [ de ] ), other well-known tributaries (since they are Berlin rivers) are Panke and Wuhle . It rises in
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#1732852629630372-644: The Lusatian Mountains and flows north through Bautzen and Spremberg . In the Spreewald the river passes through the towns of Lübbenau , Lübben and Leibsch . Just below Leibsch, the Dahme Flood Relief Canal diverts water from the Spree to run into the River Dahme at Märkisch Buchholz . The Spree continues north from Leibsch before flowing into the Neuendorfer See at the northern edge of
403-690: The Sorbs , a West Slavic ethno-cultural minority in the Lusatia region of Eastern Germany . They are classified under the West Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages and are therefore closely related to the other two West Slavic subgroups: Lechitic and Czech–Slovak . Historically, the languages have also been known as Wendish (named after the Wends , the earliest Slavic people in modern Poland and Germany) or Lusatian . Their collective ISO 639 -2 code
434-695: The German writer and later Nobel laureate Gerhard Hauptmann lived in Erkner, incorporating several local people and places into his stories. His three sons were born at this time. In 1888, the town officially adopted the name Erkner. The Catholic parish St. Boniface Erkner was founded in 1910. From 1947 to 1952, Erkner was part of the State of Brandenburg , from 1952 to 1990 of the Bezirk Frankfurt of East Germany and since 1990 again of Brandenburg. On June 6, 1998 Erkner
465-437: The River Dahme at the (lake) Seddinsee . In Berlin, the Spree forms part of a dense network of navigable waterways, many of which are artificial, and which provide a wide choice of routes. Several important commercial harbors can be found on this network, and tugs and barges move sand, grain, bricks, and beer. Tour boats tour the central section of the Spree and its adjoining waterways on a frequent basis. Many people died in
496-485: The Sorbian homelands, there has also been a decrease in Sorbian identity and language use. In 2008, Sorbs protested three kinds of pressures against Sorbs: "(1.) the destruction of Sorbian and German-Sorbian villages as a result of lignite mining; (2.) the cuts in the network of Sorbian schools in Saxony; (3.) the reduction of financial resources for the Sorbian institutions by central government." A study of Upper Sorbian found
527-559: The Sorbs and the Milceni , further south (see Sorbian March ). The exact origin of the Sorbian language is uncertain. While some linguists consider it to be a transitory language between Lechitic and other non-Lechitic languages of West Slavic languages , others like Heinz Schuster-Šewc consider it a separate dialectical group of Proto-Slavic which is a mixture of Proto-Lechitic and South Slavic languages . Furthermore, while some consider it
558-533: The Spree during the Cold War while trying to cross the Berlin Wall , including children who drowned when rescuers were not allowed to enter the river to save them. Sorbian languages The Sorbian languages ( Upper Sorbian : serbska rěč , Lower Sorbian : serbska rěc ) are the Upper Sorbian language and Lower Sorbian language , two closely related and partially mutually intelligible languages spoken by
589-809: The Spree is where it is best known. It flows through the city centre of Berlin to join the River Havel in Spandau , one of Berlin's western boroughs, which itself ultimately merges with the Elbe to enter the sea in Cuxhaven , after flowing through Hamburg . On its route through Berlin, the river passes Berlin Cathedral ( Berliner Dom ), the Reichstag and the Schloss Charlottenburg . The renowned Museum Island ( Museumsinsel ), with its collection of five major museums ,
620-572: The Spreewald. From the Neundorfer See it then flows in an easterly direction to the Schwielochsee , and then in a northerly and westerly direction to the town of Fürstenwalde . From Fürstenwalde the river continues to flow westwards, through the Dämeritzsee and Müggelsee , to Köpenick in the southeastern part of Berlin , where it is joined by its tributary, the River Dahme. The final reach of
651-472: The end of the 19th century. In 1842, the Berlin-Frankfurt Railway opened with a stop in Erkner, which was upgraded to a railway station the following year due to the large number of excursionists from Berlin. From 1846, this railway connected Berlin via Erkner with Breslau and thereby two important industrial areas of Prussia . The industrialisation of Erkner began in 1860 with the founding of
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#1732852629630682-634: The first Continental European tar production unit by Julius Rütgers. In 1909, the world's first industrialised production of Plastics ( Bakelite ) began on his premises in cooperation with Leo Baekeland . On May 25, 1910 the Bakelite Gesellschaft m.b.H. Berlin-Erkner ( Link to German Misplaced Pages ) was founded here. A few months later, on October 10, Baekeland founded the General Bakelite Company in Perth Amboy , New Jersey. From 1885 to 1889
713-771: The historical one called Spreeborn in the village of Spreedorf [ de ] , the water-richest one in Neugersdorf , and the highest elevated one in Eibau . The Spree then flows northwards through Upper and Lower Lusatia , where it crosses the border between Saxony and Brandenburg . After passing through Cottbus , it forms the Spree Forest ( German : Spreewald ), a large inland delta and biosphere reserve. It then flows through Lake Schwielochsee before entering Berlin, as Müggelspree [ de ] ( pronounced [ˈmʏɡl̩ˌʃpʁeː] ). The Spree
744-458: The language suffered official discrimination. Bible translations into Sorbian provided the foundations for its writing system. In Germany, Upper and Lower Sorbian are officially recognized and protected as minority languages. In the officially defined Sorbian settlement area , both languages are recognized as second official languages next to German. The city of Bautzen in Upper Lusatia
775-559: The present day. For people living in the medieval Northern Holy Roman Empire and its precursors, especially for the Saxons , the Wends ( Wende ) were heterogeneous groups and tribes of Slavic peoples living near Germanic settlement areas, in the area west of the River Oder , an area later entitled Germania Slavica , settled by the Polabian Slav tribes in the north and by others, such as
806-500: The settlement of the formerly Germanic territories (the part largely corresponding to the former East Germany ) by the Slavic ancestors of the Sorbs in the 5th and 6th centuries CE, the Sorbian language (or its predecessors) had been in use in much of what was the southern half of Eastern Germany for several centuries. The language still had its stronghold in (Upper and Lower) Lusatia, where it enjoys national protection and fostering to
837-633: The settlement only had seven houses. This changed in 1712, when a coaching inn for the new Post road from Berlin to Frankfurt (Oder) was built. As of 1748, three Palatine farming families settled "on the Buchhorst" (a locality within Erkner). Later they moved their homesteads to the present-day Buchhorster Straße. One of those homesteads now houses the Heimatmuseum (local history museum) with Erkner's oldest house. In 1752, Prussian king Friedrich II installed
868-413: The thesis about a single linguistic group yet supports the claim about two separated ethno-cultural groups with different ancestry whose respective territories correspond to Tornow-type ceramics (Lower Sorbian language) and Leipzig-type ceramics (Upper Sorbian language), both derivations of Prague culture . Outside Lusatia, the Sorbian language has been superseded by German . From the 13th century on,
899-431: The waterways between the rivers Oder , Spree , Havel and Elbe , were mass transports of lime , coal and other materials from the limestone mine in nearby Rüdersdorf to Berlin and from the industrial areas of Silesia to Berlin respectively. In 1822, two thirds of the families had a barge-men as head of the household. Supported also by five wharfs in the village, this profession continued to be important for Erkner until
930-616: Was heavily influenced by surrounding speakers of German and English . The German terms "Wends" ( Wenden ) and "Wendish" ( wendisch/Wendisch ) once denoted "Slav(ic)" generally; they are today mostly replaced by "Sorbs" ( Sorben ) and "Sorbian" ( sorbisch/Sorbisch ) with reference to Sorbian communities in Germany. The use of Sorbian languages has been contracting for a number of years. The loss of Sorbian language use in emigrant communities, such as in Serbin, Texas , has not been surprising. But within
961-767: Was the first town in Eastern Germany to be granted city rights after the German Reunification . Erkner is a twin town of Gołuchów in the Greater Poland Voivodeship . [REDACTED] Media related to Erkner at Wikimedia Commons Spree (river) The Spree ( / ʃ p r eɪ , s p r eɪ / S(H)PRAY , German: [ʃpʁeː] ; Sorbian languages : Sprjewja , Lower Sorbian: [ˈsprʲɛwʲa] , Upper Sorbian: [ˈspʁʲɛwʲa] ; Czech : Spréva [ˈsprɛːva] ; in Lower Sorbian also called Rěka )