Wittenberg (district) in the context of "Jessen (Elster)"

Elster (Elbe) (German pronunciation: [ˈɛlstɐ] ) is a village and a former municipality in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany located in Wittenberg district. Since 1 January 2011, it is part of the town Zahna-Elster. From 2005 until 2011 it belonged to the administrative municipality (Verwaltungsgemeinschaft) of Elbaue-Fläming, before 2005 it belonged to the administrative community of Elster-Seyda-Klöden.

The Polabian language, also known as Drevanian–Polabian language, Drevanian language, and Lüneburg Wendish language, is a West Slavic language that was spoken by the Polabian Slavs (German: Wenden) in present-day northeastern Germany around the Elbe, from which comes the term Polabian. It was spoken approximately until the rise to power of Prussia in the mid-18th century – when it was superseded by Low German – in the areas of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, central Mittelmark part of Brandenburg and eastern Saxony-Anhalt (Wittenberg originally part of Bela Serbia), as well as in eastern parts of Wendland (Lower Saxony) and Schleswig-Holstein, Ostholstein and Lauenburg). Polabian was also relatively long (until the 16th century) spoken in and around the cities of Lübeck and Oldenburg. The very poorly attested Slavic dialects of Rügen seemed to have had more in common with Polabian than with Pomeranian varieties. In the south, it bordered on the Sorbian language area in Lusatia.

Polabian is characterized by the preservation of a number of archaic features, such as the presence of nasal vowels, a lack of metathesis of Proto-Slavic *TorT; the presence of an aorist and imperfect verb tenses, traces of the dual number, and some prosodic features, as well as by some innovations, including diphthongization of closed vowels, a shift of the vowels o to ö, ü and a to o; a softening of the consonants g, k in some positions to d', t', an occasional reduction of final vowels, and the formation of complex tenses, many which are associated with the influence of the German language. Polabian also has a large number of Middle Low German borrowings.