Lekhitic languages
also spelled Lechitic group of West Slavic languages composed of Polish, Kashubian and its archaic variant Slovincian, and the extinct Polabian language. All these languages except Polish are sometimes classified as a Pomeranian subgroup.
In the early Middle
Ages, before their speakers had become Germanized, Pomeranian languages and
dialects were spoken along the Baltic in an area extending from the lower
Vistula River to the lower Oder River. Kashubian and Slovincian survived into
the 20th century; there were still a considerable number of native speakers of
Kashubian in Poland and Canada in the 1990s. The extinct Polabian language,
which bordered the Sorbian dialects in eastern Germany, was spoken by the Slavic
population of the Elbe River region until the 17th or 18th century; a dictionary
and some phrases written in the language exist.