Wends, the name given by the Germans to a branch of the Slavs (q.v.) which, as early as the 6th century, occupied the north and east of Germany from the Elbe along the coast of the Baltic to the Vistula, and as far south as Bohemia. They were divided into several tribes, which were successively subdued by the Germans, and either extirpated or gradually Germanised and absorbed more or less perfectly. In a narrower sense the name of Wends is given to those remnants of the Slavic population of Lusatia (q.v.) who still speak the Wendish tongue, and preserve their peculiar manners and customs. Of these Lusatian Wends or Sorbs, Upper and Lower, there were in 1889 in Saxony 56,000, in Prussia 103,000. Outside Lusatia there were 3400 in Saxony, 1000 in Prussia, 3000 in foreign parts.
Of the language there are grammars by Seiler (1830), Jordan (1841), F. Schneider (1853), Pfuhl (1867), and Liebsch (1884); dictionaries by K. Bose (1840), Zwahr (1847). Schmaler's Volkslieder der Wenden (2 vols. 1843) is more trustworthy than Veckenstedt's Wendische Sagen, Märchen, &c. (1879). See also L. Giesebrecht, Wendische Geschichten aus den Jahren 780-1182 (3 vols. 1841-43); R. Andree, Das Sprachgebiet der Lausitzer Wenden (1873); Schulenberg, Wend. Volkstum (1882); and Mucke, Statistik der Lausitzer Wenden (1886).