92-761: The Electoral Palatinate ( German : Kurpfalz ) or the Palatinate ( Pfalz ), officially the Electorate of the Palatinate ( Kurfürstentum Pfalz ), was a constituent state of the Holy Roman Empire . The electorate had its origins under the rulership of the Counts Palatine of Lotharingia in 915; it was then restructured under the Counts Palatine of the Rhine in 1085. From 1214 until
184-465: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it
276-402: A second language , and 75–100 million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90 million people, or 16% of
368-612: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become
460-559: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from
552-458: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained
644-696: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In
736-483: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it
828-717: Is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and
920-601: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as
1012-612: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German
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#17327655257251104-558: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic
1196-478: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German
1288-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25 million speak it as
1380-535: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in
1472-611: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as
1564-565: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are
1656-524: Is marked by the rule of Elector Palatine Frederick V , whose coronation as king of Bohemia in 1619 sparked the Thirty Years' War . After the 1648 Peace of Westphalia , the ravaged lands were further afflicted by the Reunion campaigns launched by King Louis XIV of France, culminating in the Nine Years' War (1688–97). Ruled in personal union with the Electorate of Bavaria from 1777, the Palatinate
1748-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and
1840-597: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as
1932-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German
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#17327655257252024-525: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c. 1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period
2116-578: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish
2208-485: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers
2300-689: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to
2392-639: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as
2484-537: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share
2576-417: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language
2668-632: The Ezzonid dynasty governed several counties on both banks of the river. The southernmost point was near Alzey . From about 1085/86, after the death of the last Ezzonian count palatine Herman II , Palatinate authority ceased to have any military significance in Lotharingia. In practice, the Count Palatinate's Palatine authority had collapsed, reducing his successor ( Henry of Laach ) to a mere feudal magnate over his own territories – along
2760-455: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout
2852-688: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in
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2944-654: The House of Salm (Count Otto I of Salm in 1040) and the House of Babenberg ( Henry Jasomirgott in 1140/41). The first hereditary Count Palatine of the Rhine was Conrad , a member of the House of Hohenstaufen and younger half-brother of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa . The territories attached to this hereditary office in 1156 started from those held by the Hohenstaufens in the Donnersberg , Nahegau , Haardt , Bergstraße and Kraichgau regions (other branches of
3036-666: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c. 765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in
3128-676: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung
3220-550: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit. ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this
3312-642: The University of Heidelberg , the oldest University in Germany . In 1400, the Elector Palatine, Rupert III , was elected as King of the Romans , but he was never crowned as Holy Roman Emperor because he was defeated in Italy while attempting to travel to Rome for a coronation. Due to the practice of dividing territories among different branches of the family, by the early 16th century junior lines of
3404-513: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German
3496-631: The orb represented their position as Arch- Steward of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1806, Baden was raised to a grand duchy and parts of the former Palatinate including Mannheim became part of it. At the Congress of Vienna in 1814 and 1815, southern parts of the left-bank Palatinate were restored and enlarged by mediatisation (consuming the former Prince-Bishopric of Speyer , the Free Imperial City of Speyer , and others) up to
3588-469: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from
3680-649: The Electoral Palatinate was merged into the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1805, the House of Wittelsbach provided the Counts Palatine or Electors. These counts palatine of the Rhine would serve as prince-electors ( Kurfürsten ) from "time immemorial", and were noted as such in a papal letter of 1261; they were confirmed as electors by the Golden Bull of 1356 . The territory stretched from
3772-723: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In
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3864-748: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of
3956-536: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of
4048-451: The German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of
4140-681: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by
4232-532: The Hohenstaufens received lands in the Duchy of Swabia , Franche-Comté , and so forth). Much of this was from their imperial ancestors, the Salian emperors, and apart from Conrad's maternal ancestry, the Counts of Saarbrücken . These backgrounds explain the composition of Upper and Rhenish Palatinate in the inheritance centuries onwards. About 1182, Conrad moved his residence from Stahleck Castle near Bacharach up
4324-655: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are
4416-865: The Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ), the Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German
4508-408: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c. thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c. 1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy
4600-555: The Palatinate married Philippe of Orléans , younger brother of Louis XIV ; on this basis, Louis claimed the Rhineland territories of the Palatinate for France. However, he was outmaneuvered by Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor , whose third wife was Eleonore-Magdalena of Pfalz-Neuburg , eldest daughter of Philip William , a Catholic who was the closest male heir in the direct line. Leopold installed his father-in-law as Elector Palatine, ensuring that his electoral vote and this strategic region remained in Imperial control. When France invaded
4692-411: The Palatinate in September 1688 to enforce its claim, these wider connections meant the conflict rapidly escalated, leading to the outbreak of the Nine Years' War . The French were forced to withdraw in 1689 but before doing so, destroyed much of Heidelberg, another 20 substantial towns and numerous villages. This destruction was systematically applied across a large section of the Rhineland but especially
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#17327655257254784-442: The Palatinate restored to her son Charles Louis and the Protestant cause. When the Peace of Westphalia ended the war in 1648, he regained the Lower Palatinate and the title 'Elector Palatine' but now ranked lower in precedence than the others. He was succeeded by Charles II, Elector Palatine , in 1680, but the Simmern branch became extinct in the male line after he died in 1685. In 1670, Charles II's sister Elizabeth Charlotte of
4876-405: The Palatinate territories until 1918. During a later division of territory among the heirs of Duke Louis II, Duke of Upper Bavaria , in 1294, the elder branch of the Wittelsbachs came into possession of both the Rhenish Palatinate and the territories in the Bavarian Nordgau (Bavaria north of the Danube river) with the centre around the town of Amberg . As this region was politically connected to
4968-401: The Palatinate, which was raided again in 1693; the devastation shocked much of Europe. France later renounced its claim to the region in the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick . Johann Wilhelm succeeded as elector in 1690, changing his residence first to Düsseldorf , then back to Heidelberg and finally Mannheim in 1720. Like his father, he was a Catholic, which under the 1555 Peace of Augsburg meant
5060-414: The Palatinate. By marriage, the Palatinate's arms also became quartered with those of Welf and later Wittelsbach. The arms of Bavaria were used with reference to the elector's holdings in Bavaria. This was extended to quartering of the lion and the Bavarian Arms upon the ascension of Maximilian I to the position of elector of the Palatinate in 1623, used concurrently with the arms shown. From 1356 onwards,
5152-415: The Palatine Wittelsbachs came to rule in Simmern , Kaiserslautern , and Zweibrücken in the Lower Palatinate, and in Neuburg and Sulzbach in the Upper Palatinate. The Elector Palatine, now based in Heidelberg, adopted Lutheranism in the 1530s; when the senior branch of the family died out in 1559, the electorate passed to Frederick III of Simmern, a staunch Calvinist , and the Palatinate became one of
5244-490: The Protestant majority in the Palatinate was theoretically obliged to convert to Catholicism. The 1705 'Palatine Church Division' compromised by allocating five-sevenths of public church property to the Reformed or Calvinist church and the remainder to Catholicism, while excluding the Lutheran Church, whose membership exceeded 40% of the population in some areas. In 1716, Charles Philip succeeded his brother as elector and in January 1742, helped his cousin Charles Albert become
5336-401: The Rhenish Palatinate, the name Upper Palatinate ( German : Oberpfalz ) became common from the early 16th century in contrast to the Lower Palatinate along the Rhine. With the Treaty of Pavia in 1329, the Wittelsbach Emperor Louis IV , a son of Louis II, returned the Palatinate to his nephews Rudolf and Rupert I . In the Golden Bull of 1356 , the Palatinate was recognized as one of
5428-468: The Rhine ) in a pre-arranged exchange for Tyrol , which Bavaria returned to Austria. Most of the area remained a part of Bavaria until after the Second World War (after 1918 the Free State of Bavaria ), with some western parts becoming part of the Territory of the Saar Basin after World War I. In September 1946 the territory was made part of the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate , along with former left bank territories of Prussia (southern part of
5520-473: The Rhine Province, including the former Principality of Birkenfeld which had been an exclave of Oldenburg until 1937, and western parts of the Province of Nassau ) and Rhenish Hesse. The former Territory of the Saar Basin was reinstated and expanded to create the French Saar Protectorate , which returned to Germany in 1956 as the modern state of Saarland . German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] )
5612-535: The Rhine river to Heidelberg . Upon Conrad's death in 1195, the Palatinate passed to the House of Welf through the (secret) marriage of his daughter Agnes with Henry of Brunswick . When Henry's son Henry the Younger died without heirs in 1214, the Hohenstaufen king Frederick II enfeoffed the Wittelsbach Duke Louis I of Bavaria , whose son, Otto II of Bavaria , married Agnes of the Palatinate , daughter of Henry of Brunswick and Agnes of Hohenstaufen , in 1222. The Bavarian House of Wittelsbach eventually held
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#17327655257255704-429: The Rhine'. The Palatine territories on the left bank of the Rhine were annexed by France in 1795, mainly becoming part of the Mont-Tonnerre department. In 1799 Elector Charles Theodore died and the territory was inherited by the Duke of Palatine Zweibrücken , uniting all the Wittelsbach lands. The loss of the left bank territories was accepted by the new Elector Maximilian Joseph in the Treaty of Paris . Those on
5796-413: The Upper Rhine in south-western Franconia. From this time on, his territory became known as the County Palatine of the Rhine (not because Palatine authority existed there, but as an acknowledgement that the Count still held the title, if not the authority, of Count Palatine). Various noble dynasties competed to be enfeoffed with the Palatinate by the Holy Roman Emperor – among them the House of Ascania ,
5888-430: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with
5980-404: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in
6072-435: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of
6164-403: The first non-Habsburg emperor in over 300 years. He died in December and the Palatinate passed to Charles Theodore , then Duke of Sulzbach , who also inherited the Electorate of Bavaria in 1777. The title and authority of the two electorates were combined, Charles and his heirs retaining only the vote and precedence of the Bavarian elector, although continuing to use the title 'Count Palatine of
6256-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,
6348-417: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of
6440-493: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Herman I, Count Palatine of Lotharingia Herman I (died 996), called Pusillus or the Slender , was the Count Palatine of Lotharingia , and of several counties along the Rhine , including Bonngau, Eifelgau , Mieblgau, Zülpichgau, Keldachgau, Alzey and Auelgau, from 945 until his death in 996. He
6532-412: The left bank of the Upper Rhine , from the Hunsrück mountain range in what is today the Palatinate region in the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the adjacent parts of the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine (bailiwick of Seltz from 1418 to 1766) to the opposite territory on the east bank of the Rhine in present-day Hesse and Baden-Württemberg up to the Odenwald range and
6624-766: The major centers of Calvinism in Europe, supporting Calvinist rebellions in both the Netherlands and France . Elector Frederick IV became the leader of the Protestant Union in 1608. In 1619, the Protestant Frederick V , Elector Palatine, accepted the throne of Bohemia from the Bohemian Diet . This initiated the 1618–1648 Thirty Years' War , one of the most destructive conflicts in human history; it caused over eight million fatalities from military action, violence, famine, and plague in
6716-672: The most important of the Counts Palatine. Marital alliances meant that, by the Middle Ages, most Count Palatine positions had been inherited by the duke of the associated province, but the importance of the Count Palatine of Lotharingia enabled it to remain as an independent position. In 985, Herman I , a scion of the Ezzonids , is mentioned as count palatine of Lotharingia (which by then had been divided into Upper and Lower Lotharingia ). While his Palatine authority operated over
6808-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted
6900-644: The new border with France, and given (temporarily) to the Habsburg Austrian Empire ; after this time, it was this new region that was principally known as "the Palatinate". The right-bank Palatinate remained with Baden while northern parts became part of Prussia ( Rhine Province ) and Hesse ( Rhenish Hesse ). In 1816, the Palatinate became a formal part of the Wittelsbach Kingdom of Bavaria (the Rheinkreis or Circle of
6992-653: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from
7084-503: The period 1621–1622, the Palatinate was occupied by Spanish and Bavarian troops and Frederick was exiled to the Dutch Republic . His territories and electoral rights were transferred to the distantly related but Catholic Maximilian I of Bavaria , Duke of Bavaria and now Prince Elector Palatine After his death in 1632, Frederick's daughter Princess Elizabeth and wife Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia , worked tirelessly to have
7176-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation
7268-463: The right were taken by the Elector of Baden , after the 1805 Peace of Pressburg dissolved the Holy Roman Empire; the remaining Wittelsbach territories were united by Maximilian Joseph as the Kingdom of Bavaria . In 1156 Conrad of Hohenstaufen , brother of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, became Count Palatine. The old coat of arms of the House of Hohenstaufen , the single lion, became coat of arms of
7360-439: The secular electorates, and given the hereditary offices of archsteward ( German : Erztruchseß , Latin : Archidapifer ) of the Empire and imperial vicar ( Reichsverweser ) of Franconia, Swabia, the Rhine, and southern Germany. From that time forth, the Count Palatine of the Rhine was usually known as the Elector Palatine ( German : Kurfürst von der Pfalz , Latin : Palatinus elector ). In 1386, Rupert I helped establish
7452-657: The semi-independent authority of the dukes (and their successors). Under the Merovingian dynasty , the position had been a purely appointed one, but by the Middle Ages had evolved into an hereditary one. Up to the tenth century, the Frankish empire was centered at the royal palace ( Pfalz ) in Aachen , in what had become the Carolingian kingdom of Lotharingia . Consequently, the Count Palatine of Lotharingia became
7544-529: The southern Kraichgau region, containing the capital cities of Heidelberg and Mannheim . The counts palatine of the Rhine held the office of imperial vicars in the territories under Frankish law (in Franconia , Swabia and the Rhineland ) and ranked among the most significant secular Princes of the Holy Roman Empire . In 1541 elector Otto Henry converted to Lutheranism . Their climax and decline
7636-546: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,
7728-500: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in
7820-520: The vast majority in the German states of the Holy Roman Empire. In terms of proportional German casualties and destruction, it was surpassed only by the period January to May 1945 and remains the single greatest war trauma in German memory. Frederick was evicted from Bohemia in 1620 following his defeat by the forces of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor , at the Battle of the White Mountain . Over
7912-526: The whole of Upper Lorraine , the feudal territories of his family were instead scattered around south-western Franconia, including parts of the Rhineland around Cologne and Bonn , and areas around the rivers Moselle and Nahe . In continual conflicts with the rivalling Archbishops of Cologne , he changed the emphasis of his rule to the southern Eifel region and further to the Upper Rhine, where
8004-555: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during
8096-600: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching
8188-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of
8280-547: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially
8372-492: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which
8464-519: Was finally disestablished with the German mediatization and annexation by Baden on 27 April 1803 and the rest eventually to the Kingdom of Bavaria as the Circle of the Rhine . The comital office of Count Palatine at the Frankish court of King Childebert I was already mentioned about 535. The Counts Palatine were the permanent representatives of the king in particular geographic areas, in contrast to
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