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121-746: German literature ( German : Deutschsprachige Literatur ) comprises those literary texts written in the German language . This includes literature written in Germany , Austria , the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium , Liechtenstein , Luxembourg , South Tyrol in Italy and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora . German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German , but there are some currents of literature influenced to

242-465: 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

363-402: 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

484-612: 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

605-401: A challenge to Hildebrand's story of exile — and placed elsewhere. The most widely accepted placing is after l. 57, after Hildebrand has challenged Hadubrand to take an old man's armour. This has the advantage that it seems to account for the extraneous quad Hiltibrant in ll. 49 and 58, which would normally be expected to introduce a new speaker and seem redundant (as well as hypermetrical) in

726-558: A considerable range of errors and misconceptions (Hildebrand and Hadubrand are seen as cousins, for example, who meet on the way to battle). Also, he did not recognize the text as verse, and its historical significance consequently remained unappreciated. Both the fact and the historical significance of the alliterative verse form were first recognized by the Brothers Grimm in their 1812 edition, which also showed improved transcription and understanding compared to Eckhart's, This

847-446: A good lord at home and that you were never exiled under this regime"). In these lines, as it stands, Hildebrand comments on Hadubrand's armour and contrasts his son's secure existence with his own exile. Such a measured observation perhaps seems out of keeping with the confrontational tone of the surrounding conversation. Many have suggested, therefore, that the lines should more correctly be given to Hadubrand — from his mouth they become

968-559: 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

1089-589: A greater or lesser degree by dialects (e.g. Alemannic ). Medieval German literature is literature written in Germany, stretching from the Carolingian dynasty ; various dates have been given for the end of the German literary Middle Ages, the Reformation (1517) being the last possible cut-off point. The Old High German period is reckoned to run until about the mid-11th century; the most famous works are

1210-437: A house founded by Anglo-Saxon missionaries . The manuscript pages now show a number of patches of discoloration. These are the results of attempts by earlier scholars to improve the legibility of the text with chemical agents. The manuscript's combination of Bavarian dialect and Anglo-Saxon palaeographic features make Fulda the only monastery where it could have been written. With its missionary links to North Germany, Fulda

1331-421: A longer story. The Hildebrandslied text is the work of two scribes, of whom the second wrote only seven and a half lines (11 lines of verse) at the beginning of the second leaf. The scribes are not the same as those of the body of the codex. The hands are mainly Carolingian minuscule . However, a number of features, including the wynn -rune (ƿ) used for w suggest Old English influence, not surprising in

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1452-460: A malformed line. Earlier scholars envisaged an Old Saxon original, but an Old High German original is now universally accepted. The errors in the Old Saxon features suggest that the scribe responsible for the dialect mixture was not thoroughly familiar with the dialect. Forms such as heittu (l.17) and huitte (l.66) (Modern German heißen and weiß ) are mistakes for Old Saxon spellings with

1573-458: 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

1694-746: A novel, Die Durchlauchtige Syrerin Aramena ( Aramena, the noble Syrian lady ), which when complete would be the most famous courtly novel in German Baroque literature; it was finished by her brother Anton Ulrich and edited by Sigmund von Birken . Empfindsamkeit / Sensibility (1750s–1770s) Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803), Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1715–1769), Sophie de La Roche (1730–1807). The period culminates and ends in Goethe 's best-selling Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774). Sturm und Drang (the conventional translation

1815-696: 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

1936-483: 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

2057-407: A ruse to get him off guard and belligerently refuses the offer, accusing Hildebrand of deception, and perhaps implying cowardice. Hildebrand accepts his fate and sees that he cannot honourably refuse battle: he has no choice but to kill his own son or be killed by him. They start to fight, and the text concludes with their shields smashed. But the poem breaks off in the middle of a line, not revealing

2178-517: A secure vault in the Murhard Library in Kassel . The text is highly problematic: as a unique example of its genre, with many words not found in other German texts, its interpretation remains controversial. Difficulties in reading some of the individual letters and identifying errors made by the scribes mean that a definitive edition of the poem is impossible. One of the most puzzling features

2299-599: A single ⟨t⟩ . They suggest a scribe who does not realise that Old High German zz , resulting from the High German consonant shift , corresponds to t in Old Saxon in these words, not tt , that is, a scribe who has limited first-hand knowledge of Old Saxon. The origin of the Dietrich legend in Northern Italy also suggests a southern origin is more likely. The East Franconian dialect of Fulda

2420-507: A wife and small child. He believes his father to be dead. Hildebrand responds by saying that Hadubrand will never fight such a close kinsman (an indirect way of asserting his paternity) and offers gold arm-rings he had received as a gift from the Lord of the Huns (the audience would have recognized this as a reference to Attila , whom according to legend Theodoric served). Hadubrand takes this as

2541-403: Is "Storm and Stress"; a more literal translation, however, might be storm and urge , storm and longing , or storm and impulse ) is the name of a movement in German literature and music taking place from the late 1760s through the early 1780s in which individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in response to the confines of rationalism imposed by

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2662-663: 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

2783-422: Is a cultural and literary movement of Europe , and its central ideas were originally propounded by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller during the period 1786 to 1805. German Romanticism was the dominant movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. German Romanticism developed relatively late compared to its English counterpart, coinciding in its early years with

2904-542: 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

3025-612: 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

3146-478: Is also the most likely origin for the earlier version of the poem in which Old Saxon features were first introduced. In around 1550 the codex was listed in the monastery's library catalogue. In 1632, during the Thirty Years War , the monastery was plundered and destroyed by Hessian troops. While most of the library's manuscripts were lost, the codex was among a number of stolen items later returned to

3267-558: 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

3388-478: 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

3509-430: 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

3630-436: Is generally regarded as the first scholarly edition and there have been many since. Wilhelm Grimm went on to publish the first facsimile of the manuscript in 1830, by which time he had recognized the two different hands and the oral origin of the poem. He had also become the first to use reagents in an attempt to clarify the text. The first photographic facsimile was published by Sievers in 1872. This clearly shows

3751-535: 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

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3872-611: 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

3993-565: 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

4114-552: Is not always straightforward. Since the manuscript gives no indication of the verse form, line divisions are the judgments of modern editors. Finally, the mixture of language features, mostly High German ( Upper German ) but with some highly characteristic Low German forms, means that the text could never have reflected the spoken language of an individual speaker and never been meant for performance. Frederick Norman concludes, "The poem presents puzzles alike to palaeographers, linguists and literary historians." The manuscript of

4235-408: Is not an exact science but the following list contains movements or time periods typically used in discussing German literature. It seems worth noting that the periods of medieval German literature span two or three centuries, those of early modern German literature span one century, and those of modern German literature each span one or two decades. The closer one nears the present, the more debated

4356-435: 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

4477-597: 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

4598-401: 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

4719-705: Is set against the background of the historical conflict between Theodoric and Odoacer in 5th-century Italy, which became a major subject for Germanic heroic legend . The fundamental story of the father and son who fail to recognize each other on the battlefield is much older and is found in a number of Indo-European traditions . The manuscript itself has had an eventful history: twice looted in war but eventually returned to its rightful owner, twice moved to safety shortly before devastating air-raids, repeatedly treated with chemicals by 19th-century scholars, once almost given to Hitler, and torn apart and partly defaced by dishonest book dealers. It now resides, on public display, in

4840-478: Is taken to begin with the German Renaissance , after the invention of movable type in the mid-15th century. Therefore, the literature of the late 14th and the early 15th century falls, as it were, in the cracks between Middle and New High German, and can be classified as either. Works of this transitional period include The Ring (c. 1410), the poems of Oswald von Wolkenstein and Johannes von Tepl ,

4961-525: 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

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5082-448: Is the dialect, which shows a mixture of High German and Low German spellings which cannot represent any actually spoken dialect. In spite of the many uncertainties over the text and continuing debate on the interpretation, the poem is widely regarded as the first masterpiece of German literature. There can surely be no poem in world literature the exposition and development of which are terser and more compelling. The opening lines of

5203-578: 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

5324-433: 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

5445-689: 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

5566-632: The Hildebrandslied and a heroic epic known as the Heliand . Middle High German starts in the 12th century; the key works include The Ring ( c.  1410 ) and the poems of Oswald von Wolkenstein and Johannes von Tepl . The Baroque period (1600 to 1720) was one of the most fertile times in German literature. Modern literature in German begins with the authors of the Enlightenment (such as Herder ). The Sensibility movement of

5687-639: 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

5808-588: The Dietrich legend based on the life of Theodoric the Great , an important subject in Germanic heroic legend . Historically, Theodoric invaded Italy in 489, defeated and killed the ruling King of Italy, Odoacer, to establish his own Ostrogothic Kingdom . Theodoric ruled from 493 to 526, but the kingdom was destroyed by the Eastern Emperor Justinian I in 553, and thereafter the invading Lombards seized control of Northern Italy . By this time

5929-537: 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

6050-417: 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

6171-522: 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

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6292-720: The Hildebrandslied is now in the Murhardsche Bibliothek in Kassel (signature 2° Ms. theol. 54). The codex consists of 76 folios containing two books of the Vulgate Old Testament (the Book of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus ) and the homilies of Origen . It was written in the 820s in Anglo-Saxon minuscule and Carolingian minuscule hands. The text of the Hildebrandslied was added in

6413-417: The Hildebrandslied is the earliest poetic text and the only heroic lay in German, and is the oldest heroic lay in any Germanic language, it is difficult to establish whether such words enjoyed broader currency in the 9th century or belonged to a (possibly archaic) poetic language. The text's punctuation is limited: the only mark used is a sporadic punctus (•), and identifying clause and sentence boundaries

6534-746: 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

6655-593: The Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel and placed in the Court Library. In the aftermath of the political crisis of 1831, under the terms of Hesse's new constitution the library passed from the private possession of the landgraves to public ownership and became the Kassel State Library ( Landesbibliothek ). In 1937 there was a proposal to make a gift of the manuscript to Adolf Hitler , but this

6776-666: 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

6897-676: 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

7018-486: 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

7139-513: 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

7260-469: 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

7381-524: The 11th century) is not clear-cut. The most famous work in OHG is the Hildebrandslied , a short piece of Germanic alliterative heroic verse which besides the Muspilli is the sole survivor of what must have been a vast oral tradition. Another important work, in the northern dialect of Old Saxon, is a life of Christ in the style of a heroic epic known as the Heliand . Middle High German proper runs from

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7502-412: The 1750s–1770s ended with Goethe 's best-selling The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774). The Sturm und Drang and Weimar Classicism movements were led by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller . German Romanticism was the dominant movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Biedermeier refers to the literature, music, the visual arts and interior design in the period between

7623-407: The 830s on the two blank outside leaves of the codex (1 and 76 ). The poem breaks off in the midst of the battle and there has been speculation that the text originally continued on a third sheet (now lost) or on the endpaper of the (subsequently replaced) back cover. However, it is also possible that the text was being copied from an incomplete original or represented a well-known episode from

7744-723: 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

7865-434: The Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements. The philosopher Johann Georg Hamann is considered to be the ideologue of Sturm und Drang , and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a notable proponent of the movement, though he and Friedrich Schiller ended their period of association with it, initiating what would become Weimar Classicism . Weimar Classicism ( German “ Weimarer Klassik ” and “ Weimarer Klassizismus ”)

7986-748: 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

8107-417: 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

8228-569: The German language is published in literary magazines. DAS GEDICHT , for instance, has featured German poetry from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Luxemburg for the last twenty years. The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to German-language authors fourteen times (as of 2020), tying with French-language authors, or the second most often after English-language authors (with 32). The following writers are from Germany unless stated otherwise: German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] )

8349-399: 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

8470-446: The German versions of Pontus and Sidonia , and arguably the works of Hans Folz and Sebastian Brant ( Ship of Fools , 1494), among others. The Volksbuch ( chapbook ) tradition which would flourish in the 16th century also finds its origin in the second half of the 15th century. Dutch Renaissance and Golden Age The Baroque period (1600 to 1720) was one of the most fertile times in German literature. Many writers reflected

8591-623: 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

8712-655: 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

8833-865: 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

8954-518: 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

9075-825: The Rosenbachs must have known it was looted, it was sold to the Californian bibliophile Carrie Estelle Doheny and placed in the Edward Laurence Doheny Memorial Library in Camarillo . In 1953 the codex was traced to this location, and in 1955 it was returned to Kassel. However, it was only in 1972 that the missing first folio (and the Kassel Willehalm ) was rediscovered in the Rosenbach Museum and reunited with

9196-427: The alliteration and seems to be a hypermetrical scribal addition to clarify the dialogue. In addition to errors and inconsistencies, there are other features of the text which make it hard to interpret. Some words are hapax legomena (unique to the text), even if they sometimes have cognates in other Germanic languages. Examples include urhetto ("challenger"), billi ("battle axe") and gudhamo ("armour"). Since

9317-421: The beginning of the 12th century, and in the second half of the 12th century, there was a sudden intensification of activity, leading to a 60-year "golden age" of medieval German literature referred to as the mittelhochdeutsche Blütezeit (1170–1230). This was the period of the blossoming of MHG lyric poetry, particularly Minnesang (the German variety of the originally French tradition of courtly love ). One of

9438-535: The codex. The manuscript is now on permanent display in the Murhard Library. Attention was first drawn to the codex and the Hildebrandslied by Johann Georg von Eckhart , who published the first edition of the poem in 1729. This included a hand-drawn facsimile of the start of the text, with a full transcription, a Latin translation and detailed glosses of the vocabulary. His translation shows

9559-418: The conclusion of the Hildebrandslied is missing, the consensus is that the evidence of the analogues supports the death of Hadubrand as the outcome of the combat. Even though some of the later medieval versions end in reconciliation, this can be seen as a concession to the more sentimental tastes of a later period. The heroic ethos of an earlier period would leave Hildebrand no choice but to kill his son after

9680-566: The copyist's eye must have been drawn to the Detrihhe darba gistuontun of l.23 instead of to the Deotrichhe in l.26b. Other obvious copying errors include mih for mir (l.13) and fatereres for fateres (l.24). It seems also that the scribes were not entirely familiar with the script used in their source. The inconsistencies in the use and form of the wynn -rune, for example — sometimes with and sometimes without an acute stroke above

9801-446: The damage caused by the reagents used by Grimm and his successors. One of the most puzzling features of the Hildebrandslied is its language, which is a mixture of Old High German (with some specifically Bavarian features ) and Old Saxon . For example, the first person pronoun appears both in the Old Saxon form ik and the Old High German ih . The reason for the language mixture is unknown, but it seems certain it cannot have been

9922-482: 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

10043-599: The dialect as homogeneous, interpreting it as representative of an archaic poetic idiom. Legendary material about Hildebrand survived in Germany into the 17th century and also spread to Scandinavia, though the forms of names vary. A number of analogues either portray or refer to Hildebrand's combat with his son: Liggr þar inn svási || sonr at höfði eptir, erfingi, || er ek eiga gat; óviljandi || aldrs synjaðak. There are three legends in other Indo-European traditions about an old hero who must fight his son and kills him after distrusting his claims of kinship: While

10164-456: 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

10285-528: The dishonourable act of the treacherous stroke. There is some evidence that this original version of the story survived into the 13th century in Germany: the Minnesänger Der Marner refers to a poem about the death of young Alebrand. The poet of the Hildebrandslied has to explain how father and son could fail to know each other. To do so, he has set the encounter against the background of

10406-519: 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

10527-540: The heroic tradition, in which the ancient Germanic oral tradition can still be discerned, but tamed and Christianized and adapted for the court. These high medieval heroic epics are written in rhymed strophes, not the alliterative verse of Germanic prehistory (for example, the Nibelungenlied ). The Middle High German period is conventionally taken to end in 1350, while the Early New High German

10648-435: 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,

10769-743: The horrible experiences of the Thirty Years' War , in poetry and prose . Grimmelshausen 's adventures of the young and naïve Simplicissimus, in the eponymous book Simplicius Simplicissimus , became the most famous novel of the Baroque period. Martin Opitz established rules for the "purity" of language, style, verse and rhyme. Andreas Gryphius and Daniel Caspar von Lohenstein wrote German language tragedies , or Trauerspiele , often on Classical themes and frequently quite violent. Erotic, religious and occasional poetry appeared in both German and Latin. Sibylle Ursula von Braunschweig-Lüneburg wrote part of

10890-481: 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

11011-547: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Hildebrandslied The text was written in the 830s on two spare leaves on the outside of a religious codex in the monastery of Fulda . The two scribes were copying from an unknown older original, which itself must ultimately have derived from oral tradition. The story of Hildebrand and Hadubrand almost certainly goes back to 7th- or 8th-century Lombardy and

11132-531: The letter, once corrected from the letter p — suggest this was a feature of the source which was not a normal part of their scribal repertoire. While these issues are almost certainly the responsibility of the Fulda scribes, in other cases an apparent error or inconsistency might already have been present in their source. The variant spellings of the names Hiltibrant/Hiltibraht , Hadubrant/Hadubraht , Theotrihhe/Detriche/Deotrichhe . were almost certainly present in

11253-436: The manuscript version. Alternatively, De Boor would place the lines earlier, before l.33, where Hildebrand offers an arm-ring. However, more recently the trend has been to accept the placing of these lines and see the task as making sense of the text as it stands. In spite of the text's use of spare space in an existing manuscript, there is evidence that it was prepared with some care: the two sheets were ruled with lines for

11374-414: The most important of these poets was Walther von der Vogelweide . The same sixty years saw the composition of the most important courtly romances. These are written in rhyming couplets, and again draw on French models such as Chrétien de Troyes , many of them relating Arthurian material, for example, Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach . The third literary movement of these years was a new revamping of

11495-402: 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

11616-493: The movement known as German Classicism or Weimar Classicism , which it opposed. In contrast to the seriousness of English Romanticism, the German variety is notable for valuing humor and wit as well as beauty. The early German romantics tried to create a new synthesis of art, philosophy, and science, looking to the Middle Ages as a simpler, more integrated period. As time went on, however, they became increasingly aware of

11737-599: 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

11858-884: The outcome. The text consists of 68 lines of alliterative verse, though written continuously with no consistent indication of the verse form. It breaks off in mid-line, leaving the poem unfinished at the end of the second page. However, it does not seem likely that much more than a dozen lines are missing. The poem starts: Ik gihorta ðat seggen ðat sih urhettun   ænon muotin Hiltibrant enti Haðubrant   untar heriun tuem sunufatarungo   iro saro rihtun garutun se iro guðhamun   gurtun sih iro suert ana helidos ubar hringa   do sie to dero hiltiu ritun I heard tell That warriors met   in single combat Hildebrand and Hadubrand   between two armies son and father   prepared their armour made ready their battle garments   girded on their swords

11979-429: The periodizations become. Medieval German literature refers to literature written in Germany, stretching from the Carolingian dynasty ; various dates have been given for the end of the German literary Middle Ages, the Reformation (1517) being the last possible cut-off point. The Old High German period is reckoned to run until about the mid-11th century, though the boundary to Early Middle High German (second half of

12100-419: The poem set the scene: two warriors meet on a battlefield, probably as the champions of their two armies. As the older man, Hildebrand opens by asking the identity and genealogy of his opponent. Hadubrand reveals that he did not know his father but the elders told him his father was Hildebrand, who fled eastwards in the service of Dietrich (Theodoric) to escape the wrath of Otacher ( Odoacer ), leaving behind

12221-462: 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

12342-422: The script, and in a number of places letters have been erased and corrected. Nonetheless, some features of the text are hard to interpret as anything other than uncorrected errors. Some of these are self-evident copying errors, due either to misreading of the source or the scribe losing his place. An example of the latter is the repetition of darba gistuotun in l. 26b, which is hypermetrical and gives no sense –

12463-551: The source. In several places, the absence of alliteration linking the two halves of a line suggests missing text, so ll.10a and 11b, which follow each other in the manuscript ( fıreo ın folche • eddo welıhhes cnuosles du sis , "who his father was in the host • or what family you belong to")), do not make a well-formed alliterating line and in addition display an abrupt transition between third-person narrative and second-person direct speech. The phrase quad hiltibrant ("said Hildebrand") in lines 49 and 58 (possibly line 30 also) breaks

12584-546: 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,

12705-416: The tenuousness of the unity they were seeking. Later German Romanticism emphasized the tension between the everyday world and the seemingly irrational and supernatural projections of creative genius. Heinrich Heine in particular criticized the tendency of the early romantics to look to the medieval past for a model of unity in art and society. Biedermeier refers to work in the fields of literature, music,

12826-500: 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

12947-698: The visual arts and interior design in the period between the years 1815 ( Vienna Congress ), the end of the Napoleonic Wars , and 1848, the year of the European revolutions and contrasts with the Romantic era which preceded it. Typical Biedermeier poets are Annette von Droste-Hülshoff , Adelbert von Chamisso , Eduard Mörike , and Wilhelm Müller , the last three named having well-known musical settings by Robert Schumann , Hugo Wolf and Franz Schubert respectively. Young Germany ( Junges Deutschland )

13068-420: The warriors, over their ring mail   when they rode to battle. The basic structure of the poem comprises a long passage of dialogue, framed by introductory and closing narration. A more detailed analysis is offered by McLintock: While this structure accurately represents the surviving manuscript text, many scholars have taken issue with the position of ll. 46–48 ("I can see from your armour that you have

13189-409: The work of the last scribes and was already present in the original which they copied. The Old Saxon features predominate in the opening part of the poem and show a number of errors, which argue against an Old Saxon original. The alliteration of riche and reccheo in line 48 is often regarded as conclusive: the equivalent Old Saxon forms, rīke and wrekkio , do not alliterate and would have given

13310-555: 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

13431-600: 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

13552-724: The years 1815 ( Vienna Congress ), the end of the Napoleonic Wars , and 1848, the year of the European revolutions . Under the Nazi regime , some authors went into exile ( Exilliteratur ) and others submitted to censorship ("internal emigration", Innere Emigration ). The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to German language authors fourteen times (as of 2023), or the third most often, behind only French language authors (with 16 laureates) and English language authors (with 32 laureates) with winners including Thomas Mann , Hermann Hesse , Günter Grass , and Peter Handke . Periodization

13673-675: Was Franz Kafka . A Kafka novel, The Trial , was ranked #3 on Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century . Kafka's iconic writing style that captures themes of bureaucracy and existentialism resulted in the coining of the term “Kafkaesque.” Kafka's writing allowed a peek into his melancholic life, one where he felt isolated from all human beings, one of his inspirations for writing. Under the Nazi regime, some authors went into exile ( Exilliteratur ) and others submitted to censorship (" inner emigration ", Innere Emigration ) Much of contemporary poetry in

13794-495: Was High German , but the monastery was a centre of missionary activity to Northern Germany. It is therefore not unreasonable to assume there was some knowledge of Old Saxon there, and perhaps even some Old Saxon speakers. However, the motivation for attempting a translation into Old Saxon remains inscrutable, and attempts to link it with Fulda's missionary activity among the Saxons remain speculative. An alternative explanation treats

13915-429: 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

14036-763: Was a loose group of Vormärz writers which existed from about 1830 to 1850. It was essentially a youth movement (similar to those that had swept France and Ireland and originated in Italy ). Its main proponents were Karl Gutzkow , Heinrich Laube , Theodor Mundt and Ludolf Wienbarg ; Heinrich Heine , Ludwig Börne and Georg Büchner were also considered part of the movement. The wider circle included Willibald Alexis , Adolf Glassbrenner and Gustav Kühne . Poetic Realism (1848–1890): Theodor Fontane , Gustav Freitag , Gottfried Keller , Wilhelm Raabe , Adalbert Stifter , Theodor Storm Naturalism (1880–1900): Gerhart Hauptmann A well-known writer of German literature

14157-547: 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

14278-492: 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

14399-717: Was moved for safe keeping out of Kassel completely to a bunker in Bad Wildungen , south-west of the city, just in time to escape the devastating air-raids the following October, which destroyed the whole of the city centre. After the capture of Bad Wildungen by units of the US Third Army in March 1945, the bunker was looted and the codex went missing. An official investigation by the US Military Government failed to discover its fate. In November 1945 it

14520-608: Was sold by US army officer Bud Berman to the Rosenbach Company , rare book dealers in Philadelphia . At some point the first folio, with the first page of the Hildebrandslied, was removed (presumably in order to disguise the origin of the codex, since that sheet carried the library's stamp). In 1950, even though the Pierpont Morgan Library had raised questions about the provenance of the codex and

14641-648: Was thwarted by the library's director, Wilhelm Hopf. At the start of the Second World War , the manuscript, along with 19 others, was moved from the State Library to the underground vault of a local bank. This meant that it was not harmed in the Allied bombing raid in September 1941 , which destroyed almost all the library's holdings. In August 1943 the codex (along with the Kassel Willehalm codex)

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