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107-662: Records indicate that Gueuche noir has been growing in the Franche-Comté at least the 18th century. Under the synonym Foirard noir , the grape may have been one of the varieties listed on a February 3, 1731 parliamentary decree from Besançon in the Doubs department that mandated that all plantings of Enfariné noir, Foirard noir, Foirard blanc , Valet noir and Barclan blanc that were planted after 1702 to be uprooted and replaced with cereal crops. The exact origins of Gueuche noir are not yet known but early DNA analysis suggest

214-477: A Place d'Armes and dating from the 18th and 19th centuries. It currently houses the headquarters of the 1st Armored Division and the 7th Armoured Brigade . After the city acquired an episcopal see in the 3rd century, churches and abbeys multiplied during the period of the High Middle Ages . Important constructions or reconstructions of religious buildings then took place in the 11th century during

321-465: 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

428-402: 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

535-612: 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

642-556: A free imperial city under the protection of the King of Spain. In 1598, Philip II gave the province to his daughter on her marriage to an Austrian archduke. It remained formally a portion of the Empire until its cession at the peace of Westphalia in 1648. Spain regained control of Franche-Comté and the city lost its status as a free city. Then in 1667, Louis XIV claimed the province as a consequence of his marriage to Marie-Thérèse of Spain in

749-559: 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

856-452: A little-known specialty, automatic ticketing machines for car parking, airports, date stamping etc. The watch industry, for which Besançon remains the French capital, endured a major crisis in the 1970s when the advent of quartz watches from Asia knocked out the traditional watch industry in the space of just a few years. The "Lip" affair epitomizes the industrial crisis. LIP is to this day

963-404: A long time to recover from the collapse of the watch industry and its other major industry of the industrial age, artificial textiles. Since the 1980s, Besançon's watch industry has clawed its way back on the basis of its historic reputation and quartz watches, establishing itself in a number of niche markets including customized watches, high quality watches, and fashion articles. Since the 1990s,

1070-458: 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

1177-705: A number of viticultural hazards including fungal disease like downy and powdery mildew as well as botrytis bunch rot . While once widely planted in the Franche-Comté, today the grape is nearly extinct and is currently not listed in France's official registry of grape varieties permitted for use in Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) wine production. In the commune of Liesle in the Doubs department, Domaine des Cavarodes has been rehabilitating an old vineyard that includes old vines of Gueuche noir that are between

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1284-497: A political centre, and a religious capital. Besançon is the historical capital of watchmaking in France. This has led it to become a centre for innovative companies in the fields of microtechnology , micromechanics , and biomedical engineering . The University of Franche-Comté , founded in 1423, enrolls nearly 30,000 students each year, including around 4,000 trainees from all over the world within its Centre for Applied Linguistics (CLA). The greenest city in France, it enjoys

1391-696: 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

1498-816: A private company built a funicular to the Brégille Heights. The funicular passed from private ownership to the SNCF , who finally closed it in 1987. The funicular's tracks, stations and even road signs remain in place to this day. Besançon is located in the north-east quarter of France on the river Doubs. It is about 325 kilometres (202 miles) east of the national capital of Paris, 100 kilometres (62 miles) east of Dijon in Burgundy, 125 km (78 mi) northwest of Lausanne in Switzerland, and 100 km (62 mi) southwest of Belfort in Franche-Comté. It

1605-546: A quality of life recognized in Europe. Thanks to its rich historical and cultural heritage and its unique architecture, Besançon has been labeled a " Town of Art and History " since 1986. Its fortifications , designed by Vauban , have been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2008. The city is first recorded in 58 BC as Vesontio in Book I of Julius Caesar 's Commentarii de Bello Gallico . The etymology of Vesontio

1712-483: 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

1819-563: A rocky outcrop, is the work of the Romans. It marks the entrance to the city on the road to Switzerland. It is surmounted by a guardhouse and a watchtower built in 1546. The “square tower”, located in the promenade des Glacis, is also called the Montmart tower. It was built in the 13th century to defend the old entrance to the Battant district. The fortifications of the 19th century consist of

1926-544: A set of forts covering all the heights of the city: the fort of Chaudanne built from 1837 to 1842, the fort of Bregille built from 1820 to 1832, the fort of Planoise built from 1877 to 1880, Fort Benoit was built from 1877 to 1880, Fort Beauregard in 1830. Another example are the Trois-Châtels and Tousey lunettes , both built at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries, as well as the Rosemont battery built during

2033-698: A small vineyard with new Gueuche noir vines that they use in the blend for their early-drinking nouveau wine . According to ampelographer Pierre Galet, Gueuche noir tends to have difficulties ripening in the Franche-Comté with varietal examples of the grape often being very acidic and "hard" tasting. Over the years Gueuche noir has been known under a variety of synonyms including: Espagnon, Foirard, Foirard noir (in Poligny, Jura ), Gouais, Gros plant, Guat, Plant d'Anjou noir, Plant d'Arlay (in Salins-les-Bains ), Plant de Saint-Remy and Plant de Treffort (in

2140-561: A strong relationship between the grape and the genetically prolific Gouais blanc vine which is the mother and grandparent to several Vitis vinifera varieties. In the 20th century, ampelographers such as Pierre Galet and Jean Guicherd have speculated that Gueuche noir may have some relationship to the Jura variety Enfariné noir. Gueuche noir is a mid to late-ripening grape variety that can be very fertile and high yielding . The grape's thin skins and small, compact bunches are susceptible to

2247-717: 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

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2354-559: Is a barge canal that cuts through rock under Mont Saint-Étienne, short-cutting the meander.) Besançon has an oceanic climate ( Köppen : Cfb , Trewartha : Do ), with cool to cold winters, warm summers, and frequent precipitation year-round. The year-round average is 11.5 °C (53 °F). The warmest month is July with an average temperature of 20 °C (68 °F), and the coldest is January, with an average temperature of 2 °C (36 °F). Besançon receives about 1,059 mm (42 in) of precipitation per year. As of 2021,

2461-601: 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

2568-559: 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

2675-558: 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

2782-478: 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

2889-430: 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

2996-535: 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

3103-611: 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

3210-565: 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

3317-633: Is located at the edge of the Jura Mountains . The city initially developed in a natural meander (or oxbow loop) of the river Doubs with a diameter of almost 1,000 metres (3,281 feet). The flat inner loop has an elevation of about 250 metres (820 feet), and is bounded to the south by a hill called Mont Saint-Étienne , which has a maximum height of 371 metres (1,217 feet). The city is surrounded by six other hills which range in elevation from 400 to 500 metres (1,312 to 1,640 feet): Brégille, Griffon, Planoise , Chaudanne, Montfaucon, and Montboucon. (There

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3424-546: Is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzerland . Capital of the historic and cultural region of Franche-Comté , Besançon is home to the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté regional council headquarters, and is an important administrative centre in the region. It is also the seat of one of the fifteen French ecclesiastical provinces and one of the two divisions of

3531-435: 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

3638-597: 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

3745-401: 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

3852-525: 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

3959-590: Is the Porte Noire , a Gallo-Roman triumphal arch built under Marcus Aurelius in the 2nd century in the Saint-Jean district. Heavily deteriorated by the vagaries of time and pollution, it was the subject of a long and difficult restoration operation at the beginning of the 21st century. Immediately below is the Square Castan, a garden with a collection of archaeological remains from the 2nd century or

4066-578: 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

4173-527: Is the work of the military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban . This group of buildings allows Besançon to appear on the UNESCO World Heritage List with eleven other sites under the title Fortifications of Vauban . The forts on the other hills were all built in the 19th century. The only remaining pre-Vauban fortifications are Porte Rivotte, Porte Taillée, Tour Carrée, Tour Notre-Dame and Tour de la Pelote. The citadel of Besançon

4280-459: Is uncertain. The most common explanation is that the name is of Celtic origin, derived from wes , meaning 'mountain'. During the 4th century, the letter B took the place of the V, and the city name changed to Besontio or Bisontion and then underwent several transformations to become Besançon in 1243. The city sits within an oxbow of the river Doubs (a tributary of the Saône ); a mountain closes

4387-485: 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

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4494-689: 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

4601-448: The Ain department). Besan%C3%A7on Besançon ( UK : / ˈ b ɛ z ən s ɒ n / , US : / b ə ˈ z æ n s ən / , French: [bəzɑ̃sɔ̃] , Franco-Provençal: [bəzɑ̃ˈsɔ̃] ; archaic German : Bisanz ; Latin : Vesontio ) is the prefecture of the department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté . The city

4708-639: 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

4815-669: The Diet of Besançon . There, Cardinal Orlando Bandinelli (the future Pope Alexander III, then adviser of Pope Adrian IV ) openly asserted before the Emperor that the imperial dignity was a papal beneficium (in the more general sense of favour, not the strict feudal sense of fief ), which incurred the wrath of the German princes. He would have fallen on the spot under the battle-axe of his lifelong foe, Otto of Wittelsbach , had Frederick not intervened. The Archbishops were elevated to Princes of

4922-537: 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

5029-417: 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

5136-578: The French Army . In 2021 the city had a population of 119,198, in a metropolitan area of 283,127, the second in the region in terms of population. Established in a meander of the river Doubs , the city was already important during the Gallo-Roman era under the name of Vesontio , capital of the Sequani . Its geography and specific history turned it into a military stronghold, a garrison city,

5243-522: 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

5350-746: 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

5457-666: 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

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5564-676: 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

5671-550: 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

5778-460: 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

5885-518: The War of Devolution . Louis conquered the city for the first time in 1668, but the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle returned it to Spain within a matter of months. While it was in French hands, the famed military engineer Vauban visited the city and drew up plans for its fortification. The Spaniards built the main centre point of the city's defences, "la Citadelle", siting it on Mont Saint-Étienne, which closes

5992-469: 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

6099-524: The 3rd century including in particular eight Corinthian columns . On the other bank of the river Doubs, in the Battant district, the remains of the Vesontio arena are visible: only a few steps and foundations have been unearthed, its stones having been widely used in the Middle Ages for the construction of other buildings. There are several domus in the residential district of Vesontio. Among them,

6206-406: The 4th century. In 843, the Treaty of Verdun divided up Charlemagne 's empire. Besançon became part of Lotharingia , under the Duke of Burgundy . As part of the Holy Roman Empire since 1034, the city became an archbishopric , and was designated the Free Imperial City of Besançon (an autonomous city-state under the Holy Roman Emperor ) in 1184. In 1157, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa held

6313-614: 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

6420-414: 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

6527-417: 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

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6634-399: 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

6741-623: 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

6848-406: The Germans executed some one hundred French resistance fighters there. However, Besançon saw little action during the war. The allies bombed the railway complex in 1943, and the next year the Germans resisted the U.S. advance for four days. Besançon was also the location, between 1940 and 1941, of an Internment Camp ( Konzentrationslager ), Frontstalag 142 , also known as Caserne Vauban , which

6955-401: The Germans set up for 3–4,000 holders of British passports, all women and children. The conditions were harsh; many hundreds of internees died of pneumonia, diarrhea, food poisoning, dysentery, and frostbite. In 1959, the French Army turned the citadel over to the city of Besançon, which turned it into a museum. The forts of Brégille and Beauregard sit across the Doubs from the city. In 1913,

7062-403: The Holy Roman Empire in 1288. The close connection to the Empire is reflected in the city's coat of arms. In 1290, after a century of fighting against the power of the archbishops, the Emperor granted Besançon its independence. In the 15th century, Besançon came under the influence of the dukes of Burgundy . After the marriage of Mary of Burgundy to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor , the city

7169-547: 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

7276-644: 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

7383-408: 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

7490-441: The Quai de Strasbourg, is a defensive tower built in 1546 by the municipal government on the orders of Charles V . Its name would come from the former owner of the land where it was built, Pierre Pillot, lord of Chenecey. The Porte Rivotte is a city gate dating from the 16th century, consisting of two round towers and a pediment carved with a sun which was King Louis XIV 's personal emblem. The Porte Taillée ("Carved Gate"), opened in

7597-625: The Université de Franche-Comté, is the first school created in the country specifically for the Biomedical engineering field. The city is also home of the École Nationale Supérieure de Mécanique et des Microtechniques (ENSMM), a technological school with a strong reputation in the fields of microtechnology and mechanics and the Centre for Applied Linguistics which teaches ten languages to non-native speakers (French, Arabic, Chinese, English, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish) and any other known language on request. The Centre welcomes more than 4,000 students every year from all over

7704-531: The ages of 50–100 years. These vines are field blended with several other grape varieties including Gamay, Enfariné noir, Pinot noir , Pinot Meunier , Poulsard , Trousseau , Argant , Blauer Portugieser and Mézy . The grapes are harvested together and used to produce a red blend under the Vin de Pays de Franche-Comté designation. Another Jura wine producer, Domaine Ganevat in Rotalier , has also replanted

7811-866: The cause of the conflict was commercial. Each tribe claimed the Arar and the tolls on trade along it. The Sequani controlled access to the Rhine and had built an oppidum (a fortified town) at Vesontio to protect their interests. The Sequani defeated and massacred the Haedui at the Battle of Magetobriga , with the help of the Arverni tribe and the Germanic Suebi tribe under the Germanic king Ariovistus . Julius Caesar , in his commentaries detailing his conquest of Gaul , describes Vesontio (possibly Latinized ), as

7918-610: The citadel's fortifications, and those of the city. This process lasted until 1711, some 30 years, and the walls built then surround the city. Between the train station and the central city there is a complex moat system that now serves road traffic. Numerous forts, some of which date back to that time and that incorporate Vauban's designs elements sit on the six hills that surround the city: Fort de Trois Châtels, Fort Chaudanne, Fort du Petit Chaudanne, Fort Griffon, Fort des Justices, Fort de Beauregard and Fort de Brégille . The citadel itself has two dry moats, with an outer and inner court. In

8025-482: 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

8132-456: 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

8239-692: The domus of the Palace of Justice and the domus of the Lumière college with Roman mosaic exhibited in situ at the Besançon Museum of Fine Arts and Archeology. Other remains can be seen in more anonymous places, such as the ancient foundations in the underground car park of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté regional council. Most of the current fortification system ( citadel , defensive wall made up of ramparts and bastions , Fort Griffon)

8346-519: 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

8453-786: The episcopate of Hugues Ier de Salins and many churches were embellished or rebuilt after the French conquest of 1674. In 1842, the Church of the Holy Spirit was officially ceded to the Protestant community while the Jewish community inaugurated its synagogue in 1869. Finally, the Muslim community had two mosques built at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] )

8560-538: The evenings, the illuminated Citadelle stands above the city as a landmark and a testament to Vauban's genius as a military engineer . In 1814, the Austrians invaded and bombarded the city. It also occupied an important position during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. In 1871, a project of Besançon Commune is engaged. The Nazis occupied the citadel during World War II . Between 1940 and 1944,

8667-587: The fourth side. During the Bronze Age , c. 1500 BC, tribes of Gauls settled the oxbow. From the 1st century BC through the modern era, the town had a significant military importance because the Alps rise abruptly to its immediate south, presenting a significant natural barrier. The Arar ( Saône ) River formed part of the border between the Haedui and their hereditary rivals, the Sequani . According to Strabo ,

8774-435: 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,

8881-481: 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

8988-555: The largest town of the Sequani , a smaller Gaulic tribe, and mentions that a wooden palisade surrounded it. It appears as Vesontine in the Tabula Peutingeriana . Over the centuries, the name permutated to become Besantio , Besontion , Bisanz in Middle High German , and gradually arrived at the modern French Besançon . The locals retain their ancient heritage referring to themselves as Bisontins (feminine: Bisontine ). It has been an archbishopric since

9095-634: The medieval defenses restored and completed by Charles V in the sixteenth century with a belt provided with six bastioned battery towers  : the Notre-Dame tower, the bastioned tower of Chamars, the bastioned tower of the Marais, the bastioned tower of the Cordeliers (completed in 1691), the bastioned tower of Bregille and the bastioned tower of Rivotte. Fortifications prior to the French conquest are also numerous. The Tour de la Pelote, located on

9202-402: 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

9309-414: The name of one of Besançon's most prestigious brands of watches. Refusing to let their factory close, the workers set up a cooperative to run it. The action produced a lot of notoriety and sympathy for the workers but also resulted in branding Besançon as a city of the radical left. It also did nothing to help revive the watch industry; the cooperative went out of business a short while later. The city took

9416-504: The neck of the oxbow that is the site of the original town. In their construction, the Spaniards followed Vauban's designs. In 1674, French troops recaptured the city, which the Treaty of Nijmegen (1678) then awarded to France. At this time the city became the administrative centre for the Franche-Comté, with its own Parlement of Besançon , which replaced Dole . As a result of control passing to France, Vauban returned to working on

9523-653: 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

9630-615: The old town. Vauban 's imposing Citadelle blocks off the neck. The historic center presents an ensemble of classic stone buildings, some dating back to the Middle Ages and others to the Spanish Renaissance. During Antiquity, Vesontio was an important metropolis of Roman Gaul . It is adorned with monuments, some of which have survived, archaeological excavations carried out during construction sites often revealing new discoveries dating from this period. The most emblematic and best-preserved monument dating from this period

9737-475: The population of the City of Besançon was 119,198. It is the 33rd most populous city of France. Grand Besançon Métropole covers 528.6 km (204.1 sq mi), 68 municipalities and has a population of 197,494. The metropolitan area covers 2,514.5 km (970.9 sq mi), 310 municipalities and has 283,127 inhabitants. Its population increased by 4.9% between 2008 and 2020. Until 2016, Besançon

9844-462: 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

9951-483: The regional archeology service and a zoo. It is the symbol of the city. Fort Griffon, whose name is that of the Italian architect Jean Griffoni who was commissioned to build a first fortification at this location in 1595, is a second citadel. It was Vauban who, at the end of the 17th century, had the current fort built. The city walls designed by Vauban includes all the fortifications of La Boucle historic district which were rebuilt from 1675 to 1695. Vauban in fact replaced

10058-563: The regional offices of the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee) or the Centre régional des œuvres universitaires et scolaires (Crous). Mayor of the City of Besançon is Anne Vignot ( The Greens ). The city is known for its microtechnology and watch industries. It is host of the biannual Micronora trade fair, one of Europe's major events in the field of microtechnologies. The city has

10165-546: 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,

10272-500: 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

10379-460: The town has developed a reputation as one of France's leading centres of technology in all fields, including telecommunications and biotechnology. Besançon is the seat of the University of Franche-Comté . As of 2018 , there were approximately 24,000 students enrolled at the university, including around 3,000 foreign students. The Institut Supérieur d'Ingénieurs de Franche-Comté (ISIFC), part of

10486-451: The war of 1870–1871, the Fort des Montboucons built from 1877 to 1880 and the Fort des Justices built from 1870. A third Lunette d'Arçon was located on the site of Fort Chaudanne; only its tower was preserved during the construction of the fort in the first half of the 19th century. The Ruty barracks, formerly Saint-Paul barracks, are made up of four pavilions surrounding a courtyard serving as

10593-555: 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

10700-459: The world. As well as being famed as one of France's finest "villes d'art" (art cities), Besançon is the seat of one of France's older universities, of France's National School of Mechanics and Micromechanics , and one of the best known French language schools in France, the CLA. The most historic center of the town is characterised by the broad horse-shoe of the river Doubs, "la Boucle", which encircles

10807-600: 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

10914-429: 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

11021-547: 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

11128-491: Was built by Vauban from 1678 to 1771 and is the most visited site in Franche-Comté with more than 250,000 visitors each year. It extends over eleven hectares at the top of Mont Saint-Étienne at an altitude between 330 and 370 meters, thus overhanging the meander of the river Doubs which has an altitude between 240 and 250 meters. It brings together a museum of Resistance and Deportation, a museum of Franche-Comté traditions,

11235-492: 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

11342-539: Was in effect a Habsburg fief. In 1519 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor , King of Spain , became the Holy Roman Emperor. This made him master of the Franche-Comté and Besançon, a francophone imperial city. In 1526 the city obtained the right to mint coins, which it continued to strike until 1673. Nevertheless, all coins bore the name of Charles V. When Charles V abdicated in 1555, he gave the Franche-Comté to his son, Philip II , King of Spain. Besançon remained

11449-455: Was the capital of the Franche-Comté administrative région of France, a région including the four départements of Doubs, Haute-Saône , Jura and Territoire de Belfort . Franche-Comté was since merged with the neighbouring region of Burgundy , and the "préfecture" was transferred to the city of Dijon . However, Besançon remains the seat of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté regional council and of various decentralised administrations such as

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