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113-677: The Free German Youth ( German : Freie Deutsche Jugend ; FDJ ) is a youth movement in Germany. Formerly, it was the official youth wing of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany . The organization was meant for young adults, both male and female, between the ages of 14 and 25 and comprised about 75% of the young adult population of former East Germany. In 1981–1982, this meant 2.3 million members. After joining

226-465: 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

339-402: 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

452-612: 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

565-819: A "failure of the organisation" because "the concentrated presence of former full-time officials" prevented a "radical break with the old FDJ". After the Peaceful Revolution in the GDR, from November 1989 to November 1990, the number of members dropped from 2.3 million to 22,000. The FDJ contested the only multiparty election in East Germany in March 1990, as part of the Alternative Jugendliste (Alternative Youth List), an electoral list consisting of four leftwing youth organizations. However

678-555: A close proximity to Czech language which again are absent in Lower Sorbian language . According to some researchers the archaeological data cannot confirm the thesis about a single linguistic group yet supports the claim about two separated ethno-cultural groups with different ancestry whose respective territories correspond to Tornow-type ceramics (Lower Sorbian language) and Leipzig-type ceramics (Upper Sorbian language), both derivations of Prague culture . Outside Lusatia,

791-545: A general training ground for functionaries of the SED, the economy and the government. As the sole official representative of GDR youth, the FDJ was vital to the upbringing of young people as socialist personalities. Measures were employed in an attempt to encourage a sense of community spirit of working for a large whole and a better future. According to official prescription, this involved raising them to accept socialist ideals, to acquire

904-559: 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

1017-420: A high level of knowledge and vocational skills, to participate actively in official economic and social programmes, to commit themselves to the cause of peace, and to participate in the military training programmes. In 1952, there was an attempt to militarise the FDJ through the creation of a paramilitary service. On 17 August 1961 the FDJ issued a 'Call to Arms' in a further attempt to encourage young men to join

1130-415: A journal for FDJ functionaries ( Junge Generation ) and a student newspaper ( FORUM ). Starting in 1952, the FDJ also began publishing two Sorbian language magazines, Chorhoj Měra and Plomjo , for Sorbian members. The FDJ increasingly developed into an instrument of communist rule and became a member of the 'democratic bloc' in 1950. However, the FDJ's focus of 'happy youth life', which had characterised

1243-494: A measure of relaxation of the rigid controls imposed on young people in the FDJ. The focus on providing leisure activities for East German youth returned and the organisation of major cultural events by the FDJ, such as the 'German meeting' ( Deutschlandtreffen ) increased, ultimately reaching a highpoint at the 1964 festival on the public holiday of Whitsuntide. Thousands of young East and West Germans gathered in East Berlin in

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1356-458: 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

1469-454: A number of trends that go against language vitality. There are policies that have led to "unstable diglossia ". There has been a loss of language domains in which speakers have the option to use either language, and there is a disruption of the patterns by which the Sorbian language has traditionally been transmitted to the next generation. Also, there is no strong written tradition and there

1582-696: 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

1695-796: 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

1808-484: A relaxed atmosphere where they danced, listened to jazz and rock music and exchanged views on political and personal matters. In 1965, the FDJ held a musicians' talent competition across the GDR with the final to occur in Berlin although the event ultimately degenerated into a scene of chaos. By the 1970s, well-organised mass parades and mass demonstrations on the occasion of public holidays such as May Day in which members of

1921-483: 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

2034-484: A separate dialectical group of Proto-Slavic which is a mixture of Proto-Lechitic and South Slavic languages . Furthermore, while some consider it a single language which later diverged to two major dialects, others consider these dialects two separate languages. There exist significant differences in phonology , morphology , and lexicon between them. Several characteristics in Upper Sorbian language indicate

2147-479: A significant group of well-trained cadres suitable for future employment in the SED apparatus. The FDJ were willing to overlook previous allegiance to Nazism and offer opportunities for career and social advancement to young adults in exchange for genuine commitment to the FDJ and its ideals on political, working, educational and leisure rights. Additionally, the FDJ aimed to increase the productivity of young East German workers through sponsored 'youth brigades', during

2260-642: A strict Marxist–Leninist political line, which is exemplified by a positive reading of East German history and the rejection of the federal republic and its annexation of the GDR. The FDJ remains independent, but cooperates with political groups such as the KPD (Ost) and the Arbeiterbund für den Wiederaufbau der KPD (Workers' Union for the Reconstruction of the KPD). Currently, the FDJ has its headquarters in

2373-601: 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

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2486-612: 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

2599-558: 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

2712-478: 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

2825-430: 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

2938-535: 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

3051-611: 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

3164-565: 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

3277-404: Is not a broadly accepted formal standardized form of the language(s). There is a perception of the loss of language rights, and there are negative attitudes towards the languages and their speakers. Both Upper and Lower Sorbian have the dual for nouns , pronouns , adjectives , and verbs ; very few living Indo-European languages retain this as a productive feature of the grammar. For example,

3390-435: 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

3503-597: 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

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3616-401: 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

3729-525: 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

3842-542: Is the centre of Upper Sorbian culture. Bilingual signs can be seen around the city, including the name of the city, "Bautzen/ Budyšin ". To the north, the city of Cottbus/Chóśebuz is considered the cultural centre of Lower Sorbian; there, too, bilingual signs are found. Sorbian was also spoken in the small Sorbian ("Wendish") settlement of Serbin in Lee County, Texas , however no speakers remain there. Until 1949, newspapers were published in Sorbian. The local dialect

3955-578: 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

4068-485: 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

4181-689: 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

4294-639: 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

4407-561: The Bolshevik Party during the Russian Revolution . Accordingly, the FDJ was run on a strictly hierarchical and centralized basis. Each organizational unit was directly subordinate to the next-highest organizational body and instructions issued by the central FDJ leadership were binding for all lower-level organizations. The highest organ of the FDJ was its Parliament, which convened once every three or four years during

4520-537: 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

4633-480: 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

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4746-522: 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

4859-746: 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

4972-690: 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 the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as

5085-708: The North Rhine-Westphalia Police during a demonstration in Essen against West German re-armament. Afterwards, large numbers of the FDJ's membership were imprisoned. The FDJ's basic organizational structures were established at the 3rd Parliament in Leipzig in June 1949. Just like the SED and mass organizations in the GDR, the FDJ was grounded on the principle of democratic centralism , a principle first introduced by Lenin to bring order and discipline to

5198-666: 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

5311-676: 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

5424-550: 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

5537-686: The Thälmann Pioneers , which was for school children between ages 6 to 13, East German youths would usually join the FDJ. The FDJ was intended to be the "reliable assistant and fighting reserve of the Worker's Party", while Socialist Unity Party of Germany was a member of the National Front and had representatives in the People's Chamber . The political and ideological goal of the FDJ was to influence every aspect of life of young people in

5650-513: 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

5763-469: 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

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5876-414: The 'criminal' activities of the 'illegal' Junge Gemeinden . FDJ gangs were sent to church meetings to heckle those inside and school tribunals interrogated or expelled students who refused to join the FDJ for religious reasons. As an affiliated organisation of the SED party and government, the FDJ became targets of demonstrators in the lead up to the 1953 Uprising . Growing popular unrest caused members of

5989-425: The 'group' (which might consist, for example, of the FDJ members in a certain class at a school or in a particular work brigade in a factory). In the case of the larger basic units (those with more than 100 members), specialized intermediary bodies— Abteilungsorganisationen ('branch organizations')—were inserted into the organizational hierarchy, serving as a bridge to the FDJ groups below them. At these lower levels of

6102-529: The 1940s, was increasingly marginalised following Walter Ulbricht 's emphasis of the 'accelerated construction of socialism' at the 4th Parliament and a radicalisation of SED policy in July 1952. In turn, a more severe anti-religious agenda, whose aim was to obstruct the Church youths' work, grew within the FDJ, ultimately reaching a high point in mid-April 1953 when the FDJ newspaper Junge Welt reported on details of

6215-571: The 1940s. As the sole official representative of East German youth, the FDJ's main objective was to win over the hearts and minds of young East Germans to socialism, through the Marxist–Leninist ideals of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). During the 1940s, an emphasis on providing a 'happy youth life' for young East Germans increasingly made the FDJ attractive to the youths. Organised activities, including sports and dance events, 'social evenings' ( Heimabende ), concerts, hikes and trips to

6328-551: The 1950s and 1960s. It was only during these conventions that major alterations to the FDJ's statute could be made. In the interim period, the Central Council (ZR) guided the FDJ affairs, assuming a similar role to that of the SED's Central Committee (ZK). ZR members were elected by the Parliament and met in sessions ( Tagungen ) held three or four times a year. The ZR's tasks included issuing resolutions on all aspects of

6441-723: 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

6554-405: The FDJ leadership led by Eberhard Aurich was dismissed by the 13th session of the Central Council. At the end of January 1990, during the XIII Parliament the FDJ gave itself a new statute, defining itself as a "left federation" which stood for an independent GDR as a "socialist alternative on German soil", and no longer as a "helper and combat reserve of the party ". The Junge Welt later spoke of

6667-490: The FDJ to flee to the West. By 1953, the FDJ was in a state of turmoil with many members and officials joining in with the strikes and demonstrations. On 25 April 1957, at the 16th session of the FDJ, the central council declared the FDJ as an official 'socialist' youth organisation. The FDJ was the GDR's second most important mass organisation, after the FDGB . The FDJ established a political directive that, in theory, made it an omnipresent force in all aspects of 'youth life' in

6780-430: The FDJ was to ensure that individual students experienced holiday camp or carried out some activity during their holidays in a pupils' brigade. Holiday trips for hundreds of thousands of young adults were arranged annually by the FDJ's tourist agency, Jugendtourist . Free-time activities were organised as part of the 'Young Talents' movement and in the tens of thousands of youth clubs and discos. By 1983 about one million of

6893-404: The FDJ were definitive criteria during the allocation of university places. Alongside the Thälmann Pioneers , the FDJ was involved in controlling and disciplining rebellious students through denunciation and spying. After the construction of the Berlin Wall , the FDJ were involved in obstructing the flow of western media into the GDR. FDJ units were dispatched among local communities, who chanted

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7006-419: The FDJ were placed under the administration of the Treuhandanstalt . Its youth clubs and vacation resorts were redistributed, closed, or sold. The reformed SED, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), founded its own new youth organization, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Junge GenossInnen , and no longer recognized the FDJ. However, the FDJ continues to maintain a titular existence to this day. It has reverted to

7119-399: The FDJ would actively participate, marching in uniform and carrying official banners became a common occurrence. The FDJ possessed additional measures to mobilise young East German people. The FDJ aimed to make physical culture and sport a form of popular mass activity. The 'Joint Sports Programme' organised by the FDJ, the DTSB , and the FDGB, encouraged not only physical relaxation but also

7232-404: The FDJ's highest echelons, consisted of three main bodies organised in strictly hierarchical level: Bezirk (regional) leadership organizations, Kreis (district) leadership organizations, and 'basic units' ( Grundeinheiten ). At both Bezirk and Kreis level, the leadership structures essentially replicated those in place at the highest level. The 'delegates' conference' ( Delegiertenkonferenz )

7345-400: The FDJ's work, confirming the candidates selected to take up the FDJ's seats in the East German parliament (the Volkskammer or 'People's Chamber'), and overseeing the youth organization's finances. The real executive power, however, lay in the hands of the ZR Secretariat, perhaps the FDJ's nearest equivalent to the SED Politburo. Elected by the Central Council, the ZR Secretariat shaped most of

7458-414: 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

7571-432: The GDR's 2.2 million pupils attended a holiday camp and 110,000 pupils over the age of fourteen engaged in 'voluntary productive work' in a FDJ's pupils' brigade in their home area. In October 1947 the 'Berlin-FDJ' was legalised by the Allies . However, the 'West-FDJ' enjoyed little success in a hostile political environment. The FDJ's existence alongside three other youth organisations in the Allied Occupation Zone weakened

7684-415: The GDR, distribute Marxist–Leninist teachings and promote communist behavior. Membership in the FDJ was nominally voluntary. However, those who did not join lost access to organized holidays, and found it difficult (if not impossible) to be admitted to universities, pursue chosen careers, etc. The majority of youths who refused to join did so for religious reasons. While the movement was intended to promote

7797-410: The GDR. FDJ organisations were found in all areas of East German society, albeit in widely varying numbers, from schools and universities, collective farms, shops and residential areas to the army and the secret police. As the only officially approved youth organisation, the FDJ quickly developed a huge bureaucratic apparatus and acquired generous financial support from state resources. The FDJ served as

7910-417: 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

8023-399: 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

8136-681: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by

8249-655: 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

8362-518: 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

8475-471: The Marxist-Leninist ideology among the young adults of East Germany, it did not concentrate on this to the exclusion of other activities. It arranged thousands of holidays for young adults through its Jugendtourist agency and ran discos and open-air rock concerts. The Festival of Political Songs was an officially sponsored event from 1970 to 1990. The FDJ had its origins in the months following

8588-469: The SED's hopes for a monopoly control over youth politics in Germany. On 26 June 1951 the 'West-FDJ' was banned, although this ban did not extend to West Berlin on account of its quadripartite division. After a protracted legal battle, the ban came into effect in 1954 when the FDJ's appeal was rejected by the West Germany's constitutional court. In 1952, Phillip Müller, a member of the FDJ, was shot by

8701-489: The Sorbian homelands, there has also been a decrease in Sorbian identity and language use. In 2008, Sorbs protested three kinds of pressures against Sorbs: "(1.) the destruction of Sorbian and German-Sorbian villages as a result of lignite mining; (2.) the cuts in the network of Sorbian schools in Saxony; (3.) the reduction of financial resources for the Sorbian institutions by central government." A study of Upper Sorbian found

8814-545: The Sorbian language has been superseded by German . From the 13th century on, the language suffered official discrimination. Bible translations into Sorbian provided the foundations for its writing system. In Germany, Upper and Lower Sorbian are officially recognized and protected as minority languages. In the officially defined Sorbian settlement area , both languages are recognized as second official languages next to German. The city of Bautzen in Upper Lusatia

8927-424: The ages of 14 and 25, the FDJ was crucial to preparing young East Germans for mature adult life along an officially approved route of school, vocational training, and entry into the party and officeholding. The FDJ was responsible for the socialist indoctrination of the rising generation of young East Germans. FDJ members were expected to participate in the 'school year', an ideological programme, which aimed to develop

9040-692: The area west of the River Oder , an area later entitled Germania Slavica , settled by the Polabian Slav tribes in the north and by others, such as the Sorbs and the Milceni , further south (see Sorbian March ). The exact origin of the Sorbian language is uncertain. While some linguists consider it to be a transitory language between Lechitic and other non-Lechitic languages of West Slavic languages , others like Heinz Schuster-Šewc consider it

9153-484: The armed forces. In schools, the Hans-Beimler contests provided a form of military sports education for pupils in the eighth grade. Military education and training received an added impetus by the FDJ in the late 1970s and early 1980s as a result of the breakdown of détente between the superpowers. The FDJ exercised significant influence over the selection process of universities. Membership and participation within

9266-419: The cinema, among other activities, aimed to provide leisure for young East Germans without the means to otherwise engage in pastimes. In 1946 and 1947, the responsibility of organising leisure activities predominantly rested with local FDJ groups, existing in towns and villages. The FDJ also possessed its own publishing house ( Verlag Neues Leben ) and ran a number of newspapers; a daily newspaper ( Junge Welt ),

9379-606: The competitive spirit of participation. The children's "Spartakiads", also organised by the FDJ, alongside the Thälman Pioneers and other mass organisations, were staged in the schools, localities and districts biannually at regional and national level in order to stimulate a high level of performance and help sports functionaries to identify talented youths who could benefit from further development in East German sports schools and training centres. Another objective of

9492-535: 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

9605-456: 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

9718-519: 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

9831-534: The end of the Second World War and it was formally founded on 7 March 1946 under the leadership of a youthful Erich Honecker . The FDJ was initially developed by the communists as ostensibly a non-political, 'national' youth organisation, which would function in all four zones of occupied Germany . The FDJ was conceived to be a 'free' and 'democratic' united youth organisation, where young antifascists would cooperate in order to rebuild their homeland under

9944-530: The fourth central leadership organ of the FDJ. It was created at the 3rd Parliament in 1949. It incorporated a wider range of youth representatives, including the leader of the government department for 'youth questions' and representatives of the bloc parties such as the CDU and the LDPD (23). However, it had no real power and was little more than an adjunct to the far more important ZR secretariat. The sub-structure below

10057-435: 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,

10170-481: 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

10283-578: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Sorbian language The two Sorbian languages, each having its own literary standard , are Upper Sorbian ( hornjoserbsce ), spoken by about 20,000–25,000 people in Saxony , and Lower Sorbian ( dolnoserbski ), spoken by about 7,000 people in Brandenburg . The area where

10396-498: The list only gained 14,615 votes (0.12%) and no seats. After German reunification in October 1990, the FDJ quickly lost nearly all of its remaining membership, shrinking in mid-1991 to 7,000 members and in 1994 to a maximum of 300 members, dwindling further in 2003 to about 150. The 7,500 full-time employees of the FDJ were all released by the end of 1991 and the remaining staff handled the FDJ facilities and structures. The assets of

10509-402: 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

10622-520: The name of the 'Free German Youth' ( Freie Deutsche Jugend ). The name of the organisation was inspired by the 'Free German Youth' movements formed by young German antifascists in Prague, Paris and London, before the Second World War . Talk of socialism or that the FDJ was to be disproportionately composed of German communists were absent from the FDJ's initial conception. Open to those between

10735-409: The names of known listeners to western programmes or stuck posters on their doors. FDJ members also demanded that license holders dismantled TV aerials that pointed westwards, which even led to FDJ members climbing onto the roofs and sawing off offending antennae. During the SED's reforms on youth policy in the 1960s, Ulbricht attacked the FDJ's unimaginative approach to young people, instead advocating

10848-653: 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

10961-599: The office section of the Karl-Liebknecht-Haus . The former newspaper of the FDJ, the Junge Welt , still exists as a small Marxist newspaper, but is now independent from the FDJ. The present newspaper of the FDJ is named the Fanfare , and it is published irregularly. German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language in

11074-495: The political and organisational direction of the FDJ. It was responsible for cadre selection within the organization and directly instructed the Bezirk (regional) leaderships. Weekly meetings of the secretariat, generally chaired by the FDJ first secretary, were attended by the various ZR secretaries, each of whom responsible for a certain area of FDJ work (such as higher education or international affairs). The ZR Büro was, in theory,

11187-546: The presence of the FDJ in Berlin in comparison to the five Länder (states) of the Soviet Occupation Zone, where the FDJ had been established more than eighteen months earlier. In November 1948, only 3 per cent of the city's youth population were FDJ members in comparison to an average of 17 per cent of 14- to 25-year-olds in the East German Länder . The weakened presence of the 'West-FDJ' dashed

11300-462: 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

11413-546: 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,

11526-500: 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

11639-648: The two languages are spoken is known as Lusatia ( Łužica in Upper Sorbian, Łužyca in Lower Sorbian, or Lausitz in German ). After the settlement of the formerly Germanic territories (the part largely corresponding to the former East Germany ) by the Slavic ancestors of the Sorbs in the 5th and 6th centuries CE, the Sorbian language (or its predecessors) had been in use in much of what

11752-555: 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

11865-600: 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

11978-432: The youth organization, as represented by the basic unit, which constituted the FDJ's 'nerve centre' in schools, universities, factories, farms, and residential areas. It was responsible for organizing the monthly 'membership meetings' of local FDJ members, where organizational and (less frequently) political issues were discussed. In most cases, the basic units were subdivided into the smallest organizational division of all,

12091-406: The youth organization, only a small minority of functionaries—such as the first secretaries of some of the larger basic units—were full-time. The vast majority were volunteers drawn, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, from the ranks of 'ordinary' FDJ members. By the early fifties, the FDJ's transition to a 'party youth organization' was—on paper at least—almost complete. At the end of November 1989,

12204-429: 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

12317-547: 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

12430-492: 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

12543-570: Was heavily influenced by surrounding speakers of German and English . The German terms "Wends" ( Wenden ) and "Wendish" ( wendisch/Wendisch ) once denoted "Slav(ic)" generally; they are today mostly replaced by "Sorbs" ( Sorben ) and "Sorbian" ( sorbisch/Sorbisch ) with reference to Sorbian communities in Germany. The use of Sorbian languages has been contracting for a number of years. The loss of Sorbian language use in emigrant communities, such as in Serbin, Texas , has not been surprising. But within

12656-465: Was the lower-level equivalent to the FDJ Parliament, meeting twice every five years at Bezirk level and once every two years in the districts. The Bezirk and Kreis secretariats constituted the real seats of decision-making power at regional and district level respectively. The Kreis secretariat was the key organization linking the last of the full-time functionaries to the 'grass roots' of

12769-538: Was the southern half of Eastern Germany for several centuries. The language still had its stronghold in (Upper and Lower) Lusatia, where it enjoys national protection and fostering to the present day. For people living in the medieval Northern Holy Roman Empire and its precursors, especially for the Saxons , the Wends ( Wende ) were heterogeneous groups and tribes of Slavic peoples living near Germanic settlement areas, in

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