A gord is a medieval Slavonic fortified settlement, usually built on strategic sites such as hilltops, riverbanks, lake islets or peninsulas between the 6th and 12th centuries in Central and Eastern Europe . A typical gord consisted of a group of wooden houses surrounded by a wall made of earth and wood, and a palisade running along the top of the bulwark.
112-594: Olomouc ( Czech: [ˈolomouts] ; German : Olmütz ) is a city in the Czech Republic . It has about 102,000 inhabitants, making it the sixth largest city in the country . It is the administrative centre of the Olomouc Region . Located on the Morava River, the city is the ecclesiastical metropolis and was a historical co-capital city of Moravia , before having been occupied by
224-451: A city or town : The names of many Central and Eastern European cities harken back to their pasts as gords. Some of them are in countries which once were but no longer are mainly inhabited by Slavic-speaking peoples. Examples include: The words in Polish and Slovak for suburbium , podgrodzie and podhradie correspondingly, literally mean a settlement beneath a gord: the gród / hrad
336-465: 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
448-402: 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
560-612: 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
672-568: A camp of Roman legionnaires, the legend of the presence of Julius Caesar originated in the Renaissance period and nothing confirms it. Olomouc is located about 61 kilometres (38 mi) northeast of Brno and 200 km (120 mi) southeast of Prague . It lies mostly in a flat fertile land of the Upper Morava Valley . The eastern spur of the municipal territory (the villages of Lošov, Radíkov and Svatý Kopeček) extends into
784-782: A conference here called the Punctation of Olmütz . At the conference, they agreed to restore the German Confederation and Prussia accepted leadership by the Austrians. In 1746 the first learned society in the lands under control of the Austrian Habsburgs , the Societas eruditorum incognitorum in terris Austriacis , was founded in Olomouc to spread Enlightenment ideas. Its monthly Monatliche Auszüge
896-540: A garden, and its English descendant horticulture . In Hungarian , kert , the word for a garden, literally means encircled . Because Hungarian is a Uralic rather than an Indo-European language, this is likely a loanword . Further afield, in ancient Iran , a fortified wooden settlement was called a gerd , or certa , which also means garden (as in the suffix -certa in the names of various ancient Iranian cities; e.g., Hunoracerta ). The Persian word evolved into jerd under later Arab influence. Burugerd or Borujerd
1008-559: 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
1120-480: A hollow. Others, built on a natural hill or a man-made mound, were cone-shaped. Those with a natural defense on one side, such as a river or lake, were usually horseshoe-shaped. Most gords were built in densely populated areas on sites that offered particular natural advantages. As Slavic tribes united to form states, gords were also built for defensive purposes in less-populated border areas. Gords in which rulers resided or that lay on trade routes quickly expanded. Near
1232-458: 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
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#17327651177211344-696: 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
1456-483: 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
1568-659: Is HC Olomouc , playing in the Czech Extraliga (top tier). It plays its home matches at Zimní stadion Olomouc . RC Olomouc is a rugby club, playing in the third-tier competition. On the north west side and adjacent of the Andrův stadion was a facility called the Spartakiad Stadium, which was built after World War II. The stadium was used for various purposes and promoted the Spartakiad , most notably during
1680-469: Is Saint Wenceslas Cathedral founded before 1107 in the compound of the Olomouc Castle . At the end of the 19th century, the cathedral was rebuilt in the neo-Gothic style. It kept many features of the original church, which had renovations and additions reflecting styles of different ages: Romanesque crypt, Gothic cloister, Baroque chapels. The highest of the three spires is 328 ft (100 m),
1792-453: Is a city in the west of Iran. The Indian suffix -garh , meaning a fort in Hindi , Urdu , Sanskrit , and other Indo-Iranian languages , appears in many Indian place names. Given that both Slavic and Indo-Iranian are sub-branches of Indo-European and that there are numerous similarities between Slavic and Sanskrit vocabulary, it is plausible that garh and gord are related. However, this
1904-601: 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
2016-520: Is a scale model of the entire old town in bronze. Asteroid 30564 Olomouc was named after the city. Olomouc is twinned with: German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) 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
2128-612: 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
2240-558: 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
2352-478: 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
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#17327651177212464-430: 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
2576-535: 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
2688-611: 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
2800-564: Is home to the professional football club SK Sigma Olomouc playing in the Czech First League . Its reserve team, SK Sigma Olomouc B, plays in the Czech National Football League . Sigma Olomouc plays its home matches at Andrův stadion with a capacity of 12,474 seats, which regularly hosts international matches as well. The second football club in the city is 1. HFK Olomouc . The city's ice hockey club
2912-565: 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
3024-435: 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
3136-597: 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
3248-401: 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
3360-577: Is represented by a single screen Kino Metropol (opened in 1933) and three multiplexes. Palacký University, the oldest in Moravia and second oldest in the Czech Republic, was founded in 1573 as part of an effort to reestablish Roman Catholicism in the country. At the time, roughly nine out of ten inhabitants of the Czech Crown lands were Protestants. Most of its faculties were suppressed in
3472-527: Is strongly contradicted by the phoneme /g/ in Indo-Iranian, which cannot be a reflex of the Indo-European palatovelar /*ǵ/. A typical gord was a group of wooden houses built either in rows or in circles, surrounded by one or more rings of walls made of earth and wood, a palisade , and/or moats . Some gords were ring-shaped, with a round, oval, or occasionally polygonal fence or wall surrounding
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3584-525: 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
3696-476: Is the city hall, completed in the 15th century. It is flanked on one side by a gothic chapel, now adapted and operated as the Olomouc Museum of Art. It has a tower 250 ft (76 m) high, adorned with an astronomical clock in an uncommon Socialist Realist style. The original 15th-century clock was destroyed at the end of World War II. It was reconstructed in 1947–1955 by Karel Svolinský , who used
3808-410: Is the driest with only 21.5 millimetres (0.85 in). The extreme temperature throughout the year ranged from −27.9 °C (−18.2 °F) on 25 January 2006 to 37.2 °C (99.0 °F) on 3 and 8 August 2013. As early as the 7th century, a gord of the early Slavs developed in the present-day quarter of Povel. It was probably an administrative centre of a larger unit. Povel is considered one of
3920-712: Is the home of the Moravian Theatre Olomouc ( Moravské divadlo ) and the Moravian Philharmonic ( Moravská filharmonie Olomouc ). In 2023 it was decided, they will be merged in one institution. Olomouc is also the centre of the ethnographic region of Haná . As a student city with 2nd oldest university in town, Olomouc offers many cultural events and festivals: Academia Film Olomouc , Festival of Animated Film (PAF), Divadelní Flora and many others. There are several theatre venues (including Divadlo na cucky, Divadlo Tramtarie or Divadlo K3). Cinema
4032-578: 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
4144-411: Is the root of various words in modern Slavic languages pertaining to fences and fenced-in areas (Belarusian гарадз іць, Ukrainian horod yty, Slovak o hrad iť, Czech o hrad it, Russian o grad it, Serbo-Croatian o grad iti, and Polish o grad zać, grod zić, to fence off). It also has evolved into words for a garden in certain languages. Additionally, it has furnished numerous modern Slavic words for
4256-485: 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
4368-552: Is very likely that these bishops had their seat in Olomouc. Centuries later in 1777, it was raised to the rank of an archbishopric . The bishopric was moved from the church of St. Peter (since destroyed) to the church of Saint Wenceslaus in 1141 (the date is still disputed, other suggestions are 1131, 1134) under bishop Jindřich Zdík . The bishop's palace was built in the Romanesque architectural style. The bishopric acquired large tracts of land, especially in northern Moravia, and
4480-689: 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
4592-639: 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
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4704-505: 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
4816-474: 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
4928-480: 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
5040-671: 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 a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ),
5152-619: The Fall of Communism in the 1980s. In the 1950s, the clock was reconstructed under the influence of Soviet government; it features a procession of proletarians rather than saints. After the war, the government participated in the expulsion of ethnic Germans from the country, following the Allied leaders' Potsdam Agreement , which redefined the Central European borders, although many of these people's families had lived for two centuries in
5264-522: 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
5376-746: 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
5488-534: The Nízký Jeseník range and includes the highest point of Olomouc, a hill at 444 m (1,457 ft) above sea level. The Litovelské Pomoraví Protected Landscape Area extends into the territory of Olomouc in the north. The Morava River and the stream of Mlýnský potok, which is a branch of the Morava, flow through the city. The Bystřice flows into the Morava at the city centre. The Oskava briefly forms
5600-666: 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
5712-501: The Roman gods Jupiter (image) , Mercury (image) , Triton (image) , Neptune and Hercules (image) . One features Julius Caesar , the legendary founder of the city (image) . In the 21st century, an Arion fountain was added to the main square, inspired by the older project. In front of the astronomical clock on the Horní ("Upper") Square, which is the largest square in Olomouc,
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#17327651177215824-676: 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
5936-550: 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
6048-483: The Swedish army during the Thirty Years' War . The historic city centre is well preserved and is protected by law as urban monument reservation . The Holy Trinity Column was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000 for its quintessential Baroque style and symbolic value. Olomouc is made up of 26 administrative parts: The origin of the name is unknown. According to the most frequently considered theory, it
6160-513: 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
6272-469: 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
6384-652: The 1850s by the Habsburg régime in retaliation for professor and student support for the 1848 revolution and the Czech National Revival . The university was fully restored in 1946; it was renamed Palacký University of Olomouc . The university plays a very important role in the life of the city: with over 25,200 students (including those at Moravian College Olomouc), Olomouc has the highest density of university students in Central Europe. Many of
6496-477: The 1950s and 1960s. The site also held motorcycle speedway and hosted a final round of the Czechoslovak Individual Speedway Championship in 1964, 1968 and 1969. Olomouc contains several large squares, the chief of which is adorned with the Holy Trinity Column , designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site . The column is 115 ft (35 m) high and was built between 1716 and 1754. The city has numerous historic religious buildings. The most prominent church
6608-448: The Chválkovice district. After Olomouc was liberated, Czech residents took back the original name of the city square. When the retreating German army passed through the city in the final weeks of the war, they shot at its 15th-century astronomical clock, leaving only a few pieces intact (these are held in the local museum). The city was restored to Czechoslovakia, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime with stayed in power until
6720-614: 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
6832-414: 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
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#17327651177216944-417: 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
7056-414: The German municipalities Puttgarden , Wagria and Putgarten , Rügen . From this same Proto-Indo-European root come the Germanic word elements * gard and * gart (as in Stuttgart ), and likely also the names of Graz , Austria and Gartz , Germany . Cognate to these are English words such as garden , yard , garth , girdle and court. Also cognate but less closely related are Latin hortus ,
7168-399: 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
7280-623: 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
7392-467: The Habsburgs and migration of ethnic Germans into the area, the use of Czech declined. By the 19th century, the number of ethnic Germans in the city were recorded as three times higher than the number of Czechs. After the 1848 revolution , the government rescinded its Jewish expulsion order of 1454. Jews returned to the city and, in 1897, built a synagogue . The Jewish population reached 1,676 in 1900. Olomouc retained its defensive city walls almost until
7504-547: 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
7616-408: 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
7728-429: The Mongols carried their raids into Moravia, but were defensively defeated at the fortified town of Olomouc. The Mongols subsequently invaded and defeated Hungary . In 1454 the city expelled its Jewish population as part of a wave of anti-Semitism, also seen in Spain and Portugal . The second half of the 15th century is considered the start of Olomouc's golden age. It hosted several royal meetings, and Matthias Corvinus
7840-441: The capital of the province of Moravia. Around 981–990, the Polish Duke Mieszko I took the Moravian Gate and Olomouc as an important place at the intersection of trade routes. Olomouc probably was mentioned in the Dagome iudex document ( c. 991 ) as Alemura . All of Moravia was part of Poland between 1003 and 1031 during the reign of Bolesław I the Brave and partly Mieszko II Lambert . The first certain mention of
7952-436: The city and its surroundings, linked to the city by commuting and migration. It has about 401,000 inhabitants and also includes the cities of Přerov and Prostějov . Public transport in Olomouc is provided by trams and buses. Local railway services from Olomouc main railway station to Senice na Hané and Prostějov make stops around the city. The first train arrived in Olomouc on 17 October 1841 from Vienna . In 1845,
8064-408: The city dates back to 1017. Moravia was under Bohemian rule since 1031 (according to some Czech historians, since 1019 or 1021). The bishopric of Olomouc was founded in 1063. It was possibly re-founded because there are some unclear references to bishops of Moravia in the 10th century—if they were not only missionary bishops, but representatives of some remains of regular church organization, then it
8176-552: The city in ruins, and as a result it lost its predominant place in Moravia, becoming second to Brno . In 1740 the town was captured and briefly held by the Prussians . Olomouc was fortified by Maria Theresa during the wars with Frederick the Great , who besieged the city unsuccessfully for seven weeks in 1758. In 1848 Olomouc was the scene of the emperor Ferdinand 's abdication. Two years later, Austrian and German statesmen held
8288-626: The city was under German occupation and most of the city's ethnic German residents sided with the Nazis ; the German-run city council renamed the main square (until then named after president T. G. Masaryk ) after Adolf Hitler . World War II brought a rise in anti-semitism and attacks on the Jews that reflected what was happening in Germany. On Kristallnacht (10 November 1938), townspeople destroyed
8400-515: The city's services are student-oriented. They close during holidays and the university exam periods. During the summer holiday, the trams run solo (apart from rush-hours), while during the university sessions, the lines are served by two coupled trams. The university buildings comprise about a third of the city's heritage centre; notable ones include the University Art Centre and the so-called Armoury (now Central Library). Olomouc
8512-639: The city. The Pope promoted the church to Minor Basilica . Several monasteries are in Olomouc, including Hradisko Monastery , Convent of Dominican Sisters in Olomouc and others. Other notable destinations are the Olomouc Orthodox Church , consecrated to Saint Gorazd [ cs ] , and the Mausoleum of Yugoslav Soldiers . This monument commemorates 1,188 Yugoslav soldiers who died during World War I in local hospitals after being wounded on battlefields. The principal secular building
8624-543: The country. Olomouc's climate is classified as humid continental climate ( Köppen Dfb ). Among them, the annual average temperature is 9.6 °C (49.3 °F), the hottest month in July is 20.3 °C (68.5 °F), and the coldest month is −1.4 °C (29.5 °F) in January. The annual precipitation is 532.3 millimetres (20.96 in), of which July is the wettest with 78.7 millimetres (3.10 in), while February
8736-535: 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
8848-456: 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
8960-519: 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
9072-585: The end of the 19th century. This suited the city council, because demolishing the walls would have allowed for expansion of the city and attracted more Czechs from neighbouring villages. The city council preferred Olomouc to be smaller and predominantly German. Greater expansion came after World War I and the establishment of Czechoslovakia . In 1919 Olomouc annexed two neighbouring towns and 11 surrounding villages, gaining new space for additional growth and development. Serious tensions arose between ethnic Czechs and Germans during both world wars. During World War II ,
9184-574: The enemy, he was tortured but did not reveal anything because of the Seal of Confession and died. The torture rack and Sarkander's gravestone are preserved here. He was canonized by Pope John Paul II during his visit in Olomouc in 1995. John Paul II also visited Svatý Kopeček ("The Holy Hillock"), which has the magnificent Baroque Church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary. It overlooks
9296-420: The first omnibuses connected the railway station and the center of Olomouc. In 1899, omnibuses were replaced with trams. The main railway station in Olomouc ( Olomouc hlavní nádraží ) is an important railway junction. The city is connected with Prague , Ostrava , Brno , Zlín and Břeclav . Passenger trains of all categories operated by České dráhy , RegioJet and LEO Express make stops there. The city
9408-407: The gord, or below it in elevation, there formed small communities of servants, merchants, artisans, and others who served the higher-ranked inhabitants of the gord. Each such community was known as a suburbium (literally "undercity") ( Polish : podgrodzie ). Its residents could shelter within the walls of the gord in the event of danger. Eventually the suburbium acquired its own fence or wall. In
9520-495: The governing Přemyslid dynasty , stood nearby. Church of Saint Maurice , a fine Gothic building of the 15th century, has the 6th-largest church organ in Central Europe. Church of Saint Michael is notable. The Neo-baroque Chapel of Saint John Sarkander stands on the site of a former town prison. At the beginning of the Thirty Years' War , the Catholic priest John Sarkander was imprisoned here. Accused of collaboration with
9632-587: The government-approved style of the time, featuring proletarians rather than saints. This is also the reason why the clock's calendar represents some of the most important days of the Communist regime. Olomouc has unique set of six Baroque fountains. They survived in such number thanks to the city council's caution. While most European cities were removing old fountains after building water-supply piping, Olomouc decided to keep them as reservoirs in case of fire. The fountains feature ancient Roman motifs; five portray
9744-435: 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,
9856-481: 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
9968-584: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Gord (archaeology) The term ultimately descends from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root ǵʰortós 'enclosure'. The Proto-Slavic word *gordъ later differentiated into grad ( Cyrillic : град), gorod (Cyrillic: город), gród in Polish , gard in Kashubian , etc. It
10080-531: The mid-16th and 17th centuries. The first treatise on music in Czech was published in Olomouc in the mid-16th century. The political and social changes that followed the Thirty Years' War increased the influence of courtly Habsburg and Austrian/German-language culture. The "Germanification" of the town likely resulted from the cosmopolitan nature of the city; as the cultural, administrative and religious centre of
10192-402: 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
10304-653: 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
10416-444: The northern municipal border, before it joins the Morava. Chomoutovské Lake, located in the northern tip of the municipal territory, was created by flooding a gravel quarry and has an area of 85 ha (210 acres). Together with the immediate surroundings, it is protected as a nature monument. The lake is an important stop for migratory birds and is home to one of the largest colonies of black-headed gulls and Mediterranean gulls in
10528-462: 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
10640-541: The region, it drew officials, musicians and traders from all over Europe. Despite these influences, Czech dominated, particularly in ecclesiastical publications throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. When the Austrian-born composer and musician Philip J. Rittler accepted a post at the Wenceslas Cathedral in the latter 17th century, he felt it necessary to learn Czech. With the continued dominance of
10752-492: The region. There were the statue of the first president T. G. Masaryk reconstructed as a symbol of come back of democracy on Masaryk street after "velvet revolution" in 1990. Its inner city is the third-largest urban monument reservation in the country, after Prague. The Olomouc agglomeration was defined as a tool for drawing money from the European Structural and Investment Funds . It is an area that includes
10864-588: The second-highest in the country (after Cathedral of St. Bartholomew in Plzeň ). The church is next to the Bishop Zdík's Palace (also called the Přemyslid Palace), a Romanesque building built after 1141 by the bishop Jindřich Zdík . It remains one of the most precious monuments of Olomouc: Such an early bishop's palace is unique in Central Europe. The Přemyslid Palace, used as the residence of Olomouc dukes from
10976-546: 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,
11088-533: The synagogue. In March 1939, city police arrested 800 Jewish men, and had some deported to the Dachau concentration camp . During 1942–1943, ethnic Germans sent the remaining Jews to Theresienstadt and other German concentration camps in occupied Poland . Fewer than 300 of the city's Jews survived the Holocaust . The Germans also established and operated a Gestapo prison in the city, and a forced labour camp in
11200-500: 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
11312-540: The three most important Moravian localities of the early Middle Ages. In the early 9th century, the gord was conquered and completely disappeared. A new centre, where the Great Moravian governor resided, developed at the gord at Předhradí, a quarter of the inner city (the eastern, smaller part of the medieval centre). This settlement survived the defeat of the Great Moravia (c. 907) and gradually became
11424-555: 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
11536-600: 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
11648-429: 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
11760-547: 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
11872-509: Was derived from the personal name Olmút, meaning "Olmút's" (castle, court). Another theory says that the name was derived from the Proto-Slavic words ol ('beer') and mútit ('to make noise'). According to legend, there was a Roman fort founded by Roman legionnaires under the command of Julius Caesar . The fort was called Iuliomontium or Julimons , and the name Olomouc was derived from it. Although archaeologists have found traces of
11984-555: Was elected here as King of Bohemia (in fact anti-king) by the estates in 1469. In 1479 two kings of Bohemia ( Vladislaus II and Matthias Corvinus) met here and concluded an agreement ( Peace of Olomouc of 1479) for splitting the country. Participating in the Protestant Reformation , Moravia became mostly Protestant. During the Thirty Years' War , in 1640 Olomouc was occupied by the Swedes for eight years. They left
12096-492: 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
12208-482: Was frequently built at the top of a hill, and the podgrodzie / podhradie at its foot. (The Slavic prefix pod- , meaning "under/below" and descending from the Proto-Indo-European root pṓds , meaning foot, being equivalent to Latin sub- ). The word survives in the names of several villages ( Podgrodzie, Subcarpathian Voivodeship ) and town districts (e.g., that of Olsztyn ), as well as in the names of
12320-645: Was officially founded in the mid-13th century and became one of the most important trade and power centres in the region. In the Middle Ages, it was the biggest town in Moravia and competed with Brno for the position of capital. Olomouc finally lost after the Swedes took the city and held it for eight years (1642–1650). In 1235, the Mongols launched an invasion of Europe . After the Battle of Legnica in Poland,
12432-531: Was one of the richest in the area. Olomouc became one of the most important settlements in Moravia and a seat of the Přemyslid government and one of the appanage princes. In 1306 King Wenceslas III stopped here on his way to Poland. He was going to fight Władysław I the Elbow-high to claim his rights to the Polish crown and was assassinated. With his death, the whole Přemyslid dynasty died out. The city
12544-638: Was the first scientific journal published in the Habsburg empire. Largely because of its ecclesiastical links to Austria, Salzburg in particular, the city was influenced by German culture since the Middle Ages . Demographics before censuses can only be interpreted from other documents. The town's ecclesiastical constitution, the meetings of the Diet and the locally printed hymnal, were recorded in Czech in
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