137-524: In present-day Germany, the former eastern territories of Germany ( German : ehemalige deutsche Ostgebiete ) refer to those territories east of the current eastern border of Germany , i.e. the Oder–Neisse line , which historically had been considered German and which were annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union after World War II . In contrast to the lands awarded to the restored Polish state by
274-542: A bishopric in the Kołobrzeg area in 1000–1005–07, before the area was lost by Poland again to pagan Slavic tribes. The Duchy of Pomerania was established as a vassal state of Poland in 1121, which it remained until the fragmentation of Poland after the death of Polish ruler Bolesław III Wrymouth in 1138. The Dukes of Pomerania then became independent, and later were vassals of the Duchy of Saxony from 1164 to 1181, of
411-465: 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
548-402: 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
685-886: A suffragan of the Archdiocese of Gniezno until 1424, when it passed under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg . The Lubusz Land was part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown from 1373 to 1415. After Germanic tribes left the area in the Migration Period , Lechitic tribes began to settle Silesia, while Lusatia was settled by the Milceni and the Polabian Slavs and the Kłodzko Land
822-612: 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
959-734: A central square, the ring, which became known in Polish as rynek . German craftsmen and miners also started settling the region's mountainous areas. The Bohemian Lands were under the rule of the House of Jagiellon in personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary until the Battle of Mohács in 1526. Afterwards, they were ruled in personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary and the Archduchy of Austria by
1096-702: A constituent part of the kingdom itself. In the 14th century, the Treaty of Namysłów had King Casimir III the Great give up all Polish claims to Silesia and ceded the Duchies of Silesia to the Lands of the Bohemian Crown . Ecclesiastically, the Diocese of Wrocław covering Silesia remained a suffragan of the Polish Archdiocese of Gniezno until becoming exempt in 1821. The first German colonists arrived in
1233-559: 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
1370-577: A kingdom. Subsequently, it entered into an alliance with Austria and Russia, invading Polish territories of Royal Prussia in the First Partition of Poland (1772), with Warmia being made part of the newly formed province of East Prussia in 1773. As a result of the Treaty of Versailles, a minor part around Soldau was transferred to Poland, the Klaipėda Region formed a free city supervised by
1507-562: A massive campaign of renaming of thousands of placenames , to remove traces of Polish, Lithuanian and Old Prussian origin. Germany invaded Poland without a declaration of war on 1 September 1939, heralding the start of the Second World War . The Third Reich annexed the Polish lands included the former Prussian Partition , comprising Pomerelia (the " Polish Corridor "), Chełmno Land , Greater Poland proper, Kuyavia , Łęczyca Land , Sieradz Land , Northern Masovia , as well as
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#17327877720141644-777: A migration process known as the Ostsiedlung , and the Hanseatic League dominated the shores of the Baltic Sea . In Pomerania, Brandenburg , East Prussia , Lusatia , Kłodzko Land and Lower Silesia , the former West Slav ( Bohemians , Polabian Slavs and Poles ) or Baltic population became minorities in the course of the following centuries, but substantial numbers of them remained in areas such as Upper Silesia . In Greater Poland and in Eastern Pomerania ( Pomerelia ), German settlers always remained
1781-641: A minority. Some of the territories, such as Pomerelia and Masovia, reunited with Poland during the 15th and 16th centuries. Silesia, Lubusz Land and Lusatia (as parts of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown ) and the Duchy of Pomerania became more firmly incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire . In the course of the Partitions of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austrian Empire acquired vast territorial shares of
1918-458: 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
2055-668: A political ultimatum caused a Lithuanian delegation to travel to Berlin, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Juozas Urbšys and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop signed the Treaty of the Cession of the Memel Territory to Germany in exchange for a Lithuanian Free Zone in the port of Memel that used the facilities erected in the previous years. In the interwar period , the German administration, both Weimar and Nazi, conducted
2192-696: 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
2329-496: A quarter of the pre-war territory of Germany according to the borders of 1937, whose German-speaking population either fled in the final stages of the war or had been expelled in the wake of the German defeat in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement . The treaty was worded as a declaration and was, initially, not recognised as a legitimate international treaty by West Germany insisting on its exclusive mandate and
2466-583: A replacement for the dissolved Holy Roman Empire the German Confederation (German: Deutscher Bund), an association of 39 German-speaking states in Central Europe under the nominal leadership of the Austrian Empire . Its boundaries largely followed the ones of its predecessor, the Holy Roman Empire , defining the territory of Germany for much of the 19th century and confirming Pomerania , East Brandenburg and Silesia as its parts. On
2603-483: 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
2740-717: Is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and
2877-601: 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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#17327877720143014-612: 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
3151-558: 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
3288-478: 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
3425-430: 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
3562-535: 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
3699-611: 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
3836-565: 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
3973-435: 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
4110-597: 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
4247-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German
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4384-525: 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
4521-658: Is the method which, in so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble. A clean sweep will be made. The problem with the status of these territories was that the Potsdam Agreement was not a legally binding treaty , but a memorandum between the USSR, the US and the UK (to which neither France, nor Germany or Poland were party). It regulated
4658-578: 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
4795-485: 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
4932-689: 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
5069-639: 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
5206-537: 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
5343-417: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language
5480-662: The German Confederation in 1815. After the Napoleonic Wars , Swedish Pomerania was merged into the Prussian province in 1815, both now constituting the Province of Pomerania . In 1938, the northern part of the dissolved Grenzmark Posen-West Prussia became part of the province. At the turn of the 20th century, the total population of the province of almost 1.7 million inhabitants had a Polish-speaking minority of less than 1%. The medieval Lubusz Land , on both sides of
5617-455: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout
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5754-901: The Hlučín Region of Upper Silesia and in the western part of the Kłodzko Land ( Czech Corner ). Sorbian was spoken in parts of Lusatia, while Polish prevailed in Middle Silesia north of the Oder river, in parts of Austrian Silesia and in Upper Silesia . In the latter case, the Germans who arrived during the Middle Ages became mostly Polonised , especially with the advent of the industrial revolution which created employment and business opportunities, attracting numerous Poles to
5891-843: The Holocaust and the Polish communities were mostly expelled to the restored Polish state after World War II, the communist ruled Polish People's Republic . Poles from the northern part of Kresy were primarily resettled in Pomerania and Poles from Galicia were primarily resettled in Silesia , e.g. the Ossolineum and the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów were both relocated to Wrocław , the former Breslau. The territories acquired by Poland after World War II are known there as
6028-554: 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
6165-506: The Holy Roman Emperors of the House of Habsburg , finally ceasing de facto (but not de jure ) to exist as a separate realm and becoming a part of the Habsburg monarchy in the aftermath of the Bohemian Revolt 's defeat in the Battle of White Mountain . After losing the 18th-century Silesian Wars , the Habsburg monarchy was forced to cede most of the region to the Kingdom of Prussia in the treaties of Breslau and of Berlin , retaining only Austrian Silesia . The ceded lands also included
6302-402: The Holy Roman Empire from 1181 to 1185, of Denmark from 1185 to 1227 and finally, from 1227 on, were under the Holy Roman Empire (including periods of vassalage to the Margraves of Brandenburg ). By the end of the Middle Ages , because of an influx of Germanic settlers, the assimilation of the Slavic population, the introduction of German town law , the influence of Germanic customs, and
6439-449: The Kaliningrad Oblast , now forming a Russian exclave . The post-war border between Germany and Poland along the Oder–Neisse line was defined in August 1945 by the Potsdam Agreement of the leaders of the three main Allies of World War II , the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States; and was formally recognized by East Germany in 1950, by the Treaty of Zgorzelec , under pressure from Stalin . In 1952, recognition of
6576-434: The League of Nations , albeit bound in some aspects by an imposed union with Poland. However, in areas such as Upper Silesia , no clear division between the mostly bilingual population was possible. After a first plebiscite, Upper Silesia was to stay part of Germany's territory. However, after the Silesian Uprisings , the area was divided in accord with the German–Polish Convention regarding Upper Silesia . The parts of
6713-438: The League of Nations , annexed following the Klaipėda Revolt by Lithuania but reclaimed by Germany in 1938, while the bulk (including entire Warmia and Masuria) remained a part of Germany, following the East Prussian plebiscite , and became enlarged by the addition of the formerly West Prussian Malbork Land . In the Potsdam Agreement the description of the territories transferred is "The former German territories east of
6850-405: The Munich agreement . However, as distinct from other lost Czechoslovakian domains, it was not attached to Sudetengau (the administrative region covering the Sudetenland ) but to Prussia ( Upper Silesia ). By late 1938, Lithuania had lost control over the situation in the Memel Territory , which had been annexed by Lithuania in the Klaipėda putsch . In the early hours of 23 March 1939, after
6987-402: The Oder–Neisse line ", and permutations on this description are the most commonly used to describe any former territories of interwar Germany east of the Oder–Neisse line. The term has sometimes been confused with the name East Germany , a political term, used to be the common colloquial English name for the German Democratic Republic (GDR), and mirrored the common colloquial English term for
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#17327877720147124-439: 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
7261-427: The Potsdam Conference , held from 17 July until 2 August 1945, placed all of the areas east of the Oder–Neisse line, whether recognised by the international community as part of Germany until 1939 or occupied by Germany during World War II, under the jurisdiction of other countries, pending a final Peace Conference. The Allies also agreed that: XII. Orderly transfer of German populations. The Three Governments [of
7398-402: The Recovered Territories . The territories Poland annexed had been ruled as part of Poland by the Piast dynasty in the High Middle Ages , with the exception of southern East Prussia , which originally was inhabited by Old Prussians and came under Polish suzerainty in the Late Middle Ages . The northern part of East Prussia was annexed by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic as
7535-402: The Republic of Poland and East Germany (GDR) was signed on 6 July 1950 in Zgorzelec , Poland. The agreement was signed by Otto Grotewohl , prime minister of the provisional government of the GDR (East Germany) and Polish premier Józef Cyrankiewicz . It recognized the Oder-Neisse line implemented by the 1945 Potsdam Agreement as the border between the two states. The terms referred to
7672-417: The Second Peace of Thorn (1466), Warmia and the Malbork Land (comprising northern parts of Pomesania and Pogesania ) became subject to the Polish Crown as a part of Royal Prussia , a region initially holding considerable autonomy and continuing to use the German language as official, but ultimately becoming fully integrated with the Crown of Poland upon conclusion of the Union of Lublin . Masuria and
7809-427: 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
7946-422: 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
8083-427: The Treaty of Versailles after World War I , the German territories lost with the post-World War II Potsdam Agreement were either almost exclusively inhabited by Germans before 1945 (the bulk of East Prussia , Lower Silesia , Farther Pomerania , and parts of Western Pomerania , Lusatia , and Neumark ), mixed German– Polish with a German majority (the Posen–West Prussia Border March, Lauenburg and Bütow Land ,
8220-400: 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
8357-408: 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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#17327877720148494-402: The "defined and existing border" from the Baltic Sea west of Świnoujście - however without mentioning Szczecin - along the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers to the Czechoslovak border. Thereby the East German government also accepted the division of Kostrzyn nad Odrą / Küstrin-Kietz , Słubice / Frankfurt (Oder) , Gubin / Guben and Zgorzelec / Görlitz . This border drawing gave Poland
8631-430: The (sometimes considered Moravian ) territories of the Duchies of Troppau and of Krnov north of the Opava river, as well as the strategically important Kłodzko Land, a part of the core territory of the Kingdom of Bohemia. As the result of the peaceful influx of German -speakers, Lusatia, Silesia and the Kłodzko Land became predominantly German-speaking. Czech continued to be spoken in parts of Austrian Silesia, in
8768-403: The 13th and 14th centuries. Under the Teutonic Order, the region's towns were founded, woodlands were cleared and marshlands made arable to be settled by colonists, predominantly from German-speaking areas but also from neighboring Polish and Lithuanian lands. The area became predominantly German during the Ostsiedlung , either almost exclusively ( Sambia , Natangia , and Bartia together forming
8905-416: The 1938 annexation of Austria to 357,022 km after the 1990 reunification of Germany, a loss of 24%. Despite its acquisition of the formerly German territory, the war also saw Poland's territory reduced by about 20% overall because of its losses in the east to the Soviets. Farther Pomerania comprised the eastern part of the Prussian Province of Pomerania . It stretched roughly from the Oder River in
9042-427: The Confederation (a failed attempt to include these lands in the German Empire (1848–49) was undertaken by the Frankfurt Parliament ), as did the Austrian-held partition of Poland (the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria ), Transleithania , as well as the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland and the French region of Alsace. In the following years, Prussia superseded Austria in the role of the primary driving force of
9179-614: 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
9316-414: 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
9453-417: 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
9590-411: The German state, and control over the borderlands would shift back and forth between the two polities over the centuries to come. Mieszko's son and successor, king Bolesław I Chrobry , upon the 1018 Peace of Bautzen expanded the southern part of the realm but lost control over the lands of Western Pomerania on the Baltic coast. After pagan revolts and a Bohemian invasion in the 1030s, Duke Casimir I
9727-399: 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
9864-681: 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
10001-655: 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
10138-865: The Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ), the Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German
10275-518: 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
10412-656: The Oder River up to the Spree in the west, including Lubusz ( Lebus ) itself, also formed part of Mieszko's realm. Poland lost Lubusz when the Silesian duke Bolesław II Rogatka sold it to the Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg in 1249. Brandenburg also acquired the castellany of Santok from Duke Przemysł I of Greater Poland and made it the nucleus of its Neumark ("New March") region. The Bishopric of Lebus remained
10549-621: The Oder–Neisse line as a permanent boundary was one of Stalin's conditions for the Soviet Union to agree to a reunification of Germany (see Stalin Note ). The offer was rejected by Konrad Adenauer , Chancellor of West Germany , at least in part because one of Stalin's other conditions was for Germany to never join NATO ( similarly to Austria ). The then official West German government position on
10686-583: The Oder–Neisse line as the western boundary of Poland when the 1970 Treaty of Warsaw between West Germany and Poland took effect; and in 1973, the Federal Constitutional Court acknowledged the capability of East Germany to negotiate the Treaty of Zgorzelec as an international agreement binding as a legal definition of its boundaries. In signing the Helsinki Final Act in 1975, both West Germany and East Germany recognised
10823-658: The Poles had been expelled. The remainder of Polish territory was annexed by the Soviet Union (see Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact ) or made into the German-controlled General Government occupation zone. After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the district of Białystok , which included the Białystok , Bielsk Podlaski , Grajewo , Łomża , Sokółka , Volkovysk and Grodno counties,
10960-456: The Potsdam protocols, without German agreement to an Oder–Neisse line boundary there could be no Peace Treaty and no German Reunification. The debate affected Cold War politics and diplomacy and played an important role in the negotiations leading up to the reunification of Germany in 1990. German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] )
11097-471: The Restorer (reigned 1040–1058) again united most of the former Piast realm, including Silesia and Lubusz Land , on both sides of the middle Oder River but without Western Pomerania, which returned to of the Polish state only under Bolesław III Wrymouth from 1116 to 1121, when the noble House of Griffins established the Duchy of Pomerania . On Bolesław's death in 1138, Poland was for almost 200 years
11234-474: The Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain], having considered the question in all its aspects, recognize that the transfer to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken. They agree that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner. because in the words of Winston Churchill Expulsion
11371-424: The annexed areas of Poland into administrative units: The territories had an area of 94,000 km and a population of 10,000,000. Throughout the war, the annexed Polish territories were subject to German colonisation. Because of the lack of settlers from Germany itself, the colonists were primarily ethnic Germans relocated from other parts of Eastern Europe. The ethnic Germans were then resettled in homes from which
11508-607: The area. In contrast the Polish-speaking parts of Lower and Middle Silesia, commonly described until the late 19th century as the Polish side , were mostly Germanised in the 18th and 19th centuries, except for a few patches and a larger area along the northeastern frontier. Originally inhabited mainly by the pagan Old Prussians , the regions were conquered and incorporated into the state of the Teutonic Knights in
11645-659: The border and confirming West Germany's acceptance of the Treaty of Zgorzelec as an international agreement binding on the states that were party to it. The validity of the Treaty of Zgorzelec was explicitly confirmed in a judgement of the Federal Constitutional Court of 1973 on the Basic Treaty between East and West Germany . Reunited Germany formally accepted the Oder-Neisse boundary in the German–Polish Border Treaty (1990) . The community centre in which
11782-467: The central part of the region), mixed German- Lithuanian (the North-Eastern part called Lithuania Minor including Sudovia , Nadrovia and Scalovia ), or mixed German – Polish ( Masurians , Warmiacy ) comprising the southern ( Sasna and Galindia , together forming Masuria ) and western ( Warmia , Pomesania , and Pogesania , the latter two together forming Powiśle ) rim of the region. By
11919-686: The demised Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . During the Napoleonic era the Greater Polish territories and the Chełmno Land formed part of the Duchy of Warsaw following the Treaties of Tilsit , and Danzig was granted a status of a Free City . However, after the Congress of Vienna , the Polish duchy was again partitioned between Russia and Prussia. The Congress of Vienna established as
12056-482: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with
12193-456: 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
12330-624: The east German lands to Poland was done in large part to compensate Poland for losing the Kresy lands east of the Curzon line , a region that was annexed by the Soviet Union after the German invasion of Poland in 1939. This territory had large populations of Ukrainians , Belarusians and Lithuanians – the main ethnic groups of three of the western republics of the Soviet Union – and many towns that were primarily inhabited by Poles and Jews. The Jewish communities in this region were mostly exterminated in
12467-508: The eastern Hohenzollern-ruled territories with a predominantly Polish population (especially the formerly Polish territories of Posen and West Prussia) increasingly became a target of aggressive Germanisation efforts , German settlement, anti-Catholic campaigns ( Kulturkampf ), as well as disfranchisement and expropriations of Poles, and finally annexed following the North German Confederation Treaty (1866). At
12604-519: 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
12741-476: The eastern territories with a predominantly or almost exclusively German population (East Brandenburg, East Prussia, Hither and Farther Pomerania, and the bulk of Silesia ) remained with Germany. The historically Polish and strategically vital for Poland but predominantly German-speaking city of Danzig formed henceforth with its surrounding areas the Free City of Danzig , a self-governing territory supervised by
12878-613: The end of the war. The precise location of the border was left open, and the western Allies also accepted in general the principles of the Oder River being the future western border of Poland and of population transfer being the way to prevent future border disputes. The open questions were whether the border should follow the Eastern or Lusatian Neisse rivers and whether Stettin , the traditional seaport of Berlin , should remain in Germany or be included in Poland. Originally, Germany
13015-583: The existing boundaries of post-war Europe, including the Oder–Neisse line, as valid in international law. In 1990, as part of the reunification of Germany , both German countries accepted clauses in the peace treaty with the four countries representing the Allies ( Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany ) to replace the Potsdam Agreement , whereby Germany renounced all claims to territory outside East and West Germany. As
13152-559: The former province of Posen and of West Prussia that were not restored as part of the Second Polish Republic were administered as Grenzmark Posen-Westpreußen (the German Province of Posen–West Prussia) until 1939. The defeat of Germany and the imposed terms of peace left a sense of injustice among the population. The subsequent interwar economic crisis acted as a fertile ground for irredentist claims that
13289-486: The historic post-war German Democratic Republic, and its counterpart five successor states in the current reunited Germany . However, because people and institutions in the states traditionally considered as Middle Germany , like the three southern new states Saxony-Anhalt , the Free State of Saxony and the Free State of Thuringia , still use the term Middle Germany when referring to their area and its institutions,
13426-435: 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,
13563-481: 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
13700-468: The international recognition of the Polish government-in-exile, which had been evacuated in 1939. The conference agreed that the Polish eastern border would follow the Curzon Line and that Poland would receive substantial territorial compensation in the west from Germany, but the exact border was to be determined later. A "Committee on Dismemberment of Germany" was to be set up to decide whether Germany
13837-464: The issue of the eastern German border, which was confirmed as being along the Oder–Neisse line, but the final article of the memorandum said that the final decisions concerning Germany, and hence the detailed alignment of Germany's eastern boundaries, would be subject to a separate peace treaty; at which the three Allied signatories committed themselves to respect the terms of the Potsdam memorandum. Hence, so long as these Allied Powers remained committed to
13974-641: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Treaty of Zgorzelec The Treaty of Zgorzelec (Full title The Agreement Concerning the Demarcation of the Established and the Existing Polish-German State Frontier , also known as the Treaty of Görlitz and Treaty of Zgorzelic ) between
14111-554: The late 12th century, and large-scale German settlement started in the early 13th century during the reign of Henry I . New forms of agriculture, technology and law brought in by the German settlers, took root in the region, also benefiting the Slavic population. By the late 14th century, 130 towns and 1300 villages had adopted German law . Silesian cities such as Jelenia Góra (Hirschberg), Lwówek Śląski (Löwenberg) and Złotoryja (Goldberg) had typical architecture, being centered around
14248-582: The members states of NATO . Four years later when the Soviet Union granted East Germany independence, the Soviet Union reserved rights over East Germany (similar to the rights reserved by the Western Allies over West Germany under the Bonn–Paris conventions ) pending a final peace treaty with Germany - the 1990 Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany . So although the treaty
14385-402: 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
14522-653: 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
14659-469: The other German state of West Germany . When focusing on the period before World War II, "eastern Germany" is used to describe all the territories east of the Elbe ( East Elbia ), as reflected in the works of sociologist Max Weber and political theorist Carl Schmitt , but because of the border changes in the 20th century, after World War II the term "East Germany" and eastern Germany in English has meant
14796-561: The other hand, the remaining parts of the lands ruled by the House of Hohenzollern which were not included in the Holy Roman Empire, namely the German-speaking Prussian nucleus ( East Prussia ), and the newly acquired predominantly Polish- or Kashubian-speaking territorial share of the collapsed and dismembered Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth ( Grand Duchy of Posen and West Prussia ), continued as external to
14933-639: The parts of Upper Silesia located in Poland, including the former Czechoslovak part of Cieszyn Silesia annexed by Poland in 1938. The Senate of the Free City of Danzig , elected by the Volkstag already also dominated by the Nazi Party at that time, voted to become a part of Germany again, but Poles and Jews were deprived of their voting rights and all non- Nazi political parties were banned. Two decrees by Adolf Hitler (8 and 12 October 1939) divided
15070-462: 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
15207-524: The restoration of German unity and secured this position by abolishing the German Confederation in the Peace of Prague . Austria was in turn transformed into poly-ethnic Austria-Hungary , abstained from further German unification efforts and abandoned forced Germanization. Thus, the planned German unification was to be accomplished in the Lesser German solution version. With rise of nationalism ,
15344-554: The result of this treaty, Germany's recognition of the Oder–Neisse line as the border was formalised by the re-united Germany in the German–Polish Border Treaty on 14 November 1990 and by the repeal of Article 23 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany under which German states outside the Federal Republic could formerly have declared their accession. Germany went from a territory of 468,787 km before
15481-487: The southern and western rim of East Prussia , Ermland , Western Upper Silesia , and the part of Lower Silesia east of the Oder ), or mixed German– Czech with a German majority ( Glatz ). Virtually the entire German population of the territories that did not flee voluntarily in the face of the Red Army advance of 1945 , was violently expelled to Germany , with their possessions being looted and stolen. The ceding of
15618-723: The southern part of Pomesania and Pogesania stayed part of the rump Teutonic state (called thereafter Monastic Prussia or Teutonic Prussia ) which became a German fief of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , finally secularised in 1525 to become the Ducal Prussia . The latter later emancipated, taking advantage of the Russo-Swedish Deluge , and merged with the Electorate of Brandenburg to form Brandenburg–Prussia, shortly thereafter becoming
15755-546: 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,
15892-583: The status of the former territories of Germany east of the Oder and Neisse rivers was that the areas were "temporarily under Polish [or Soviet] administration", because the border regulation at the Potsdam Conference had been taken as preliminary provisions to be revisited at a final peace conference which, due to the Cold War , had been indefinitely postponed; however, West Germany in 1972 recognised
16029-559: The term Ostdeutschland is still ambiguous. As various Germanic tribes had left present-day Poland and East Germany, West Slavic tribes moved to these places from the 6th century onward. Duke Mieszko I of the Polans , from his stronghold in the Gniezno area, united various neighboring tribes in the second half of the 10th century, formed the first Polish state and became the first historically recorded Piast duke. His realm bordered
16166-652: The territory ceded to Poland, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania in 1919–1922 should be returned to Germany, which paved the way for the Nazi takeover of the government . In October 1938 Hlučín Area ( Hlučínsko in Czech, Hultschiner Ländchen in German) of Moravian-Silesian Region , which had been ceded to Czechoslovakia under the Treaty of Versailles, was annexed by the Third Reich as a part of areas lost by Czechoslovakia under
16303-558: The territory of the German Democratic Republic. In German, only one corresponding term Ostdeutschland exists, meaning both East Germany and Eastern Germany. The rather ambiguous German term never gained as widespread use for the GDR during its existence, as did the English designation, or the derived demonym Ossi (Eastie), and only following the German reunification has it started to be commonly used to denote both
16440-500: 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
16577-499: The three Partitions of Poland and had been part of the Kingdom of Prussia and later the German Empire for the 100 years of the non-existence of Polish state. The territories retroceded to Poland in 1919 were those with a Polish majority, such as Greater Poland , as well as Pomerelia , historically the part of Poland providing its access to the sea. Restoration of Pomerelia to Poland meant the loss of Germany's territorial contiguousness to East Prussia making it an exclave . Most of
16714-568: The time of German Unification in 1871, the Kingdom of Prussia was the largest and dominant part of the North German Confederation , the predecessor of the newly formed German Empire . The Treaty of Versailles of 1919, which ended the war, restored the independence of Poland, known as the Second Polish Republic , and Germany was compelled to cede territories to it, most of which were taken by Prussia in
16851-669: The trade of the Hanse , the area had been largely Germanized . Following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, Farther Pomerania became part of Brandenburg–Prussia . In 1772 the Lauenburg and Bütow Land and the former Starostwo of Draheim were annexed by the King in Prussia and integrated into the Province of Pomerania of the Kingdom of Prussia , though not into the Holy Roman Empire, and did not become part of Germany until being included in
16988-548: The unilateral implementation of a Polish government in these areas. After World War II, several memoranda of the US State Department warned against awarding Poland such extensive lands, apprehensive of creation of new long-standing tension in the area. In particular, the State Department acknowledged that Polish claims to Lower Silesia had no ethnic or historic justification. Under Stalin's pressure,
17125-483: The war. The status of Poland was discussed but this was complicated by the fact that Poland was then controlled by the Red Army . The conference agreed to reorganise the Provisionary Polish Government , which had been set up by the Red Army, by the inclusion of some politicians of the Polish government-in-exile , and to transform it into the Provisional Government of National Unity , with an unfulfilled promise to hold democratic and fair elections . That effectively ended
17262-523: The west to Pomerelia in the east, and roughly corresponds to today's Polish West Pomeranian Voivodeship . Along with Farther Pomerania, a small area of Western Pomerania including Stettin (now Szczecin ) and Swinemünde (now Świnoujście ) was transferred to Poland in 1945. The Pomeranian parts of the former eastern territories of Germany had been under Polish rule several times from the late 10th century on, when Mieszko I acquired at least significant parts of them. Mieszko's son Bolesław I established
17399-438: 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
17536-415: 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
17673-448: Was subjected to fragmentation and ruled by Bolesław's sons and by their successors, who were often in conflict with one another. Władysław I the Elbow-high , who was crowned king of Poland in 1320, achieved a partial reunification, but the Silesian and Masovian duchies remained independent Piast holdings. In the 12th to the 14th centuries, German settlers, most of whom spoke Low German , moved into Central and Eastern Europe in
17810-406: Was "attached to" but not incorporated into East Prussia, and Eastern Galicia ( District of Galicia ), which included the cities of Lwów , Stanislawów and Tarnopol , was made part of the General Government. The final decision to move Poland 's boundary westward was made by the United States , the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, shortly before
17947-429: 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
18084-407: 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
18221-407: Was binding on Poland and East Germany, for several decades it was not seen by many western members of the international community as such. The West German government continued to maintain that the status of the territories east of the Oder-Neisse line were "under Polish and Soviet administration" until in 1970 Chancellor Willy Brandt signed the Treaty of Warsaw , giving de facto acknowledgement of
18358-427: 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
18495-402: Was settled by Bohemians . In the 10th century Mieszko I of Poland made Silesia part of his realm. From the 10th century to the 12th century, Silesia, Lusatia and the Kłodzko Land were contested between Bohemia and Poland. Several independent duchies formed, and eventually some attached themselves to the Kingdom of Bohemia , an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire , while the Kłodzko Land became
18632-420: Was to be divided into six nations and, if so, what borders and interrelations the new German states would have. To pressure the Western Allies regarding the verbal commitments of Tehran and Yalta, the Soviets began transferring regions east of the Oder–Neisse line to Polish control, although these areas were still officially part of the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. The US government strongly protested to
18769-452: Was to retain Stettin, and the Poles were to annex all of East Prussia with Königsberg . Eventually, however, Stalin decided to keep Königsberg for strategic grounds (it would also be a year-round warm-water port for the Soviet Navy) and argued that the Poles should receive Stettin instead. The wartime Polish government-in-exile had little say in the decisions. The Yalta Conference agreed to split Germany into four occupation zones after
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