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84-691: The opposite foothill regions on the inner side of the Carpathian arc are known as Inner Subcarpathia , transitioning further to the Pannonian Basin . The western end is marked by the (northern) Vienna Basin , separating it from the Eastern Alpine Foreland. The adjacent hilly landscape of the Lower Austrian Weinviertel region with its extensive loess layers border on the limestone rock formations of

168-465: 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

252-402: 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

336-612: 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

420-559: 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

504-458: 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

588-696: 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

672-483: 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

756-475: A sharp cliff or other vertical terrain. The name may instead come from Indo-European * kwerp 'to turn', akin to Old English hweorfan 'to turn, change' (English warp ) and Greek καρπός karpós 'wrist', perhaps referring to the way the mountain range bends or veers in an L-shape. Both the plain and the basin overlap significantly with the Pannonian mixed forests ecoregion . The plain or basin

840-626: Is a geomorphological subsystem of the Alps-Himalaya system , specifically a sediment-filled back-arc basin which spread apart during the Miocene . The Pannonian plain is divided into two parts along the Transdanubian Mountains (Hungarian: Dunántúli-középhegység ). The northwestern part is called Western Pannonian plain (or province ) and the southeastern part Eastern Pannonian plain (or province ). They comprise

924-618: Is a list of cities in the Pannonian Basin with a population larger than 100,000 within the city proper : 46°30′N 20°00′E  /  46.500°N 20.000°E  / 46.500; 20.000 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

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1008-601: 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

1092-516: Is also associated with Pannonian Steppe . The Danube and Tisza rivers divide the basin roughly in half. It extends roughly between Vienna in the northwest, Košice in the northeast, Zagreb in the southwest, Novi Sad in the south and Satu Mare in the east. The Danube enters the basin from its northwest through a valley that splits the Alps and the Bohemian Forest . It runs through

1176-612: 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

1260-558: 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

1344-478: 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

1428-430: 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

1512-802: Is diagonally bisected by the Transdanubian Mountains , separating the larger Great Hungarian Plain (including the Eastern Slovak Lowland ) from the Little Hungarian Plain . It forms a topographically discrete unit set in the European landscape, surrounded by imposing geographic boundaries—the Carpathian Mountains to north and east, the Dinaric Alps to south and southwest and the Alps to west. The plain

1596-535: 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

1680-611: 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

1764-565: 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

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1848-435: 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

1932-597: 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

2016-401: 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

2100-525: 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

2184-776: Is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ),

2268-578: 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

2352-485: 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

2436-989: Is used in Hungarian literature , while the West Slavic languages ( Czech , Polish and Slovak ), the Serbo-Croatian , German and Romanian languages use Pannonian Basin (in Hungarian the basin is known as Kárpát-medence , in Czech ; Panonská pánev , in Polish ; Panoński Basen , in Slovak ; Panónska panva , in Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian: Panonski bazen /Панонски базен, in German ; Pannonisches Becken , and in Romanian ; Câmpia Panonică or Bazinul Panonic ). The East Slavic languages , namely Ukrainian , use

2520-689: 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

2604-639: 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

Outer Subcarpathia - Misplaced Pages Continue

2688-681: The Austrian Empire (in 1804) and later became Austria-Hungary (in 1867). Most of the plain was located within the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary, since all other Habsburg possessions in the plain were integrated into the Kingdom of Hungary until 1882. The autonomous Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia , which was one of the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen , comprised the south-western portion of

2772-568: 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

2856-515: The Dinaric Alps together with the Danube forms a conditional northern limit of Balkan peninsula . It also enters the Danube at southern portion of the Pannonian Basin. Other rivers include Drava , Mureș , Great Morava , Drina and many others. In western portion of Pannonia is located Lake Balaton . Although rain is not plentiful, the plain is a major agricultural area. It is sometimes said that these fields of rich loamy loess soil could feed

2940-713: The Dniester Basin. In Romania, the depression ends east of the Carpathian arc on the upper Moldova River within the Bukovina and Moldavia regions, bordering on the Wallachian Plain in the south. Pannonian Basin The Pannonian Basin or Carpathian Basin is a large sedimentary basin situated in southeast Central Europe . After the Treaty of Trianon following World War I,

3024-537: 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

3108-417: 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

3192-522: 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

3276-746: 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

3360-999: The Kingdom of the Lombards , the Avar Khaganate , the West Slavic state of Samo , the Bulgarian Empire, the Frankish Empire , Great Moravia , the Lower Pannonian Principality and the Kingdom of Syrmia . The Principality of Hungary established in 895 by the Magyars was centered on the plain and included almost all of it (as did the former Avar Khaganate). It was established as the Catholic Kingdom of Hungary in AD 1000, with

3444-666: 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

Outer Subcarpathia - Misplaced Pages Continue

3528-402: The Ottoman Empire , while the remainder to the north-west was subsumed into the holdings of the Habsburg monarchy and retitled Royal Hungary . Under Ottoman administration, the plain was reorganised into the Eyalet of Budim , the Eyalet of Egri , the Eyalet of Sigetvar and the Eyalet of Temeşvar . The Pannonian Plain was frequently a scene of conflict between the two empires. At the end of

3612-426: The Pannonian Sea , a shallow sea that reached its greatest extent during the Pliocene Epoch , when three to four kilometres of sediments were deposited. The plain was named after the Pannon named Medes. Various different peoples inhabited the plain during its history. In the first century BC, the eastern parts of the plain belonged to the Dacian state, and in the first century AD its western parts were subsumed into

3696-912: The Proto-Indo-European root *pen- , "swamp, water, wet" (cf. English fen , "marsh"; Hindi pani , "water"). The name "Carpates" is highly associated with the old Dacian tribes called " Carpes " or " Carpi " who lived in a large area from the east, northeast of the Black Sea to the Transylvanian Plain in present day Romania and Moldova. The name Carpates may ultimately be from the Proto Indo-European root *sker- / *ker- , which meant mountain, rock, or rugged (cf. Germanic root *skerp- , Old Norse harfr "harrow", Gothic skarpo , Middle Low German scharf "potsherd", and Modern High German Scherbe "shard", Old English scearp and English sharp , Lithuanian kar~pas "cut, hack, notch", Latvian cìrpt "to shear, clip"). The archaic Polish word karpa meant 'rugged irregularities, underwater obstacles/rocks, rugged roots, or trunks'. The more common word skarpa means

3780-410: The Roman Empire . The Roman province named Pannonia was established in the area, and the city of Sirmium , today Sremska Mitrovica , Serbia , became one of the four capital cities of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century. In the Age of Migrations and the early Middle Ages , the region belonged to several realms such as the Hun Empire , the Kingdom of the Gepids , the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths ,

3864-405: The South-Moravian Carpathians . In the Czech Republic, the depression is situated on the outskirts of the White Carpathians in Moravia , including the Pálava Protected Landscape Area . In Poland they stretch along the Lesser Poland Voivodeship to the Podkarpackie Voivodeship , part of the Galicia historic region that leads to Ukraine ( Lviv , Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi Oblast ) and

3948-427: 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

4032-422: 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

4116-400: 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

4200-422: The geomorphological term Pannonian Plain became more widely used for roughly the same region, referring to the lowlands in the area occupied by the Pannonian Sea during the Pliocene Epoch. The term Pannonian Plain refers to the lowland parts of the Pannonian Basin as well as those of some adjoining regions like Lower Austria , Moravia , and Silesia ( Czech Republic and Poland ). The lands adjoining

4284-408: 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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4368-427: The 17th century the Habsburgs won decisive battles against the Ottomans , and most of the plain gradually came under Habsburg rule. Under Habsburg rule the region was eventually reorganised into the Kingdom of Hungary, the Banat of Temeswar , the Military Frontier , the Kingdom of Croatia , the Kingdom of Slavonia and Voivodeship of Serbia and Temes Banat . The Habsburg Monarchy was subsequently transformed into

4452-614: 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

4536-414: 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

4620-417: 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

4704-399: 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

4788-623: 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

4872-547: 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

4956-408: 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

5040-438: The ancient Pannonia, while Great Hungarian Plain was not part of it: In terms of modern state boundaries, the Pannonian Basin centres on the territory of Hungary , which lies entirely within the basin, but it also covers parts of southern Slovakia , southeast Poland , western-southwest Ukraine , western Romania , northern Serbia , northeast Croatia , northeast Slovenia , and eastern Austria . The term Carpathian Basin

5124-404: The center of the basin escaping at southeast portion where South Carpathians transition to Dinaric Alps and Balkan Mountains . The Tisza enters the basin from northeast running downhill from the Eastern Carpathians , it continues southwest and south until joins the Danube at southern portion of the basin. Another important river of the region is Sava which running along the eastern foothills of

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5208-436: The coronation of Stephen I of Hungary . The Kingdom of Hungary by the 11th century comprised the entire Pannonian Basin, but the changing fates of this part of Europe during the Ottoman wars of the 14th to 17th centuries left the Pannonian basin divided between numerous political entities. After the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the central and eastern regions of the kingdom and the plain on which they lay were incorporated into

5292-430: 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

5376-404: 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

5460-435: 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

5544-401: The exception of Little Hungarian Plain (which is only around 15% of the territory of ancient Pannonian Transdanubia) hills and mountains dominate the landscape, so real plains are very rare on that territory. The largest plain of Ancient Roman Pannonia province is located in Slavonia in Croatia and Voivodine in modern Serbia. Julius Pokorny derived the name Pannonia from Illyrian , from

5628-420: The following sections: Note: The Transylvanian Plateau and the Lučenec-Košice Depression (both parts of the Carpathians) and some other lowlands are sometimes also considered part of the Pannonian Plain in non-geomorphological or older divisions. Relatively large or distinctive areas of the plain that do not necessarily correspond to national borders include: The Pannonian Basin has its geological origins in

5712-435: 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,

5796-417: 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

5880-402: 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

5964-423: 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

6048-504: The plain proper are sometimes also called peri-Pannonian . In English language, the terms "Pannonian Basin" and "Carpathian Basin" are used synonymously. The name "Pannonian" is taken from that of Pannonia , a province of the Roman Empire . The historical province overlapped but was not coterminous with the geographical plain or basin, as only the western part of the territory (known as Transdanubia ) of modern Hungary formed part of

6132-446: The plain. With the dissolution of Austria-Hungary after World War I, the region was divided between Hungary , Romania , Czechoslovakia , Austria and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed to Yugoslavia in 1929). The borders drawn in 1918 and 1919 are mostly preserved as those of the contemporary states of Austria , Czech Republic , Hungary , Poland , Slovakia , Serbia , Ukraine , Croatia , and Romania . This

6216-462: 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

6300-546: 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,

6384-530: The terms Tysa-Danube Lowland or Middanubian Lowland ( Ukrainian : Тисо-Дунайська низовина, Середньодунайська низовина ) Pannonian basin vs Carpathian basin: On the territory of present-day Hungary the ancient Roman Pannonia province was located only on Transdanubian territories, however the Great Hungarian Plain was not part of Pannonia province. This comprises less than 29% of modern Hungary, therefore Hungarian geographers avoid

6468-480: The terms "Pannonian Basin" and especially the "Pannonian Plain" terms due to it being considered not only unhistorical but also topologically erroneous term. Because the term "Pannonian" has historically not applied to 80% of the basin's territory, Hungarian geographers and historians use the more accurate term "Carpathian Basin". The other logical problem with the Pannonian "Plain" terminology lies in topography: with

6552-500: 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

6636-513: The whole of Europe. However, there has been an increase in extreme precipitation events that cause soil erosion in recent years. Knowledge of areas affected by severe soil erosion can lead to the implementation of effective measures to reduce it. For its early settlers, the plain offered few sources of metals or stone. When archaeologists come upon objects of obsidian or chert , copper or gold, they have almost unparalleled opportunities to interpret ancient pathways of trade. The Pannonian Basin

6720-608: 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

6804-652: 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

6888-429: 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

6972-547: 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

7056-492: 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

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