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93-535: The Schleswig–Holstein question ( German : Schleswig-Holsteinische Frage ; Danish : Spørgsmålet om Sønderjylland og Holsten ) was a complex set of diplomatic and other issues arising in the 19th century from the relations of two duchies, Schleswig ( Sønderjylland/Slesvig ) and Holstein ( Holsten ), to the Danish Crown, to the German Confederation , and to each other. Schleswig

186-465: 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

279-402: 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

372-612: 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

465-643: A background of fragmented cultural practices and dialects. Lastly, there was the international question: the rival ambitions of the German powers involved, and beyond them the interests of other European states, notably that of the United Kingdom in preventing the rise of a German sea-power in the north. German had been the language of government in Schleswig and Holstein , while the Danish king and partly

558-519: A common Duke , who in practice was also the King of Denmark. The Treaty of Ribe , agreed to by the Danish King in order to gain control of both states, seemed to indicate that Schleswig and Holstein were to remain united, though that interpretation was later challenged. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806. The German Confederation, formed in 1815, included Holstein. By the early 19th century,

651-513: A condition of the Treaty of Versailles , and Northern Schleswig was returned to Denmark. German Schleswig-Holsteiners often cited a clause from the Treaty of Ribe of 1460, stating that Schleswig and Holstein should "always be together and never partitioned ( or separated)". Although this treaty played a minor role at the more formal level of the conflict, its proclamation "Forever Inseparable" ( Up ewig ungedeelt ) obtained proverbial status during

744-560: A confusing pattern of feudal units . Danes also brought forward rulings of a Danish clerical court and a German Emperor, of 1424 and 1421 respectively, stating that Schleswig rightfully belonged to Denmark, because it was a Danish fief and Holstein was a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, wanting Schleswig and Holstein to separate from each other. The major powers appear to have given the Treaty of Ribe little notice in comparison to

837-598: A different heir as Duke of Holstein. But when Frederik died in 1863, his Danish heir, King Christian IX , claimed to have inherited the Duchy of Holstein as well, and attempted to reintegrate the Duchy of Schleswig into the Danish kingdom by signing the so-called November Constitution . This was seen as a violation of the London Protocol, and it led to the Second Schleswig War of 1864 and ultimately to

930-559: 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

1023-589: A member of Parliament until the 1950s. The North Schleswig Germans are currently represented in the municipal councils of Aabenraa, Tønder, and Sønderborg. Bund Deutscher Nordschleswiger estimates the current number of North Schleswig Germans to be around 15,000, i.e. around 6% of the North Schleswig population of c. 250,000. This is a far smaller group than the 50,000 Danes who live in Southern Schleswig , where, for instance, Flensborg Avis ,

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1116-458: 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

1209-515: A period of six years was allowed during which the inhabitants of the duchies might opt for Danish nationality and transfer themselves and their goods to Denmark; and the rights pertaining to birth in the provinces were guaranteed to all, whether in the kingdom or the duchies, who had been entitled to those rights at the time of the exchange of ratifications of the treaty. In the Austro–Prussian War of 1866, Prussia took Holstein from Austria and

1302-696: 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

1395-483: 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

1488-485: A unit with the majority deciding, and the result was 75% for Denmark and 25% for Germany, consequently resulting in a German minority north of the new border. In the southern Zone II, each parish/town voted for its own future allegiance, and all districts in Zone II showed German majorities. The eventual border was delineated virtually identically with the border between Zones I and II. In the northern Zone (Zone I), 25% of

1581-601: 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

1674-612: 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

1767-558: 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

1860-478: 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

1953-430: 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

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2046-535: 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

2139-611: 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

2232-565: 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

2325-477: Is now Central Schleswig. The German language had been slowly spreading at the expense of Danish in previous centuries: for example, Danish was still spoken on the peninsula of Schwansen around 1780 (the last known use of Danish was in the villages near the Schlei), but then became extinct. The language border in the nineteenth century conformed approximately to the current border between Denmark and Germany . It

2418-435: 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

2511-597: 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

2604-401: 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

2697-525: 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

2790-578: 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

2883-681: Is the question.") German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and

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2976-485: 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

3069-689: 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

3162-639: 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

3255-537: 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

3348-417: 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

3441-522: 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

3534-746: 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

3627-666: 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

3720-631: The Region of Southern Denmark . In Central Schleswig, the situation was reversed with 80% voting for Germany and 20% for Denmark. No vote ever took place in the southern third of Schleswig or in Holstein, as the result was considered a foregone conclusion. Today, they form the German state of Schleswig-Holstein . Elements of the Schleswig–Holstein question were fictionalised in Royal Flash ,

3813-676: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung

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3906-550: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit.   ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this

3999-513: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and   Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German

4092-469: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from

4185-419: The Danish state. Denmark proper had become a constitutional democracy . However, absolutism was still the system of Schleswig and Holstein, with advisory assemblies based on the estates system which gave more power to the most affluent members of society. The three units were governed by one cabinet, consisting of liberal ministers of Denmark who urged economic and social reforms, and conservative ministers from

4278-752: The Duchies' absorption into the German Confederation. The underlying legal dispute over the duchies was seen as complex and somewhat obscure by contemporaries, as evidenced by a quip attributed to British statesman Lord Palmerston : "Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business – the Prince Consort , who is dead – a German professor, who has gone mad – and I, who have forgotten all about it." Nevertheless,

4371-723: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In

4464-748: 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

4557-483: 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

4650-664: The German majority in both Schleswig and Holstein in support of independence from Denmark and of close association with the German Confederation . The military intervention of the Kingdom of Prussia supported the uprising: the Prussian army drove Denmark's troops from Schleswig and Holstein, beginning the First Schleswig War (1848–1851), which ended in a Danish victory at Idstedt ; with the London Protocol ,

4743-436: The German majority was partially due to a local military garrison, and the German element in this town decreased sharply in the 1920s, after the German garrison had been withdrawn and replaced with a Danish one. Tønder had a vast German majority (c. 80%) but was included in the northern Zone for geographical and economic reasons, and because of the small population of this (and the other) North Schleswig towns. Between 1920–1939,

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4836-434: The German nationalist awakening, both among those wishing an independent Schleswig-Holstein, and in the German unification movement in general. In Denmark it was granted less significance, and the citing widely regarded to be out of context, as it could either hint at the duchies not being separated from each other, or their not being partitioned into smaller shares of inheritance. This had happened many times anyway, leaving

4929-451: 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

5022-623: 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

5115-660: The Gottorf dukes ruled, and had been a language of government of the kingdom of Denmark in several eras. Since the Lutheran Reformation , German had been dominant in church and schools in the southern parts of Schleswig, and Danish was the dominant language among the peasantry in Schleswig. Low German was the language of all of Holstein. During the centuries following the Middle Ages , Low German had come to dominate in Southern Schleswig, which had originally been predominantly Danish-speaking. The Danish language still dominated in Northern Schleswig. Around 1800, German and Danish were spoken in approximately equal proportions throughout what

5208-422: The Holstein nobility who opposed political reform. After the uprising in Holstein and Schleswig, the Danish monarch had no interest in sharing rule with the people, many formerly rebellious. Estates of the realm , with their fear of being replaced by democratic institutions, were easier to be compromised. This caused a deadlock for practical lawmaking, hardened by ethnic tensions, and a complete inability to govern

5301-547: 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

5394-757: 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 ), 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

5487-408: 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

5580-434: The North Schleswig Germans elected Johannes Schmidt-Vodder as their representative in the Danish Parliament with c. 13–15% of the North Schleswig votes, indicating that the share of North Schleswigers that identified as Germans had decreased when compared with the 1920 referendum. Since 1945, the North Schleswig Germans have been presented by Bund Deutscher Nordschleswiger , a cultural organisation, and continued to elect

5673-498: The Schleswig–Holstein question gave rise to conflicts between major powers for much of the 19th century. Following the defeat of the German Empire in World War I , the Danish-majority area of Northern Schleswig was finally unified with Denmark after two plebiscites organised by the Allied powers. A small minority of ethnic Germans still lives in North Schleswig , while a Danish minority remains in South Schleswig . Since 1849, disparate systems of government had co-existed within

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5766-406: The United Kingdom, France and Russia, who would not accept a weakened Denmark in favour of a German power, such as Austria or Prussia, acquiring Holstein with the important naval harbour of Kiel or controlling the entrance to the Baltic. There was also the national question : both Germany and Denmark wished, characteristically of the nineteenth century, to create and consolidate nationalities from

5859-437: The communities south of this line were overwhelmingly pro-German (though some of these communities were also primarily Danish-speaking). Near Tønder, he deviated from this system, and included the German-majority towns of Tønder and Højer into the northern sector for economic purposes, and to achieve a line following a dyke , consequently this line followed the dyke south of Højer. The northern Zone I voted en bloc , i.e. as

5952-430: 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

6045-404: 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

6138-435: 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

6231-426: The ethnic conflict and worries about the European balance of power. The Second Schleswig War resolved the Schleswig–Holstein Question violently, by forcing King Christian IX of Denmark to renounce (on 1 August 1864) all his rights in the duchies in favour of Kaiser Franz Joseph I of Austria and King Wilhelm I of Prussia . By Article XIX of the definitive Treaty of Vienna signed on 30 October 1864,

6324-434: The first volume of the Reminiscences of Carl Schurz as an issue of concern in the Revolutions of 1848 , and also as the farcical recollections of his friend Adolf Strodtmann regarding Strodtmann's participation in the conflict (see Chapter 5, pp. 130–132, and Chapter 6, pp. 141–143). Terry Pratchett parodied it in several Discworld books as "The Muntab Question" ("Where's Muntab?" "That, indeed,

6417-431: The historical German inhabitants of the Duchy of Schleswig. In 1920, in the aftermath of World War I , two Schleswig Plebiscites were held in the northernmost part of the Prussian Province of Schleswig-Holstein (the northern half of the former Duchy of Schleswig ). The plebiscites were held in two zones that were defined by Denmark according to the ideas of the Danish historian Hans Victor Clausen. The northern Zone I

6510-435: 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,

6603-417: 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

6696-595: The international community agreed on the duchies' status. A second crisis emerged due to a succession dispute. The dukedoms of Holstein and Lauenburg were legally inherited under the German Salic Law , which ignored females; differing laws in the Kingdom of Denmark with Schleswig permitted male heirs to inherit through a female line. Under these varying laws, the childless King Frederik VII of Denmark had one legal heir as King of Denmark and duke of Schleswig, and

6789-593: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . North Schleswig Germans Unrelatedly to the North Schleswig Germans, there are also a substantial number of citizens of Germany who live in Denmark under the aegis of the Schengen Area and have no connection to

6882-402: 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

6975-653: 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

7068-495: The population of Holstein, as well as that of much of Southern Schleswig, was almost entirely ethnically German. Both Schleswig and Holstein had been ruled through institutions separate from the rest of the Kingdom of Denmark. On 27 March 1848, King Frederik VII of Denmark announced to the people of Schleswig the promulgation of a liberal constitution under which the duchy, while preserving its local autonomy, would become an integral part of Denmark. This led to an open uprising by

7161-700: The population, i.e. around 40,000 people voted to remain part of Germany, the German North Schleswigers having their centres in the towns of Tønder , Aabenraa , and Sønderborg , but also in a rural district between Tønder and Flensburg near the new border, most notably in Tinglev . Smaller German minorities existed in Haderslev and Christiansfeld (both towns with Danish majorities). Sønderborg and Aabenraa were strongly dominated by both nationalities (c. 55% Germans and 45% Danes). In Sønderborg,

7254-821: The practical problems involved in asserting the modern principle of nationality . For the effect on the Danes of Schleswig and events afterwards, see History of Schleswig-Holstein . Following the defeat of the German Empire in the First World War , the Allied powers organised two plebiscites in Northern and Central Schleswig on 10 February and 14 March 1920, respectively. In Northern Schleswig, 75% voted for reunification with Denmark and 25% for remaining in Germany. It became South Jutland County in Denmark, now part of

7347-462: 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

7440-691: The second of George MacDonald Fraser 's The Flashman Papers novels. Its potential solution (or lack thereof) also forms part of the solution to the mystery at the centre of Kim Newman 's short story "Tomorrow Town". Danish author Herman Bang wrote of life on the island of Als in the aftermath of the Battle of Dybbøl in the Second War of Schleswig in his novel Tine , published in 1889. Dostoevsky refers to this as "The farce in Schleswig–Holstein" in Notes from Underground . The question appears in

7533-546: 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,

7626-403: The support of Napoleon III , would have been to partition Schleswig on the lines of nationality, assigning the Danish part to Denmark, the German to Holstein. This idea, which afterwards had supporters among both Danes and Germans, proved impracticable at the time owing to the intractable disposition of the majority on both sides. This solution was subsequently implemented by plebiscites in 1920 as

7719-500: 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

7812-509: The two duchies subsequently merged into the Province of Schleswig-Holstein . From this point on, the Schleswig–Holstein question was subsumed by the larger issue of Austro-Prussian relations, which the 1866 war deeply influenced. It survived, however, as between Danes and Germans, though narrowed to the question of the fate of the Danish population of Schleswig. This question is of great interest to students of international law and as illustrating

7905-555: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during

7998-600: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching

8091-429: 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

8184-547: 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

8277-538: Was clear that Danish dominance in Schleswig was vulnerable and weakening. Through its vigorous economic activity, the ethnically German area to the south expanded its geographic domain. Linguistically Low German immigrants constantly arrived, and previously Danish-speaking families often came to find it convenient to change languages. The Low German language, rather than Danish, had become typical of Holstein and much of south Schleswig. One solution, which afterwards had

8370-502: Was delineated according to Clausen's estimation of where the local rural population identified itself as Danish, a survey published in 1891. Clausen travelled extensively on both sides of the eventual border, in an attempt determine which communities that would vote for a return to Danish rule, and concluded that this was the case north of the Skelbækken creek, where most rural communities were both Danish-speaking and pro-Danish, while

8463-492: 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

8556-456: Was imminent. Moreover, Danish opponents of this so-called Unitary State ( Helstaten ) feared that Holstein's presence in the government and, at the same time, Holstein's membership of the German Confederation would lead to increased German interference with Holstein, or even into purely Danish affairs. In Copenhagen , the palace and most of the administration supported a strict adherence to the status quo. The same applied to foreign powers such as

8649-544: Was part of Denmark during the Viking Age , and became a Danish duchy in the 12th century -- legally part of Denmark, but in many ways autonomous. Denmark repeatedly tried to fully reintegrate the Duchy of Schleswig into the Danish kingdom. Holstein, just on the other side of the Danish border from Schleswig, was in the Middle Ages a fief of the Holy Roman Empire . From 1460 on, the two had been ruled together by

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