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86-735: Reisswitz's father was George Leopold von Reisswitz, a Prussian baron. In 1810, Reisswitz was a volunteer in an artillery unit in Neisse . In late 1813, during the Siege of Glogow , Reisswitz was promoted to second-lieutenant and awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class . By 1819, he was a first-lieutenant in the Guard Artillery Brigade in Berlin. Reisswitz was a skilled fencer and a skilled violinist. In 1812, Reisswitz's father developed

172-465: 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

258-402: 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

344-612: 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

430-399: A battle simulator that was sufficiently realistic for instructional use. Reisswitz did not like calling his system a "game", but he could not find a better term for it. Reisswitz's wargame was designed to simulate battles at the tactical level (it did not concern itself with operational matters such as training and logistics). It was played on a paper map which represented the battlefield, and

516-510: A general, rehabilitated Reisswitz's name in an article published in Militär-Wochenblatt #56. Reisswitz invented professional wargaming . Kriegsspiel was the first wargaming system that was embraced as a serious tool for training and research by an army. Previous wargames were dismissed as mere toys because they were not realistic enough. Reisswitz took advantage of new advances in cartography and probability theory to create

602-559: 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

688-653: A mutiny in December 1918, to which the Germans responded with fire. Two or three Russians and a German guard were killed, 11 Russians were wounded. After World War I, Neisse became part of the new Province of Upper Silesia within Weimar Germany. Polish insurgents of the Silesian Uprisings were imprisoned in the camp before being deported to other camps. During World War II the Germans established

774-458: 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

860-696: 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

946-483: 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

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1032-730: A subcamp of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp , three forced-labour camps, and several working parties of the Stalag VIII-B/344 prisoner-of-war camp at Łambinowice . The city's German population was mostly evacuated before the advancing Eastern Front , with some 2,000 mostly ill people and elders remaining. The city was conquered by the Red Army on 24 March 1945. Soviet troops then raped dozens of women, including nuns, teenage girls and elderly women, murdered 27 nuns and six monks, and set fire to an old people's home with

1118-507: A training tool for the army. Reisswitz established a workshop to mass-produce and distribute his game. The king awarded Reisswitz the Order of St John as a reward. Reisswitz frequently hosted wargaming sessions for senior officers, and once for the Russian court. In 1826, Reisswitz was promoted to the rank of captain and transferred from Berlin to the provincial city of Torgau . This posting

1204-580: A wargaming apparatus which he presented as a gift to the Prussian king, which the royal family embraced and regularly played. The father hoped that wargaming would eventually become a regular tool of instruction and training for army officers, but he never perfected the system, probably because of the upheavals caused by the Napoleonic Wars . By 1816, Reisswitz's father seemed to have lost interest in wargaming altogether, and his son decided to continue

1290-440: A year later, and they were buried in the same cemetery. Reisswitz's disgrace and suicide hampered the progression of his wargame for obvious reasons, but it was kept alive by a small number of wargaming clubs, and in later decades it was widely played by the officer corps. Reisswitz's name was rarely mentioned, however, in subsequent literature on kriegsspiel . In 1874, his old friend and fellow officer Heinrich Ernst Dannhauer, now

1376-717: 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

1462-601: 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

1548-612: 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

1634-558: 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

1720-478: 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

1806-430: 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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1892-535: 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

1978-611: 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

2064-565: 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

2150-435: 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

2236-597: 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

2322-401: 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

2408-525: 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

2494-578: 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

2580-485: 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

2666-689: 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

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2752-639: 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

2838-909: The American Revolutionary War and French Revolution and co-author of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen , was imprisoned in the town by the Prussians in 1794. During the Napoleonic Wars Neisse was taken by the French in 1807. It retained its mostly Catholic character within the predominantly Protestant province of Silesia in the Kingdom of Prussia . Because of its many churches from

2924-622: The Duchy of Poland under Mieszko I of Poland . A Polish stronghold was built in Nysa in the 11th and 12th century due to the proximity of the border with the Czech Duchy . As a result of the fragmentation of Poland, it became part of the Duchy of Silesia , and from the 14th century it functioned as the capital of the Duchy of Nysa , administered by the Bishopric of Wrocław . In the 12th century

3010-537: 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

3096-417: 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

3182-782: The First Silesian War ( War of the Austrian Succession ), in 1741, Nysa was besieged and captured by Prussians , King Frederick II of Prussia laid the foundations of its modern fortifications. In 1758, during the Seven Years' War , it was besieged by the Austrians. On 25 August 1769 it was the site of a meeting between Frederick II and Emperor Joseph II , co-regent in the Habsburg monarchy of Austria . Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette , officer of

3268-477: The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 some 18,000 French POWs were brought to the town, however, 5,000 were soon relocated elsewhere. According to the Prussian census of 1910, the city of Neisse had a population of 25,938, of whom around 95% spoke German, 4% spoke Polish and 1% were bilingual. During World War I and the post-war Polish Silesian Uprisings , a prisoner-of-war camp was located in

3354-522: 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

3440-493: The Gothic Basilica of St. James and St. Agnes was built (later rebuilt after the war devastations of the 13th and 14th centuries). Now designated a Historic Monument of Poland , it is the most distinctive and most valuable landmark of Nysa. Nysa was granted town rights around 1223 by bishop Lawrence , confirmed by Duke Bolesław II Rogatka of Legnica in 1250, and attracted Flemish and German settlers. In 1241 it

3526-702: The Gothic and Baroque periods the town was nicknamed "the Silesian Rome ". In 1816–1911, the town was the seat of the Neisse District, after which it became an independent city . During the Second Schleswig War of 1864, Prussians held Danish prisoners of war in the town, who built a road named Aleja Duńczyków ("Avenue of the Danes"), which is commemorated by a memorial stone. During

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3612-695: 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

3698-637: The Hussites in 1424. During the Hussite Wars , in 1428 it was the site of the Battle of Nysa  [ cs ] , with Poles and Czechs fighting on both sides. One of the prominent signs that Nysa was a significant center is the report in Nuremberg Chronicle , published in 1493, which mentions the city among the major urban centers of Central and Eastern Europe. In the description of

3784-666: 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

3870-585: The Opole Voivodeship . With 43,849 inhabitants (2019), it is the capital of Nysa County . It comprises the urban portion of the surrounding Gmina Nysa . Historically the city was part of Upper Silesia . Nysa, one of the oldest towns in Silesia , was probably founded in the 10th century. The name of the Nysa river, from which the town takes its name, was mentioned in 991, when the region formed part of

3956-529: The Red Army pushed the German Army Group A out of southwest Poland and the adjacent German Lower Silesia , the historic aspect of the town has only partially been preserved due to wartime destruction. After Polish takeover of the town, hundreds of historic burgher houses deemed reconstructable were struck down in line with the Communist's ideological goals of degermanization and struggle against

4042-427: 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

4128-422: 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

4214-400: 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

4300-483: The ZSD Nysa , FSO Polonez and, until recently, the Citroën C15 and Berlingo . Currently, the factory remains closed. Recently, the Wałbrzych Special Economic Zone is located by Dubois Street ( ul. Dubois ) and Karpacka Street ( ul. Karpacka ), largely revolving around agricultural goods and produce, as well as metal works. See twin towns of Gmina Nysa . German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] )

4386-408: 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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4472-614: 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

4558-414: 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

4644-417: 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

4730-399: 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

4816-623: 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

4902-547: 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

4988-644: 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

5074-408: 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

5160-418: The bourgeoisie as well as to provide material for the re-building of Warsaw . The most important monuments have been rebuilt. Until recently, Nysa was a major industrial centre in the Opole Voivodeship . The town was home to metal works , machinery production, agricultural produce and construction materials. The year 2002 saw the closure of the ZSD company. The company constructed delivery vehicles, namely

5246-430: 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

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5332-406: The development of the game. Reisswitz steadily developed his father's game with the help of his fellow junior officers. His project caught the attention of Prince Wilhelm , who joined Reisswitz's gaming circle. In 1824, the prince invited Reisswitz to demonstrate his wargame to the king and his chief of staff, General von Müffling. They were all impressed and officially endorsed Reisswitz's game as

5418-404: 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

5504-435: 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

5590-427: The elderly locked inside. The town was placed preliminarily under Polish administration in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement and renamed to the historic Polish Nysa . The remaining German population of Nysa was expelled . Expulsions started in mid-June 1945, carried out by the Soviet-organized Polish militia who surrounded settlements, entered homes, and asked their inhabitants to leave their home with them. In

5676-452: The following years, new Polish settlers, some whom were themselves expelled or resettled from what is now western Ukraine (see: Kresy ), made Nysa their new home. After the war, Polish troops were stationed in Nysa until 2001, when they were relocated to Kłodzko . As a result of destruction during World War II , in particular the heavy fighting of the Vistula–Oder Offensive and the Lower Silesian offensive of early 1945, during which

5762-435: 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,

5848-417: 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

5934-402: 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

6020-423: 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

6106-433: The orders. Each turn represented two minutes of time, and during a turn the troops would do only as much as they realistically could in two minutes. Reisswitz's manual provided tables denoting exactly how far the troops could move in two minutes, according to the type of troop and the terrain they crossed (cavalry moved faster than infantry, marching uphill was slower than downhill, etc.). When the two armies engaged each other,

6192-462: 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

6278-546: 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,

6364-500: 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

6450-539: The town population included in this chronicle we read "plebs rustica polonici ydeomatis ...". The Nysa coat of arms at the entrance of the Charles Bridge in Prague , which is displayed alongside the arms of the most prominent Bohemian cities, also indicates the importance of the town. In the 16th century it was a Polish printing center. During the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) Nysa was besieged three times. It

6536-524: The town. The WWI POW camp held Russian, British, French and Romanian officers. Charles de Gaulle , future leader of French Resistance against German occupation in World War II and later president of France, was imprisoned there in 1916, and after an unsuccessful escape attempt he was deported to a POW camp in Szczuczyn . Russian POWs, still detained by the Germans after the end of the war, raised

6622-433: The troops were represented by little blocks of lead placed on the game map. The game was played by two teams, each commanding an imaginary army of little lead blocks, and was overseen by an umpire. The game was turn-based. Each turn, a team would give written orders for their troops to the umpire, who would then move the little blocks across the game map according to how he judged the imaginary troops would interpret and execute

6708-484: The umpire would use dice rolls and simple arithmetic to compute how many casualties they inflicted upon each other, and when a troop formation was defeated he would remove its block from the game map. Nysa, Poland Nysa [ˈnɨsa] ( German : Neisse or Neiße , Silesian : Nysa ) is a city in southwestern Poland on the Eastern Neisse ( Polish : Nysa Kłodzka ) river, situated in

6794-608: 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

6880-652: 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

6966-429: 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

7052-547: 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

7138-492: 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

7224-536: Was interpreted as a banishment from the Prussian court. Allegedly, Reisswitz had made offensive remarks about his superiors. According to an 1874 article by Reisswitz's friend and fellow officer Heinrich Ernst Dannhauer, there were people in the Prussian court who were jealous of the attention and honors that this junior officer was attracting from the elite circles, and they sabotaged him by misreporting innocent remarks as insults. Reisswitz fell into depression, and on 1 September 1827, he shot himself. Reisswitz's father died

7310-590: Was plundered by the Saxons and Swedes . Polish prince (and later King) Władysław IV Vasa ( r.  1632–1648 ) visited the town several times between 1619 and 1638. In 1624 the Kolegium Carolinum Neisse (today's I Liceum Ogólnokształcące ), one of the most renowned schools of Silesia, was established as a Jesuit college. Polish King Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki and Polish prince James Louis Sobieski both attended this school. During

7396-605: Was ravaged by the Mongols during the first Mongol invasion of Poland . In 1245, it was granted staple right and two yearly fairs were established. In the early-14th century Nysa became an important trade- and craft-center of Poland , before it passed under the suzerainty of the Bohemian Crown in 1351, under which it remained until 1742. It also became one of the leading cultural centers of Silesia . The town's fortifications, dating from 1350, served to defend against

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