132-487: Historical Western Pomerania , also called Cispomerania, Fore Pomerania , Front Pomerania or Hither Pomerania ( German : Vorpommern ; Polish : Pomorze Przednie ), is the western extremity of the historic region of Pomerania , located mostly in north-eastern Germany , with a small portion in north-western Poland , at the southern coast of the Baltic Sea . Western Pomerania's boundaries have changed through
264-465: 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
396-402: 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
528-485: A sentence clause , although subject–verb–object and adjective-before-noun is the preferred order in the neutral style of speech . Modern Bulgarian differs from other Slavic languages, because it almost completely lost declension , it developed definite articles from demonstrative pronouns (similar to "the" from "this" in English ), and it formed indicative and renarrative tenses for verbs . Since
660-612: 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
792-464: A Danish fleet led by Roskilde archbishop Absalon sacked Rügen . The Arkona temple was sieged and destroyed. After this main temple's fall, Rügen's capitol Charenza ( Venzer Burgwall ) capitulated, all other temples were given to the Danes for destruction and Jaromar I, Prince of Rügen became a Danish vassal. The Rani then converted to Christianity. From Rügen, which still had a strong navy and army,
924-559: 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
1056-458: 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
1188-699: A part of interdisciplinary study of Slavic ethnogenesis, a lexicostatistical classification of Slavic languages. It was built using qualitative 110-word Swadesh lists that were compiled according to the standards of the Global Lexicostatistical Database project and processed using modern phylogenetic algorithms. The resulting dated tree complies with the traditional expert views on the Slavic group structure. Kassian-Dybo's tree suggests that Proto-Slavic first diverged into three branches: Eastern, Western and Southern. The Proto-Slavic break-up
1320-696: 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
1452-553: A recent past. Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European Slavic languages descend from Proto-Slavic , their immediate parent language , ultimately deriving from Proto-Indo-European ,
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#17327720713171584-483: 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
1716-562: A small area of Hither Pomerania including Szczecin – the region's principal city – and Świnoujście was transferred along with Farther Pomerania to Poland, and formed part of the Szczecin Voivodeship . The bulk of Vorpommern became part of the newly constituted Land (state) of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern . The word "Vorpommern" was deleted from the state's name at the insistence of the Soviet military administration in 1947 and
1848-640: A strip the historical Greater Poland ( Tuczno , Człopa , Mirosławiec , Wałcz , Czaplinek ), or even a small part of Pomerelia ( Biały Bór ). As a consequence, the common understanding of the term West Pomerania has recently started to shift towards this current administrative extent. Similarly, borders of the German districts Vorpommern-Rügen and Vorpommern-Greifswald deviate from the historical ones in numerous locations. The name Pomorze Przednie , Przedpomorze – corresponding to Hither/Fore Pomerania German: Vorpommern –
1980-717: 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
2112-601: 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
2244-612: 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
2376-558: 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
2508-408: Is an administrative entity subordinate only to the state level. Consideration was given during an unsuccessful district reform project in 1994 to restoring the old boundary, but this was not implemented. The Ribnitz, Marlow and Fischland area of Vorpommern-Rügen were historically part of Mecklenburg. The old western boundary line was preserved in the division between the two Protestant church bodies of
2640-590: Is better for geographically adjacent languages and in the written (rather than oral) form. At the same time, recent studies of mutual intelligibility between Slavic languages revealed, that their traditional three-branch division does not withstand quantitative scrutiny. While the grouping of Czech , Slovak and Polish into West Slavic turned out to be appropriate, Western South Slavic Serbo-Croatian and Slovene were found to be closer to Czech and Slovak (West Slavic languages) than to Eastern South Slavic Bulgarian . The traditional tripartite division of
2772-478: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German
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#17327720713172904-430: 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
3036-451: Is dated to around 100 A.D., which correlates with the archaeological assessment of Slavic population in the early 1st millennium A.D. being spread on a large territory and already not being monolithic. Then, in the 5th and 6th centuries A.D., these three Slavic branches almost simultaneously divided into sub-branches, which corresponds to the fast spread of the Slavs through Eastern Europe and
3168-535: 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
3300-611: 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
3432-565: 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
3564-571: Is nowadays used in Polish almost exclusively when referring to the part located in Germany, while its usage in the full (historical German) meaning is limited to exact translations of German texts. It is also referred to as Pomorze Wołogoskie (Wolgast Pomerania). The major feature of Western Pomerania is its long Baltic Sea and lagoons coastline. Typical is a distinct "double coast", whereby offshore islands separate lagoons (so-called bodden ) from
3696-435: 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
3828-597: 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
3960-401: 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
4092-525: 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
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4224-578: 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
4356-485: 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
4488-444: Is within the boundaries of modern Ukraine and Southern Federal District of Russia. The Proto-Slavic language existed until around AD 500. By the 7th century, it had broken apart into large dialectal zones. There are no reliable hypotheses about the nature of the subsequent breakups of West and South Slavic. East Slavic is generally thought to converge to one Old East Slavic language of Kievan Rus , which existed until at least
4620-689: 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
4752-639: 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
4884-637: The Early Middle Ages , which in turn is thought to have descended from the earlier Proto-Balto-Slavic language , linking the Slavic languages to the Baltic languages in a Balto-Slavic group within the Indo-European family. The current geographical distribution of natively spoken Slavic languages includes the Balkans , Central and Eastern Europe , and all the way from Western Siberia to
5016-407: 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
5148-417: 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
5280-910: The Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Mecklenburg and the Pomeranian Evangelical Church prior to their absorption into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany . The Polish part encompasses the cities with powiat rights of Szczecin and Świnoujscie, the entire Police County , Gmina Goleniów in Goleniów County , as well as the part of Kamień County located on the island of Wolin ( Gmina Międzyzdroje , western part of Gmina Wolin and western part of Gmina Dziwnów ). There are four cities in
5412-733: The Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula and the islands of Hiddensee , Rügen , Usedom and Wolin . The old Hanseatic towns are also popular tourist destinations due to their brick gothic medieval architecture , downtown Stralsund is a UNESCO World Heritage Site . Stralsund, Greifswald and Wolgast also have a shipyard industry, the Volkswerft in Stralsund and the Peenewerft in Wolgast produce large ships, while
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5544-522: 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
5676-635: The HanseYachts shipyard in Greifswald is specialized in building yachts . In Mukran near Sassnitz on Rügen, there is an international ferry terminal linking Western Pomerania to Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania and other oversee countries. An industrial complex northeast of Lubmin near Greifswald includes a shut-down nuclear power plant which is being deconstructed, and the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline which come ashore at this site. In Greifswald,
5808-746: 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
5940-599: The Latin script , and have had more Western European influence due to their proximity and speakers being historically Roman Catholic , whereas the East Slavic and Eastern South Slavic languages are written in Cyrillic and, with Eastern Orthodox or Uniate faith, have had more Greek influence. Two Slavic languages, Belarusian and Serbo-Croatian , are biscriptal, i.e. written in either alphabet either nowadays or in
6072-666: 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
6204-895: The Pane (Peene) River, the Redarians around the temple of Rethra , the Wollinians on the isle of Wolin , the Tollensians around the Tollense River and the Ukrainians around the Uecker River in the Uckermark . The collective term Liutizians also covers some of these tribes, as they allied in the late 10th century to secure their sovereignty. The Lutician alliances headquarters were at Rethra, where delegates from
6336-520: The Police County , the part of Kamień County located on the island of Wolin ( Gmina Międzyzdroje , western part of Gmina Wolin including the town, and western part of Gmina Dziwnów ), as well as Gmina Goleniów in Goleniów County . 54°05′00″N 13°23′00″E / 54.0833°N 13.3833°E / 54.0833; 13.3833 German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] )
6468-488: The Russian Far East . Furthermore, the diasporas of many Slavic peoples have established isolated minorities of speakers of their languages all over the world. The number of speakers of all Slavic languages together was estimated to be 315 million at the turn of the twenty-first century. It is the largest and most diverse ethno-linguistic group in Europe. The Slavic languages are conventionally (that is, also on
6600-597: The Rusyn language spoken in Transcarpatian Ukraine and adjacent counties of Slovakia and Ukraine. Similarly, the Croatian Kajkavian dialect is more similar to Slovene than to the standard Croatian language. Modern Russian differs from other Slavic languages in an unusually high percentage of words of non-Slavic origin, particularly of Dutch (e.g. for naval terms introduced during
6732-676: 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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#17327720713176864-550: 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
6996-618: The University of Greifswald runs several institutions and the major hospitals of the region. Also, Greifswald is the site of innovative scientific research, like the Wendelstein physics research center and biotechnology enterprises, most notably the federal Friedrich Loeffler Institute for animal diseases like BSE . Away from the coastal tourist resorts, the rural areas of Western Pomerania have often maintained an agricultural character. A study published on 18 May 2009 revealed that
7128-400: 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
7260-408: 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
7392-404: The suffix "-el" denotes past tense of masculine gender . The equivalent phrase for a feminine subject is "vyshla". The gender conjugation of verbs , as in the preceding example, is another feature of some Slavic languages rarely found in other language groups. The well-developed fusional grammar allows Slavic languages to have a somewhat unusual feature of virtually free word order in
7524-407: The 12th century and 13th century, Western Pomerania changed from a pagan and Slavic to a Christian and German country ( Ostsiedlung ). The Slavs ( Wends ) were first excluded from the villages and privileges of the German settlers. They later merged with the German majority. Western Pomerania then was part of the Duchy of Pomerania , the areas north of the Peene River ( Principality of Rugia ) joined
7656-469: The 12th century. Linguistic differentiation was accelerated by the dispersion of the Slavic peoples over a large territory, which in Central Europe exceeded the current extent of Slavic-speaking majorities. Written documents of the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries already display some local linguistic features. For example, the Freising manuscripts show a language that contains some phonetic and lexical elements peculiar to Slovene dialects (e.g. rhotacism ,
7788-521: The 14th or 15th century, major language differences were not between the regions occupied by modern Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, but rather between the north-west (around modern Velikiy Novgorod and Pskov) and the center (around modern Kyiv , Suzdal , Rostov , Moscow as well as Belarus) of the East Slavic territories. The Old Novgorodian dialect of that time differed from the central East Slavic dialects as well as from all other Slavic languages much more than in later centuries. According to Zaliznyak,
7920-417: The 5th century. By the 6th and 7th century, West Slavic people populated the region. If they met a substantial Rugian population and whether and/or how these were assimilated by the Slavs is not known. The Slavic inhabitants, also referred to as part of the Wilzen/ Veleti , diverged into several small tribes, listed from Northwest to Southeast: The Rujanes or Rani around Rügen , the Circipanes around
8052-408: The Balkans during the second half of the 1st millennium A.D. (the so-called Slavicization of Europe). The Slovenian language was excluded from the analysis, as both Ljubljana koine and Literary Slovenian show mixed lexical features of Southern and Western Slavic languages (which could possibly indicate the Western Slavic origin of Slovenian, which for a long time was being influenced on the part of
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#17327720713178184-413: The Consulate of Poland, arrested by the Gestapo . During the war, Germany operated the Stalag II-C, Stalag 322, Stalag Luft I and Stalag Luft II prisoner-of-war camps for British, American, French , Belgian, Serbian and Soviet POWs with numerous forced labour subcamps in the region. The Polish resistance movement was active in Szczecin and conducted espionage of the Kriegsmarine , infiltrated
8316-431: The Danish put pressure on Pomerania. Bogislaw I duke of Pomerania made his duchy a part of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) in 1181, after he had allied with Henry the Lion since 1164. But the new alliance did not prevent the Danes from successfully raiding and in 1186 conquering all of Pomerania. Danish rule ended when in 1227 the Danish navy was defeated in Bornhöved by the Germans, Pomerania except for Rügen (until 1345 with
8448-614: 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
8580-414: 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
8712-417: 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
8844-399: 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
8976-623: 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
9108-547: 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
9240-644: 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
9372-408: 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
9504-641: The Peene River and Wolin , which is assumed to be identical with Vineta and Jomsborg . Important pagan temple sites were Arkona and Rethra. Other local strongholds were Dimin ( Demmin ) in the Circipan and Stetin ( Szczecin ) in the Pomeranian area. At the beginning of the second millennium, western Pomeranian tribes were surrounded by the expanding states of Denmark in the North, Piast Poland in
9636-633: The Pomeranian duke, who appointed the castellans . These castellanies were converted from their pagan to Christian religion in Usedom , 1128. Except for the Rani living North of the Ryck River and Demmin , all western Pomeranian territories had become united and Christian. Wartislaw's dependency on Poland loosened in the following years and, in 1135 with the death of Polish king Boleslaw III , Wartislaw's duchy regained independence. About ten years later, he
9768-536: The Slavic languages does not take into account the spoken dialects of each language. Within the individual Slavic languages, dialects may vary to a lesser degree, as those of Russian, or to a much greater degree, like those of Slovene. In certain cases so-called transitional dialects and hybrid dialects often bridge the gaps between different languages, showing similarities that do not stand out when comparing Slavic literary (i.e. standard) languages. For example, Slovak (West Slavic) and Ukrainian (East Slavic) are bridged by
9900-864: The Southeast and the German Holy Roman Empire in the Southwest. While the eastward expansion of the latter could be halted for some time by a Slavic uprising of the Southern ( Heveller ) and Western ( Obotrites ) neighbors of the western Pomeranian tribes, which even was supported by the Liutizian alliance, the Pomeranians East of the Oder River were conquered by the Polish state in the late 10th century and remained vassals of
10032-756: The West group), Bulgarian and Macedonian (eastern members of the South group), and Serbo-Croatian and Slovene (western members of the South group). In addition, Aleksandr Dulichenko recognizes a number of Slavic microlanguages : both isolated ethnolects and peripheral dialects of more well-established Slavic languages. All Slavic languages have fusional morphology and, with a partial exception of Bulgarian and Macedonian , they have fully developed inflection -based conjugation and declension . In their relational synthesis Slavic languages distinguish between lexical and inflectional suffixes . In all cases,
10164-594: The ancestor language of all Indo-European languages , via a Proto-Balto-Slavic stage. During the Proto-Balto-Slavic period a number of exclusive isoglosses in phonology, morphology, lexis, and syntax developed, which makes Slavic and Baltic the closest related of all the Indo-European branches. The secession of the Balto-Slavic dialect ancestral to Proto-Slavic is estimated on archaeological and glottochronological criteria to have occurred sometime in
10296-466: The basis of extralinguistic features, such as geography) divided into three subgroups: East , South , and West , which together constitute more than 20 languages. Of these, 10 have at least one million speakers and official status as the national languages of the countries in which they are predominantly spoken: Russian , Belarusian and Ukrainian (of the East group), Polish , Czech and Slovak (of
10428-627: The centuries as it belonged to various countries such as the Duchy of Pomerania (later part of the Holy Roman Empire ), Denmark, Sweden, as well as Prussia which incorporated it as the Province of Pomerania . Today, the region embraces the whole area of Pomerania west of the Oder River , small bridgeheads east of the river, as well as the islands in the Szczecin Lagoon . Its majority forms part of Germany and has been divided between
10560-417: The city of Szczecin , consisting mostly of large housing estates , thus having along with the resort locality of Trzebież a semi-urban character, in spite of neither holding town rights nor being seats of a municipality, and despite being several-fold more populated than the seats of the respective municipalities that they are parts of. You can sort this complete table of cities and towns by clicking one of
10692-482: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with
10824-456: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in
10956-664: The duchy in 1325. From that time onwards, the region shares a common history with Farther Pomerania . Pomerania came under Swedish military control in 1630 during the Thirty Years' War . Swedish sovereignty over Vorpommern, including Stettin, was confirmed by the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and the Treaty of Stettin (1653) , and from that time onwards much of the region formed Swedish Pomerania . Possession of this region remained an issue of conflict in European politics and Swedish rule
11088-642: The dynasty of Piasts until 1007, had to pay tribute to the Poles after 1042, and were conquered again in 1121. In spite of his surrender or even with military help from the succeeding Poles, the Pomeranian duke Wartislaw I of the House of Griffins successfully started conquering the areas west of his burgh in Szczecin the years after 1121. These lands were considerably weakened by previous warfare: The coast
11220-519: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of
11352-516: The entire German Pomerania combined with the Polish part of the historical Middle Pomerania up to Rega . In such case, the remainder of Farther Pomerania is called Pomorze Środkowe ( contemporary Middle Pomerania ) or Pomorze Koszalińsko-Słupskie (Koszalin-Słupsk Pomerania). As a further complication, the borders of the eponymous administrative units have been drawn disregarding mostly the historical ones. The Polish unit called województwo zachodniopomorskie ( West Pomeranian Voivodeship ) includes
11484-453: The entire state of Mecklenburg was abolished by East Germany (German Democratic Republic, GDR) in 1952. The Pomeranian districts were made part of the GDR's Bezirk Rostock (coastal region) and Bezirk Neubrandenburg , with a small area around Gartz becoming part of Bezirk Frankfurt/Oder . The 1945–1952 state was reconstituted, with minor border adjustments, as Mecklenburg-Vorpommern at
11616-571: The following sub-branches: Some linguists speculate that a North Slavic branch has existed as well. The Old Novgorod dialect may have reflected some idiosyncrasies of this group. Although the Slavic languages diverged from a common proto-language later than any other groups of the Indo-European language family , enough differences exist between the any two geographically distant Slavic languages to make spoken communication between such speakers cumbersome. As usually found within other language groups , mutual intelligibility between Slavic languages
11748-564: The geographical separation between these two groups, also severing the connection between Slavs in Moravia and Lower Austria ( Moravians ) and those in present-day Styria , Carinthia , East Tyrol in Austria , and in the provinces of modern Slovenia , where the ancestors of the Slovenes settled during first colonization. In September 2015, Alexei Kassian and Anna Dybo published, as
11880-461: The historical region of Western Pomerania today. The German prefix Vor- denotes a location closer to the speaker, and is the equivalent of " Fore "/" Front "/" Hither " in English and Anterior / Citerior / Cis- in Latin (with the corresponding antonyms in German, English and Latin being Hinter- , " Hinder "/" Rear "/" Farther " and Posterior / Ulterior / Trans- , respectively). Historically
12012-470: The historical region, Pomorze Zachodnie (Western Pomerania) or Pomorze Nadodrzańskie ( Oder Pomerania), have usually been applied to the entire narrower Pomerania, including Farther Pomerania , but excluding Pomerelia . In the narrower sense, the designation may also refer to the western part of the area only, alternatively called for precision Pomorze Szczecińskie ( Szczecin Pomerania), encompassing
12144-435: 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,
12276-582: The independent allied tribes held their meetings. Whether or not the Rani were part of the Veleti or later the Lutizians is disputed. The Slavic tribes referred to as Pomeranians settled east of the Oder River. In this era, large mixed Slavic and Scandinavian settlements were built at the natural havens of the bay-rich coast, the most important of which were Ralswiek (Rügen), Altes Lager Menzlin at
12408-481: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of
12540-425: The interwar period, scholars have conventionally divided Slavic languages, on the basis of geographical and genealogical principle, and with the use of the extralinguistic feature of script, into three main branches, that is, East, South, and West (from the vantage of linguistic features alone, there are only two branches of the Slavic languages, namely North and South). These three conventional branches feature some of
12672-557: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Slavic languages The Slavic languages , also known as the Slavonic languages , are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic , spoken during
12804-518: The last Rugian duke's death) fell to the HRE. The Rügen and Pomerania dukes called in many German settlers and aristocrats to resettle parts of their duchies devastated in the wars before and to settle new areas by turning woodland into fields. Settlers came from North German Lower Saxony. Some settlers from the Harz mountains in central Germany settled near Stettin. Cities and monasteries were founded. Between
12936-443: The last three decades, however, make this view very hard to maintain nowadays, especially when one considers that there was most likely no " Proto-Baltic " language and that West Baltic and East Baltic differ from each other as much as each of them does from Proto-Slavic. The Proto-Slavic language originated in the area of modern Ukraine and Belarus mostly overlapping with the northern part of Indoeuropean Urheimat , which
13068-445: The latter of them covering the area known as Dreikaiserbäder (three emperors baths) consisting of the former municipalities of Ahlbeck , Bansin and Heringsdorf. Towns in the Polish part include Police , Goleniów , Wolin , Międzyzdroje , Nowe Warpno , and the left-bank part of Dziwnów . In addition, the highly populated villages of Mierzyn , Przecław , Warzymice and Bezrzecze constitute in fact direct residential extensions of
13200-464: The lexical suffix precedes the inflectional in an agglutination mode. The fusional categorization of Slavic languages is based on grammatic inflectional suffixes alone. Prefixes are also used, particularly for lexical modification of verbs. For example, the equivalent of English "came out" in Russian is "vyshel", where the prefix "vy-" means "out" , the reduced root "-sh" means "come", and
13332-429: The local German industry, distributed underground Polish press, and facilitated escapes of Polish and British POWs who fled from German POW camps via the city's port to neutral Sweden (see also: Poland–Sweden relations ). In the final stages of the war, in 1945, German-perpetrated death marches of Allied POWs from Stalag XX-B and Stalag Luft IV passed through the region. At the end of World War II in 1945,
13464-402: 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
13596-533: The name "Hither Pomerania" has been used, but in modern English the German region is more commonly called "Western Pomerania" or by its native name. The formerly widespread local dialect term is Low German : Vörpommern . The name Pomerania comes from Slavic po more , which means "land by the sea". The adjective for the region is (Western) Pomeranian (German: pommersch , Polish : pomorski ), inhabitants are called (Western) Pomeranians (German: Pommern , Polish: Pomorzanie ). The Polish names for
13728-493: The nearby mainland, roughly matching the administrative districts of Vorpommern-Rügen and Vorpommern-Greifswald , though those districts' boundaries with Mecklenburg proper do not match the pre-1945 demarcation. The region is mentioned in the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state constitution as one of the two constituting regions of the state with the right to form a Landschaftsverband , which
13860-476: The neighboring Serbo-Croatian dialects), and the quality Swadesh lists were not yet collected for Slovenian dialects. Because of scarcity or unreliability of data, the study also did not cover the so-called Old Novgordian dialect, the Polabian language and some other Slavic lects. The above Kassian-Dybo's research did not take into account the findings by Russian linguist Andrey Zaliznyak who stated that, until
13992-653: 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
14124-559: The open sea, forming a unique landscape. The islands Kirr , Hiddensee , Ummanz , Dänholm , Rügen , Öhe , Riems , Vilm , Greifswalder Oie , Usedom , Karsibór and Wolin , as well as the islands of the city of Szczecin are located in Western Pomerania. The largest city in Western Pomerania is Szczecin on the Polish side and Stralsund on the German side. Today it is still an important town economically. The towns of Stralsund and Greifswald together, after Rostock, are
14256-493: The period 1500–1000 BCE. A minority of Baltists maintain the view that the Slavic group of languages differs so radically from the neighboring Baltic group ( Lithuanian , Latvian , and the now-extinct Old Prussian ), that they could not have shared a parent language after the breakup of the Proto-Indo-European continuum about five millennia ago. Substantial advances in Balto-Slavic accentology that occurred in
14388-590: The present-day north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , while the Polish part constitutes the westernmost border areas of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship . German Western Pomerania had a population of about 470,000 in 2012 (districts of Vorpommern-Rügen and Vorpommern-Greifswald combined) – while the Polish districts of the region had a population of about 520,000 in 2012 (cities of Szczecin , Świnoujście and Police County combined). So overall, about 1 million people live in
14520-462: 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
14652-399: The region, namely Szczecin and Świnoujście on the Polish side, as well as Stralsund and Greifswald on the German side of the border. Major towns in the German part of the region include Bergen auf Rügen , Demmin , Anklam , Wolgast and Pasewalk . The municipalities of Binz , Zingst , Zinnowitz and Heringsdorf do not have town rights, but are in fact semi-urban localities, with
14784-407: The reign of Peter I ), French (for household and culinary terms during the reign of Catherine II ) and German (for medical, scientific and military terminology in the mid-1800's). Another difference between the East, South, and West Slavic branches is in the orthography of the standard languages: West Slavic languages (and Western South Slavic languages – Croatian and Slovene ) are written in
14916-542: The second largest centres of population in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In addition the region has the highest population density of the four planning regions in the state. Western Pomerania has several national parks: Another region in Western Pomerania under extensive conservation protection is the Peene Valley . German Vorpommern is understood today as comprising the islands of Rügen and Usedom and
15048-595: The southernmost fragment ( Amt Gartz (Oder) ) remains part of the Uckermark district within Brandenburg . In 2012, the Pomeranian Evangelical Church merged with the Mecklenburgian and Northalbingian Evangelical Churches. Since the administrative reform of 1999, the Polish part is located within the West Pomeranian Voivodeship and encompasses the cities with powiat rights Szczecin and Świnoujście ,
15180-531: The spread of the Christian faith. In 1124, he invited Otto von Bamberg to mission in his duchy east of the Oder River. By 1128, Wartislaw I had expanded his duchy west to the County of Gützkow and Circipania and south to the Uckermark . He invited Otto von Bamberg again to mission in these pagan areas West of the Oder River, too. The former Liutizian principalities were turned into castellanies subordinate to
15312-572: The states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg , with the cities of Stralsund and Greifswald , as well as towns such as Ribnitz-Damgarten (Damgarten only), Bergen auf Rügen ( Rügen Island), Anklam , Wolgast , Demmin , Pasewalk , Grimmen , Sassnitz (Rügen Island), Ueckermünde , Torgelow , Barth , and Gartz . The cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście , as well as the towns of Police , Goleniów , Wolin , Międzyzdroje , Nowe Warpno , and (the left-bank part of) Dziwnów are part of Poland. The German part forms about one-third of
15444-546: 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,
15576-500: 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
15708-501: The time of German reunification in 1990. Vorpommern is a constitutional region of the state, yet not an administrative entity. After the administrative reforms of September 2011, the bulk of Western Pomerania is within the districts of Vorpommern-Rügen and Vorpommern-Greifswald ; however, some west central areas including Demmin and Altentreptow are within Mecklenburgische Seenplatte district, while
15840-465: The upper columns. The list does not include the former town of Dąbie , which currently is a neighbourhood of Szczecin; it also does not include the Brandenburgian city of Schwedt whose parts located north of Wesel , acquired in contemporary times, belong to historic Western Pomerania. Popular tourist resorts can be found all along the Baltic beaches of the Pomeranian part (Darß-Zingst) of
15972-607: The wealth situation of people in Vorpommern is on a mean range in Germany, with 27% of the population regarded as indigent – that is living with below 60% of an average German income. In prehistoric times, the area was inhabited by megalith cultures. In the first half of the first millennium, the East Germanic Rugians are reported in the area, who are known to later set up a kingdom far South in Pannonia in
16104-550: The whole Polish part of Hither Pomerania, but only the western two-thirds of Farther Pomerania, with the remaining easternmost one-third ( Słupsk , Ustka , Miastko ) forming a part of the neighbouring województwo pomorskie ( Pomeranian Voivodeship ). On the other hand, it stretches far more south than the historical region, to include the northern part of the historical Neumark ( Dębno , Chojna , Trzcińsko-Zdrój , Myślibórz , Nowogródek Pomorski , Lipiany , Barlinek , Pełczyce , Suchań , Choszczno , Recz , Drawno ), as well as
16236-658: The word krilatec ). The Freising manuscripts are the first Latin-script continuous text in a Slavic language. The migration of Slavic speakers into the Balkans in the declining centuries of the Byzantine Empire expanded the area of Slavic speech, but the pre-existing writing (notably Greek) survived in this area. The arrival of the Hungarians in Pannonia in the 9th century interposed non-Slavic speakers between South and West Slavs. Frankish conquests completed
16368-555: 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
16500-600: 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
16632-429: 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
16764-542: Was a period marked by the ravages of warfare. A part of the region south of the Peene river ( Old Western Pomerania ) came under Prussian sovereignty after the Stockholm peace treaty in 1720 . Under the Treaty of Kiel , the remnants of Swedish Pomerania ( New Western Pomerania ) were briefly transferred to Denmark in 1814, but the 1815 Congress of Vienna ceded the territory to Prussia. From 1815, all of Western Pomerania
16896-480: 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
17028-492: 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
17160-710: Was integrated into the Prussian Province of Pomerania , administered as the Region of Stralsund (New Western Pomerania) and Region of Stettin (the old Western Pomeranian region). Stralsund was fused into Stettin in 1932. From May to September 1939, before and during the German invasion of Poland , which started World War II , Polish people in the region, particularly in Szczecin, were targeted by Nazi repressions, with Polish organizations attacked and Polish leaders, activists, entrepreneurs, and even some staff of
17292-633: Was raided by the Danes , which destroyed Jomsborg in 1043, shifting the power in the Oder delta South to Pomeranian Stettin. Rethra was raided and devastated by the Germans in winter 1068/69, the Lutizian alliance fell apart, and instead the Lutizian tribes started fighting against each other (" Liutizischer Bruderkrieg ", Liutizian civil war). Wartislaw's aim was not only the expansion of his duchy, but also
17424-673: Was slain by pagans near Stolpe . Stolpe Abbey was erected at this site by Wartislaw's successor, Ratibor I . The 1147 Wendish Crusade initiated by the Holy Roman Empire ended when the Demmin and Stettin citizens persuaded the crusaders that they were already Christians. By the middle of the 12th century, the Principality of Rügen in northwestern Pomerania remained the last pagan state in Central Europe. In 1168,
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