Home About us Products Services Contact us Bookmark
:: wikimiki.org ::
Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Charlemagne (ca. 742 or 747 – January 28, 814) (or Charles the Great, in German Karl der Große, in Norwegian Karl den store, in Dutch Karel de Grote, in Latin Carolus Magnus, giving rise to the adjective form "Carolingian"), was king of the Franks from 768 to 814, King of the Lombards since 774, and the renewer of the Western Empire. His dual role as Emperor—Imperator Augustus–and King of the Franks provides the historical link between the Imperial dignity and the Frankish kingdoms and later Germany. Today both France and Germany look to him as a founding figure of their respective countries.

Date of birth

Charlemagne's birthday was believed to be April 1, 742, however several factors led to reconsideration of this traditional date. First, the year 742 was calculated from his age given at death, rather than attested with primary sources. Second, 742 precedes the marriage of his parents (in 749), yet there is no indication that Charlemagne was born out of wedlock, and he inherited from his parents. Another date is given in the Annales Petarienses, April 1, 747. In that year, April 1 is Easter. The birth of an Emperor on Easter is a coincidence likely to provoke comment, but there is no such comment documented in 747, leading some to suspect the Easter birthday was a pious fiction concocted as a way of honoring the Emperor. Other commentators weighing the primary records have suggested that the birth was one year later, 748. So at present, it is impossible to be certain of the date of the birth of Charlemagne. The best guesses include April 1, 747, after April 15, 747, or April 1, 748.

Life

Charlemagne was the elder son of Pippin the Younger (714 – 24 September 771, reigned 751 – 768) and his wife Bertrada of Laon (720 – 12 July 783); he was the brother of the Lady Bertha, mother of Roland. On the death of Pippin, the kingdom was divided between Charlemagne and his brother Carloman. Charles took the outer parts of the kingdom, bordering on the sea, namely Neustria, Aquitania and the northern parts of Austrasia, while Carloman attained the inner parts, bordering on Italy. Carloman died on 5 December 771, leaving Charlemagne the leader of a reunified Frankish kingdom. Shortly after that, he marched against the Lombards in Italy. In 774 he deposed their king Desiderius and was himself crowned king of the Lombards, permanently unifying the kingdom of Italy to the Frankish crown. Charlemagne was engaged in almost constant battle throughout his reign, with his legendary sword Joyeuse in hand. After thirty years of war and eighteen battles -- the Saxon Wars -- he conquered Saxony, a goal that had been the unattainable dream of Augustus, and proceeded to convert the conquered to Catholic Christianity, using force where necessary. In 782, at Verden in Lower Saxony, he allegedly ordered the beheading of 4,500 Saxons in one day (the Bloody Trial of Verden) who had made the error of rebelling against Frankish rule and of being caught practicing paganism after they had agreed to be Christians. Modern research has cast doubt upon this allegation, as no archeological evidence of such a massacre has been found and the original source may have mistakenly written of "beheading" instead of "exiling". Charlemagne also contemplated the reconquest of Spain, but never fully succeeded in this goal. It was during one of his futile invasions of northern Spain that the leader of his afterguard, Count Roland, was killed, inspiring the subsequent creation of the Song of Roland. Song of Roland was threatened by invaders, the king rushed to Rome to provide assistance. Shown here, the pope asks Charlemagne for help at a meeting near Rome.]] In 797 (or 801?) the caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, presented Charlemagne with an Asian elephant named Abul-Abbas (See History of elephants in Europe.) and a mechanical clock. In 800, at Mass on Christmas day in Rome, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Imperator Romanorum (Emperor of the Romans). Though this, according to the sources, occurred against his intentions, Charles thus became the renewer of the Western Empire, which had expired in the 5th century. To avoid frictions with the Eastern Emperor, Charles later called himself not Imperator Romanorum (a title reserved for the Eastern Emperor), but rather as Imperator Romanum gubernans Imperium (Emperor ruling the Roman Empire). Pursuing his father's reforms, Charlemagne did away with the monetary system based on the gold sou. Both he and King Offa of Mercia took up the system set in place by Pippin. He set up a new standard, the livre (i.e. pound)— both monetary and unit of weight— which was worth 20 sous (like the solidus, and later the shilling) or 240 deniers (like the denarius, and eventually the penny). During this period, the livre and the sou were counting units, only the denier was a coin of the realm. Charlemagne applied the system to much of the European Continent, and Offa's standard was voluntarily adopted by much of England. England Charlemagne organized his empire into 350 counties, each led by an appointed count. Counts served as judges, administrators, and they enforced capitularies. To enforce loyalty, he set up the system of missi dominici, meaning 'Envoys of the Lord.' In this system, one representative of the church and one representative of the emperor would head to the different counties and every year report back to Charlemagne on their status. missi dominici When Charlemagne died in 814, he was buried in his own Cathedral at Aachen. He was succeeded by his only son to survive him, Louis the Pious, after whose reign the empire was divided between his three surviving sons according to Frankish tradition. These three kingdoms would be the foundations of later France and the Holy Roman Empire. After Charlemagne's death, continental coinage degraded and most of Europe resorted to using the continued high quality English coin until about 1100. It is difficult to understand Charlemagne's attitude toward his daughters. None of them contracted a sacramental marriage. This may have been an attempt to control the number of potential alliances. After his death the surviving daughters entered or were forced to enter monasteries. At least one of them, Bertha, had a recognized relationship, if not a marriage, with Angilbert, a member of Charlemagne's court circle. Charlemagne's mother tongue was the Old High German dialect called Frankish. He also spoke Latin and understood some Greek.

Cultural significance

Greek. A Romantic interpretation of his appearance from the 18th century ]] Charlemagne's reign is often referred to as the Carolingian Renaissance because of the flowering of scholarship, literature, art, and architecture. Most of the surviving works of classical Latin were copied and preserved by Carolingian scholars. The pan-European nature of Charlemagne's influence is indicated by the origins of many of the men who worked for him: Alcuin, an Anglo-Saxon; Theodulf, a Visigoth; Paul the Deacon, a Lombard; and Angilbert and Einhard, Franks. Charlemagne enjoyed an important afterlife in European culture. One of the great medieval literature cycles, the Charlemagne cycle or the Matter of France, centres around the deeds of Charlemagne's historical commander of the Breton border, Roland, and the paladins who served as a counterpart to the knights of the Round Table; their tales were first told in the chansons de geste. Charlemagne himself was accorded sainthood inside the Holy Roman Empire after the 12th century. His canonization by Antipope Paschal III was never recognized by the Holy See. He was a model knight as one of the Nine Worthies. It is frequently claimed by genealogists that all people with European ancestry alive today are probably descended from Charlemagne. However, only a small percentage can actually prove descent from him. Charlemagne's marriage and relationship politics and ethics did, however, result in a fairly large number of descendants, all of whom had far better life expectancies than is usually the case for children in that time period. They were married into houses of nobility and as a result of intermarriages many people of noble descent can indeed trace their ancestry back to Charlemagne. Charlemagne's genealogical tree was quite extensive, and can be traced almost completely up to modern times; among the well known direct descendants of Charlemagne are William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States, American actor Tyrone Power, the British actor Christopher Lee, and Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He is without a doubt an ancestor of every royal family of Europe. Another interesting note about Charlemagne was that he took a serious effort in his and others' scholarship and had learned to read in his adulthood, although he never quite learned how to write. His handwriting was bad, from which grew the legend that he could not write. This was quite an achievement for kings at this time, of whom most were illiterate. He was an avid chess player and was known to challenge his soldiers to games before large battles. illiterate

Charlemagne's portraits

illiterate.]] The Roman tradition of realistic personal portraiture was in complete eclipse at the time of Charlemagne, where individual traits were submerged in iconic typecastings. Charlemagne, as an ideal ruler, ought to be portrayed in the corresponding fashion, any contemporary would have assumed. The images of enthroned Charlemagne, God's representative on Earth, bear more connections to the icons of Christ in Majesty than to modern (or Antique) conceptions of portraiture. Even the verbal portrait by Einhard suppresses details that would have been indecorous in this context. Charlemagne in later imagery (see Dürer portrait right) is often portrayed with flowing blond hair, due to a misunderstanding of Einhart's Vita caroli Magni (chapter 22) where Charlemagne in his age had canitie pulchra "beautiful white hair" which has been rendered as blond or fair in many translations. The Latin word for blond is "flavus", and "rutilo", meaning 'golden-red' or 'auburn', is the word Tacitus uses for the Germans' hair.

Family

Tacitus ]]

Marriages


- Himiltrude
- Ermengarda or Desiderata
- Hildegard of Savoy (married Abt 771) (758–783)
- Fastrada (married 784) (d. 794)
- Luitgard (married 794) (d. 800)
- Coo-Sheba (married 801) (d. 900)

Children

Sons:
- Pippin the Hunchback (d. 813)
- Charles, King of Neustria (d. 811)
- Pippin, King of Italy (ruled 781–810)
- Louis I The Pious, King of Aquitaine, Emperor (ruled 814–840)
- Lothar (d. 779 or 780) Daughters:
- Adelheid (b. 774)
- Rhotrud (775-810)
- Hildegarde (777-777)
- Bertha (779-823)
- Gisele (781-808)
- Aupais?

Further reading


- Alessandro Barbero: Charlemagne, father of a continent. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004 ISBN 0-520-23943-1

See also


- Franks (main history of Frankish kingdoms)
- List of Frankish Kings
- Carolingians
- Nine Worthies

External links


- A reconstructed [http://www.reportret.info/gallery/charlemagne1.html portrait of Charlemagne], based on historical sources, in a contemporary style.
- House of Pippin / Dynasty of Charlemagne: [http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Rulers/charlemagne.html Genealogy of Charlemagne]
- [http://www.badley.info/history/Charlamagne-I-the-Great-France.biog.html Charlemagne Chronology] Category:740s births Category:814 deaths Category:Frankish kings Category:Holy Roman emperors Category:Kings of Burgundy Category:Matter of France Category:Nine Worthies ko:카롤루스 대제 ja:カール大帝

742

Events
- Chinese poet Li Po is presented before the emperor and given a position in the Imperial court. (approximate date)
- Saint Sturm establishes the abbey of Fulda. (or 744?)
- Artabasdus is Byzantine Emperor.
- After a forty-year vacancy, Stephen becomes Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch at the suggestion of Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik. Births
- Charlemagne, king and emperor of the Franks (disputed date) Deaths Category:742 als:742 ko:742년

747

:This article is about the year 747. For the aircraft, see Boeing 747. For other uses of 747, see 747 (number).

Events


- Abu Muslim unites the Abbasid Empire against the Umayyads.
- Ibrahim the Imam, leader of an Abbasid revolt against the Umayyads, is captured.
- Carloman retires into a monastery. Pippin the Short remains sole ruler of the Franks as Mayor of the Palace.
- Outbreak of Plague in Sicily, Calabria, and Momenvasia

Births


- Charlemagne, king and emperor of the Franks (disputed date)

Deaths

Category:747 ko:747년

814

Events


- Louis the Pious succeeds Charlemagne as king of the Franks and Emperor.
- The Bulgarians lay siege before Constantinople.
- Conflict between emperor Leo V and patriarch Nicephorus on the subject of iconoclasm. Leo deposes Nicephorus, Nicephorus excommunicates Leo.

Births


- Wuzong, Emperor of Tang China (d. 846)

Deaths


- January 28: Charlemagne, king of the Franks and Emperor
- February 18: Angilbert, Frankish politician
- April 13: Krum, khan of Bulgaria (brain hemorrhage) Category:814 ko:814년

German language

German (German: ), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and is one of the world's major languages. It is the language with the most native speakers in the European Union. Spoken by more than 130 million people in 38 countries of the world, German is—like English—a pluricentric language with three main centers of usage: Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Geographic distribution

German is spoken primarily in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, in two-thirds of Switzerland, in two-thirds of the South Tyrol province of Italy (in German, Südtirol), in the small East Cantons of Belgium, and in some border villages of the South Jutland County (in German, Nordschleswig, in Danish, Sønderjylland) of Denmark. In Luxembourg (in German, Luxemburg), as well as in the French régions of Alsace (in German, Elsass) and parts of Lorraine (in German, Lothringen), the native populations speak several German dialects, and some people also master standard German (especially in Luxembourg), although in Alsace and Lorraine French has for the most part replaced the local German dialects in the last 40 years. Some German speaking communities still survive in parts of Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and above all Russia, Kazakhstan and Poland, although massive relocations to Germany in the late 1940s and 1990s have depopulated most of these communities. Outside of Europe and the former Soviet Union, the largest German speaking communities are to be found in the USA and in Brazil where millions of Germans migrated in the last 200 years; but the great majority of their descendants no longer speak German. Additionally, German speaking communities are to be found in the former German colony of Namibia, as well as in the other countries of German emigration such as Canada, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, Peru, Venezuela (where Alemán Coloneiro developed), Thailand, and Australia. See also Plautdietsch. In the USA, the largest concentration of German speakers are in Pennsylvania (Amish, Hutterites and some Mennonites speak Pennsylvania German and Hutterite German), Texas (Texas German), North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wisconsin and Indiana also speak dialects of German. In Brazil the largest concentrations of German speakers are in Rio Grande do Sul, where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch was developed, Santa Catarina, Paraná, and Espírito Santo). Generally, German immigrant communities in the USA have lost their mother tongue more quickly than those who moved to South America, possibly due to the fact that for Germans English is easier to learn than Portuguese or Spanish. German is the main language of about 100 million people in Europe (as of 2004), or 13.3% of all Europeans, being the most spoken language in Europe excluding Russia, above French (66.5 million speakers in Europe in 2004) and English (64.2 million speakers in Europe in 2004). German is the third most taught foreign language worldwide, also in the USA (after Spanish and French); it is the second most known foreign language in the EU (after English; see [http://europa.eu.int/comm/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_237.en.pdf]) It is one of the official languages of the European Union.

History

As a consequence of the colonisation patterns the Völkerwanderung, the routes for trade and communication (chiefly the rivers), and of physical isolation (high mountains and deep forests) very different regional dialects developed. These dialects, sometimes mutually unintelligible, were used across the Holy Roman Empire. As Germany was divided into many different states, the only force working for a unification or standardisation of German during a period of several hundred years was the general preference of writers trying to write in a way that could be understood in the largest possible area. When Martin Luther translated the Bible (the New Testament in 1521 and the Old Testament in 1534) he based his translation mainly on this already developed language, which was the most widely understood language at this time. This language was based on Eastern Upper and Eastern Central German dialects and preserved much of the grammatical system of Middle High German (unlike the spoken German dialects in Central and Upper Germany that already at that time began to lose the genitive case and the preterit tense). In the beginning, copies of the Bible had a long list for each region, which translated words unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics rejected Luther's translation in the beginning and tried to create their own Catholic standard (Gemeines Deutsch) — which, however, only differed from 'Protestant German' in some minor details. It took until the middle of the 18th century to create a standard that was widely accepted, thus ending the period of Early New High German. German used to be the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire. It indicated that the speaker was a merchant, an urbanite, not their nationality. Some cities, such as Prague (German: Prag) and Budapest (Buda, German: Ofen), were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain. Others, such as Bratislava (German: Pressburg), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. A few cities such as Milan (German: Mailand) remained primarily non-German. However, most cities were primarily German during this time, such as Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, Zagreb (German: Agram), and Ljubljana (German: Laibach), though they were surrounded by territory that spoke other languages. Until about 1800, Standard German was almost only a written language. In this time, people in urban northern Germany, who spoke dialects very different from Standard German, learnt it almost like a foreign language and tried to pronounce it as close to the spelling as possible. Prescriptive pronunciation guides used to consider that northern German pronunciation to be the standard. However, the actual pronunciation of standard German varies from region to region. Media and written works are almost all produced in standard German (often called Hochdeutsch in German), which is understood in all areas of German languages (except by pre-school children in areas which speak only dialect, for example Switzerland — but in this age of TV, even they now usually learn to understand Standard German before school age). The first dictionary of the Brothers Grimm, the 16 parts of which were issued between 1852 and 1960, remains the most comprehensive guide to the words of the German language. In 1860, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, this was declared the standard definition of the German language. Official revisions of some of these rules were not issued until 1998, when the German spelling reform of 1996 was officially promulgated by governmental representatives of all German-speaking countries. Since the reform, German spelling has been in an eight-year transitional period where the reformed spelling is taught in most schools, while traditional and reformed spelling co-exist in the media. See German spelling reform of 1996 for an overview of the heated public debate concerning the reform. During the 1870s, the German language successfully replaced Latin as the dominant language in all major European and North American universities, thanks to the prominence of German universities at the time. Most important research in the sciences for some decades afterward was published in German, and new universities preferred German instead of Greek or Latin mottoes (for example, Stanford University).

Classification and related languages

Stanford University is divided into Upper German (blue) and Central German (green), and the Dutch/Plattdüütsch (yellow). The main isoglosses, the Benrath and Speyer lines are marked in red.]] German is a member of the western branch of the Germanic family of languages, which in turn is part of the Indo-European language family.

Neighboring languages

German forms together with Dutch, its closest relative, a coherent and well-defined language area that is separated from its neighbors by language borders. These neighbors are: in the north Frisian and Danish; in the east Polish, Sorbian, Czech, Slovak, and Hungarian; in the south Slovenian, Italian, Friulian, Ladin, and Romansh; in the west French. Except for Frisian, none of these languages are West Germanic, and so they are clearly distinct from German and Dutch. While Frisian is closely related to German and Dutch, it is generally considered not to be mutually intelligible with them. The situation is more complex with respect to the distinction between German and Dutch. Until recently, there has been a dialect continuum throughout the whole German-Dutch language area, with no language borders. In such a dialect continuum, dialects are always mutually intelligible with their neighbors, but dialects that are further apart from each other are often not. The German-Dutch continuum lent itself to a classification of dialects into Low German and High German based on their participation in the High German consonant shift; Dutch is part of the Low German group. However, because of the political separation between Germany and the Netherlands, Low German dialects in the Netherlands and Low German dialects in Germany have started to diverge during the 20th century. Additionally, both in northern Germany and in the Netherlands, many dialects are close to extinction and are being replaced by the German and Dutch standard languages. In this way, a language border between Dutch and German is currently forming. While German is grammatically similar in many ways to Dutch, it is very different in speech. A speaker of one may require some practice to effectively understand a speaker of the other. Compare, for example: :De kleinste kameleon is volwassen 2 cm groot, de grootste kan wel 80 cm worden. (Dutch) :Das kleinste Chamäleon ist ausgewachsen 2 cm groß, das größte kann gut 80 cm werden. (Standard German) : (English: "The smallest chameleon is fully grown 2 cm long, the longest can easily attain 80 cm.") Dutch speakers are generally able to read German, and German speakers who can speak Low German or English are generally able to read Dutch, but have problems understanding the spoken language, although Germans who speak High German, or, even better, Low German, can cope with Dutch much better than people from Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria who have grown up with the Alemannic or Bavarian dialects.

Official status

Standard German is the only official language in Germany, Liechtenstein, and Austria; it shares official status in Switzerland (with French, Italian and Romansh), and Luxembourg (with French and Luxembourgish). It is used as a local official language in German-speaking regions of Belgium, Italy, Denmark, and Poland. It is one of the 20 official languages of the European Union. It is also a minority language in Canada, France, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Poland, Romania, Togo, Cameroon, the USA, Namibia, Brazil, Paraguay, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Ukraine, Croatia, Moldavia, Australia, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. German was once the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe. Increasing influence from the English language has affected German recently. However, German remains one of the most popular foreign languages taught world-wide, and is more popular than French as a foreign language in Europe. 8% of citizens of the EU-15 countries say they can converse in German, in addition to the 24% who speak German as a mother tongue.[http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/lang/languages/index_en.html] This is assisted by the availability of German TV by cable or satellite, where series like Star Trek are shown dubbed into German. German is also the second language of the Internet, more than 8% of the websites are in German (English 50%, French 6%, Japanese 5%, Spanish 3% and Portuguese 2%).

Dialects

The term "German" is used for the dialects of Germany, Austria, German-speaking Switzerland (that is, outside the French-, Italian-, and Romansch-speaking areas) and some areas in the surrounding countries, as well as for several colonies and other ethnic concentrations founded by German-speaking people (for example German in the United States). The variation among the German dialects is considerable. Only the neighbouring dialects are mutually understandable. Most dialects are not understandable for someone who knows standard German. However, all German dialects belong to the dialect continuum of the continental West Germanic languages because any pair of neighbouring dialects is perfectly mutually intelligible. The dialect continuum of the continental West Germanic languages is typically divided into Low Germanic languages and High Germanic languages. Low Germanic is defined as the varieties that were not affected by the High German consonant shift. They consist of two subgroups, Low Franconian and Plattdüütsch (Low German). Low Franconian includes Dutch and Afrikaans, spoken primarily in the Netherlands, Belgium and South Africa; Plattdüütsch includes dialects spoken primarily in the German Lowlands and in the eastern Netherlands. The Plattdüütsch varieties are considered dialects of the German language by some, but a separate language by others; the Low Franconian varieties are not considered a part of the German language (see above for a discussion of the distinction between German and Dutch). High Germanic is divided into Central German and Upper German. Central German dialects include Ripuarian, Moselle Franconian, Rhine Franconian, Hessian, Thuringian and Upper Saxon. It is spoken in the southeastern Netherlands, eastern Belgium, Luxembourg, parts of France, and in Germany approximately between the River Main and the southern edge of the Lowlands. Modern Standard German is mostly based on Central German. The Moselle Franconian varieties spoken in Luxembourg have been officially standardized and institutionalized and are therefore usually considered a separate language, Luxembourgish language. Upper German dialects include Alemannic (for instance Swiss German), Swabian, East Franconian, and Austro-Bavarian. They are spoken in parts of the Alsace, southern Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria, and in the German-speaking parts of Switzerland and Italy. The High German varieties spoken by Ashkenazi Jews (mostly in the former Soviet Union) have several unique features, and are usually considered as a separate language, Yiddish. The dialects of German which are or were primarily spoken in colonies founded by German speaking people resemble the dialects of the regions the founders came from (for example Pennsylvania German resembles dialects of the Palatinate, or Hutterite German resembles dialects of Carinthia). In the United States, the teaching of the German language to latter-age students has given rise to a pidgin variant which combines the German language with the grammar and spelling rules of the English language. It is often understandable by either party. The speakers of this language often refer to it as Amerikanisch or Amerikanischdeutsch, although it is known in English as American German.

Standard German

In German linguistics, only the traditional regional varieties are called dialects, not the different varieties of standard German. Standard German has originated not as a traditional dialect of a specific region, but as a written language. However, there are places where the traditional regional dialects have been replaced by standard German (especially in major cities of Germany, and to some extent in Vienna). Standard German differs regionally, especially between German-speaking countries, especially in vocabulary, but also in some instances of pronunciation and even grammar. This variation must not be confused with the variation of local dialects. Even though the regional varieties of standard German are to a certain degree influenced by the local dialects, they are very distinct. German is thus considered a pluricentric language. In most regions, the speakers use a continuum of mixtures from more dialectical varieties to more standard varieties according to situation. In the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, mixtures of dialect and standard are very seldom used, and the use of standard German is almost entirely restricted to the written language. Therefore, this situation has been called a medial diglossia. Standard German is rarely spoken, for instance when speaking with people who do not understand the Swiss German dialects at all, and it is expected to be used in school.

Grammar

Main article: German grammar German is an inflected language.

Noun inflection

German nouns inflect into:
- one of four declension classes
- one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter. Word endings indicate some grammatical genders; others are arbitrary and must be memorised.
- two numbers: singular and plural
- four cases: nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative case. Although German is usually cited as an outstanding example of a highly inflected language, it should be noted that the degree of inflection is considerably less than in Old German, or in Icelandic today. The three genders have collapsed in the plural, which now behaves, grammatically, somewhat as a fourth gender. With four cases and three genders plus plural there are 16 distinct possible combinations of case and gender/number, but presently there are only six forms of the definite article used for the 16 possibilities. Inflection for case on the noun itself is required in the singular for strong masculine and neuter nouns in the genitive and sometimes in the dative. This dative ending is considered somewhat old-fashioned in many contexts and often dropped, but it is still used in sayings and in formal speech or written language. Weak masculine nouns share an common case ending for genitive, dative and accusative in the singular. Feminines are not declined in the singular. The plural does have an inflection for the dative. In total, six inflectional endings (not counting plural markers) exist in German: -s, -es, -n, -en, -ns, -e In the German orthography, unlike any other orthography, nouns and most words with the syntactical function of nouns are capitalised, which makes it quite easy for readers to find out what function a word has within the sentence. On the other hand, things get more difficult for the writer. Like most Germanic languages, German forms left-branching noun compounds, where the first noun modifies the category given by the second, for example: Hundehütte (eng. doghouse). Unlike English, where newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written in open form with separating spaces, German (like the other German languages) always uses the closed form without spaces, for example: Baumhaus (eng. tree house). Like English, German allows arbitrarily long compounds, but these are rare. (See also English compounds.) The longest official German word is Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. There is even a child's game played in kindergartens and primary schools where a child begins the spelling of a word (which is not told) by naming the first letter. The next one tells the next letter, the third one tells the third and so on. The game is over when the a child can not think of another letter to be added to the word.

Verb Inflection

Standard German verbs inflect into:
- one of two conjugation classes, weak and strong (like English). (note: in fact there is a third class, called "gemischte Verben", which can be either weak ("active meaning") or strong ("passive meaning")) There are about 200 irregular verbs.
- three persons: 1st, 2nd, 3rd.
- two numbers: singular and plural
- three moods: Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative
- two genera verbi: active and passive; the passive being composed and dividable into static and dynamic.
- 2 non-composed tenses (Present, Preterite) and 4 composed tenses (Perfect, Plusquamperfect, Future I, Future II)
- no distinction between aspects (in English, perfect and progressive; in Polish between completed and incompleted form; in Turkish between first-hand and second-hand information) There are also many ways to expand, an sometimes radically change, the meaning of a base verb through several prefixes. Example: haften=to stick, verhaften=to imprison The word order is much more flexible than in English. The word order can be changed for subtle changes of a sentence's meaning. In normal positive sentences the verb always has position 2, in questions it has position 1. Most German vocabulary is derived from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, although there are significant minorities of words derived from Latin, French, and most recently English.

Writing system

German is written using the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with Umlaut, namely ä, ö and ü, as well as a special symbol for "ss", which is used only after long vowels or diphthongs (and not used at all in Switzerland), the Eszett or Scharfes-S (sharp "s") ß. Until the early 20th century, German was mostly printed in blackletter typefaces (mostly in Fraktur, but also in Schwabacher) and written in corresponding handwriting (for example Kurrent and Sütterlin). These variants of the Latin alphabet are very different from the serif or sans serif antiqua typefaces used today, and are difficult for the untrained to read. They were abolished by the Nazis (incorrectly claiming that these letters are Jewish) in 1941 but this has been retained for broader and easier usability.

Alphabet

Main article: German alphabet.

Phonology

Main article: German phonology (pronunciation, historical sound changes).

Cognates with English

There are many German words that are cognate to English words. Most of them are easily identifiable and have almost the same meaning. When these cognates have slightly different consonants, this is often due to the High German consonant shift. There are cognates whose meanings in either language have changed through the centuries. It is sometimes difficult for both English and German speakers to discern the relationship. On the other hand, once the definitions are made clear, then the logical relation becomes obvious. There are many English loanwords in German, and a somewhat smaller number of German loanwords in English. Sometimes these also involve semantic changes, for example German Dogge, 'mastiff', from English dog, or German Handy, 'mobile phone'. German and English also share many borrowings from other languages, especially from Latin, French and Greek, but also from many other languages. Most of these word have the same meaning, while a few have subtle differences in meaning. As many of these words have been borrowed by numerous languages, not only German and English, they are called internationalisms in German linguistics.

Examples of German

Names of the German language in other languages

Because of the turbulent history of both Germany and the German language, the names that other peoples have chosen to use to refer to it varies more than for most other languages. In general, the names for the German language can be arranged in five groups according to their origin: Lao is unique in that both under the influence of English "German" (through Thai "yenman") and French (the colonial language) "Allemand", it chose a name in between: ພາສາເຢຍລະມັນ (phaxa yeylaman), which could be ranked both under category 2 and category 5. Note: The Romanian language used to use in the past the Slavonic term "nemţeşte", but "germană" is now widely used. Hungarian "német" is also a Slavonic loan-word. The Arabic name for Austria, النمسا ("an-namsa"), is derived from the Slavonic term. A possible explanation for the use of "mute" to refer to German (and also to Germans) in Slavic languages is that Germans were the first people Slavic tribes encountered, with whom they could not communicate. The corresponding experience for the Germans was with the Volcae, whose name they subsequently also applied to the Slavs, see etymology of Vlach. Hebrew traditionally (nowadays this is not the case) used the Biblical term Ashkenaz (Genesis 10.3) to refer to Germany, or to certain parts of it, and the Ashkenazi Jews are those who originate from Germany and Eastern Europe and formerly spoke Yiddish as their native language, derived from Middle High German.

See also


- Umlaut, ß
- German spelling reform of 1996
- Germish
- German family name etymology
- German placename etymology
- Ethnic German
- German as a Minority Language
- List of German proverbs
- Common phrases in various languages
- List of German expressions in English
- List of German words and phrases

External links


-
- [http://www.declan-software.com/german German language learning audio software]
- [http://learno.com/german Online Learno german course] Free online German tutorial at Learno.com
- [http://www.washjeff.edu/capl/ Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon] Free online visual lexicon of the German language with authentic photos from German speaking world.
- [http://www.sprachtausch.net Sprachtausch.net] — German website to find someone to teach you, for example german in exchange with your language.
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=deu Ethnologue report for German]
- [http://www.travlang.com/languages/german/ihgg/ Internet Handbook of German Grammar]
- [http://www.lsa.umich.edu/german/hmr/ German resources] at the University of Michigan
- [http://german.languages4everyone.com Learn German Online] with this internet German course for beginners
- [http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,1595,2469,00.html Deutsche Welle's Online German Courses]
- [http://www.applelanguages.com/en/learn/german.php German courses in Germany]
- [http://www.vds-ev.de Verein Deutsche Sprache] (in German)
- A beginning [http://wikibooks.org/wiki/German German Language Textbook] under development at [http://wikibooks.org/ Wikibooks]
- [http://www.diwa.info/ Digital Wenker-Atlas] Project publishing the 19th century Linguistic Atlas of the German Empire
- [http://www.geocities.com/language_directory/languages/german.htm List of online German-related resources]
- [http://eserver.org/langs/the-awful-german-language.txt That awful German language] — A humourous essay by Mark Twain
- [http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/german/index.html Why learn German? A German language profile]
- [http://www.vistawide.com/german/why_german.htm Why learn German?] — 12 reasons to learn German
- [http://www.actilingua.com/german_courses/german_language.php Short summary on German language and varieties with a map!]
- [http://www.ielanguages.com/German.html Free German Language Tutorial from ielanguages.com]
- [http://www.passwort-deutsch.de/ Passwort Deutsch] - A German course
- [http://www.deutsch-lernen.com/ Learn German Online] containing free courses
- [http://www.loecsen.com/travel/discover_pop.php?lang=en&to_lang=1&learn-German/ Learn and listen to useful expressions in German] Each expression is presented with an audio recording and an illustration
- [http://www.expatica.com/source/site_content_subchannel.asp?subchannel_id=37&name=Germany+Education Articles on learning German] Also has a service whereby learners of German can send questions to a German teacher

Dictionary and word translations


- [http://dict.leo.org/ The LEO Online Dictionary] German-English-German dictionary at Leo.org
- [http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/ TU Chemnitz Dictionary] a 185000+ German-English Dictionary with proverbs and pronounciation
- [http://www.dict.cc/ dict.cc: User-editable German-English-German Dictionary] works similar to Wikipedia, more than 840,000 keywords (420,000 translation pairs)
- [http://odge.info/ Odge.info] uses dict.cc's data according to [http://odge.info/License/ license] page
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/German-english/ German — English Dictionary]: from [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Webster's Online Dictionary] — the Rosetta Edition.
- [http://www.canoo.net/index_en.html German Grammar, Online Dictionary for Spelling, Infection and Wordformation for the German Language]
- [http://www.geodic.de GEODic] German-English-Online-Dictionary
- [http://www.woerterbuch.info woerterbuch.info — Free English-German Online Dictionary] with over 600.000 translations
- [http://www.dwds.de The Digital Dictonary Project]in German - Dictionary, Corpus and Statistics
- http://www.dedict.de - English-German Online Dictionary
- http://www.spell-it.net - Free English-German Online Dictionary

Grammar


- [http://www.wm.edu/modlang/gasmit/grammar/grammnu.html Grammar of German]
- [http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~skidmore/grammarpage.htm German Grammar on the Web]
- [http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~oberle/courses/review.html German Review Grammar]
- [http://www.cas.muohio.edu/~greal/netzgrammatik/grammar.html German Grammar Charts]

Reference


- George O. Curme, A Grammar of the German Language (1904, 1922) — the most complete and authoritative work in English
- [http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/germanistik/spr/suf/baydat-udi/pdf/Grob%FCbersicht%20Dialekte.pdf Dialect map of the German language area (in German)] Category:Fusional languages Category:German language Category:High Germanic languages Category:Languages of Belgium Category:Languages of Brazil Category:Languages of Luxembourg Category:Languages of France Category:Languages of Germany Category:Languages of Italy Category:Languages of Switzerland Category:Languages of Liechtenstein Category:Languages of Austria Category:Languages of Hungary Category:Guttural R als:Deutsche Sprache ko:독일어 ms:Bahasa Jerman ja:ドイツ語 simple:German language th:ภาษาเยอรมัน

Dutch language

Dutch () is a West Germanic, Low German language spoken by around 24 million people, mostly in the Netherlands and Belgium. The varieties of Dutch spoken in Belgium are also informally called Flemish (Vlaams). The language is sometimes colloquially called Hollands by native speakers although this is becoming less common today. Usually the language is called Nederlands by the native speakers. Dutch is sometimes called Netherlandic in English.

History

The West Germanic dialects can be divided according to tribe (Frisian, Saxon, Franconian, Bavarian and Swabian), and according to the extent of their participation in the High German consonant shift (Low German against High German). The present Dutch standard language is largely derived from Low Franconian dialects spoken in the Low Countries that must have reached a separate identity no later than about AD 700. An early Dutch recorded writing is: "Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan, hinase hic enda tu, wat unbidan we nu" ("All birds have started making nests, except me and you, what are we waiting for"), dating around the year 1100, written by a Flemish monk in a convent in Rochester, England. For a long time this sentence was considered to be the earliest in Dutch, but since its discovery even older fragments were found, such as "Visc flot aftar themo uuatare" ("A fish was swimming in the water") and "Gelobistu in got alamehtigan fadaer" ("Do you believe in God the almighty father"). The latter fragment was written as early as 900. Professor Luc De Grauwe from the University of Ghent disputes the language of these sequences of text, and actually believes them to be Old English, so there is still some controversy surrounding them.
Old English
A process of standardization started in the Middle ages, especially under the influence of the Burgundian Ducal Court in Dijon (Brussels after 1477). The dialects of Flanders and Brabant were the most influential around this time. The process of standardization became much stronger in the 16th century, mainly based on the urban dialect of Antwerp. In 1585 Antwerp fell to the Spanish army: many fled to Holland, strongly influencing the urban dialects of that province. In 1618 a further important step was made towards a unified language, when the first major Dutch bible translation was created that people from all over the United Provinces could understand. It used elements from various (even Low Saxon) dialects, but was mostly based on the urban dialects from Holland. The word Dutch comes from the old Germanic word theodisk, meaning 'of the people', 'vernacular' as opposed to official, i.e. Latin or later French. Theodisk in modern German has become deutsch and in Dutch has become the two forms: duits, meaning German, and diets meaning something closer to Dutch but no longer in general use (see the diets article). Theodisk survives as tedesco ("German") in modern Italian. The English word Dutch has also changed with time. It was only in the early 1600s, with growing cultural contacts and the rise of an independent country, that the modern meaning arose, i.e., 'designating the people of the Netherlands or their language'. Prior to this, the meaning was more general and could refer to any German-speaking area or the languages there (including the current Germany, Austria, and Switzerland as well as the Netherlands). For example:
- William Caxton (c.1422-1491) wrote in his Prologue to his Aeneids in 1490 that an old English text was more like to Dutche than English. In his notes, Professor W.F. Bolton makes clear that this word means German in general rather than Dutch.
- Peter Heylyn, Cosmography in four books containing the Chronography and History of the whole world, Vol. II (London, 1677: 154) contains "...the Dutch call Leibnitz," adding that Dutch is spoken in the parts of Hungary adjoining to Germany.
- To this day, descendants of German settlers in Pennsylvania are known as the "Pennsylvania Dutch". Today some speakers resent the name "Dutch", because of its common root with the name "Deutsch", that is, German.

Classification and related languages

Dutch is a Germanic language, and within this family it is a West Germanic language. Since it did not experience the High German consonant shift (apart from þ→d), it is sometimes classed as a Low German language, and indeed it is most closely related to the Low German dialects of Northern Germany. There is in fact a dialect continuum which blurs any clear boundary between Dutch and Low German, and the Low Franconian rural dialects of the Lower Rhine are much closer to Hollandic than to standard German. Dividing the West Germanic languages into low and high in this way, however, obscures the fact that Dutch is more closely related to modern standard (high) German than to English. Dutch is grammatically similar to German, for example in syntax and verb morphology. (For a comparison of verb morphology in English, Dutch and German, see Germanic weak verb and West Germanic strong verb.) Compare, for example: :De kleinste kameleon is slechts 2 cm groot, de grootste kan wel 80 cm worden. (Dutch) :Das kleinste Chamäleon ist nur 2 cm groß, die größten können auch 80 cm erreichen. (German) Some less common phrasings and word choices have closer cognates in German: :Der kleinste Chamäleon ist nur (schlechthin) 2 cm groß, der größte kann gut 80 cm werden. (less common German) (Which translates as "The smallest Chameleons are just 2 cm big, the biggest can well achieve 80 cm.") Further examples for the close vicinity of Dutch and German: :Op de berg staat een klein huisje (Dutch) - Auf dem Berg steht ein kleines Häuschen (German) (in English: There's a small house on the mountain) :In de stad leven veel mensen (Dutch) - In der Stadt leben viele Menschen (German) (in English: A lot of people live in the town) In some places, German and Dutch are spoken almost interchangeably. Dutch speakers are generally able to read German, and German speakers (who can speak English) are generally able to read Dutch, even if they find the spoken language very amusing. Dutch still has grammatical cases, but these have become almost limited to usage in pronouns and set phrases. Technically there is still a distinction between masculine and feminine, but for most practical purposes in the standard language the gender system has collapsed into a dual system of animate (de) and neuter (het). Thus the system of nouns and noun phrases has been greatly simplified in a manner more akin to English than German. Native Dutch vocabulary (as opposed to loan words) is of common West Germanic stock, and in terms of sound shifts it can be imagined as occupying a position somewhere between English and German. Even when written Dutch looks similar to German, however, the pronunciation may be markedly different. This is true especially of the diphthongs and of the letter , which is pronounced as a velar continuant similar to the in Swiss German. The rhotic pronunciation of causes some English-speakers to believe Dutch sounds similar to a Northern English accent; this is the reason for Bill Bryson's famous remark that when one hears Dutch one feels one ought to be able understand it. Dutch pronunciation is however difficult to master for Anglophones, many of its diphthongs and gutturals being the greatest obstacles. Germans seem to have an advantage with the Dutch grammar, but suffer the same difficulties as the English when dealing with pronunciation. An exception on this all are the North Germans, who can read or understand Dutch after a relatively short period of acclimatisation, speaking however remaining a challenge. Dutch is generally not on the curriculum of German schools, except in some border cities, such as Aachen and Oldenburg.

Geographic distribution

Dutch is spoken by most inhabitants of the Netherlands. It is also spoken by most in the Flemish northern half of Belgium, with the exception of Brussels, where it is spoken by a minority of the population, French being the dominant language. (This minority is typically estimated between 10% and 15%.) In the northernmost part of France, Dutch is spoken by a minority and the language is usually referred to as Vlemsch. On the Caribbean islands of Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles, Dutch is used but less so than Papiamento. Dutch is spoken in Suriname, and there are some speakers of Dutch in Indonesia. In South Africa and Namibia a language related to Dutch called Afrikaans is spoken.

Official status

Dutch is an official language of the Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname, Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles. The Dutch, Flemish and Surinamese governments coordinate their language activities in the Nederlandse Taalunie ('Dutch Language Union'). Afrikaans is an official language in South Africa. Of the inhabitants of New Zealand, 0.7% say their home language is Dutch (see article on New Zealand). The number of people coming from the Netherlands though is considerably higher but from the second generation on most people changed their language in favour of English. Standaardnederlands or Algemeen Nederlands ('Common Dutch', abbreviated to AN) is the standard language as taught in schools and used by authorities in the Netherlands, Flanders, Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles. The Dutch Language Union defines what is AN and what is not, for example in terms of orthography. Algemeen Nederlands replaced the older name Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands ('Common Civilized Dutch', abbreviated to ABN) when it was no longer considered politically correct.

Dialects

Flemish is the collective term often used for the Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium. It is not a separate language (though the term is often also used to distinguish the standard Dutch spoken in Flanders from that of the Netherlands) nor are the dialects in Belgium more closely related to each other than to the dialects in The Netherlands. The standard form of Netherlandic Dutch differs somewhat from Belgium Dutch or Flemish: Flemish favours older words and is also perceived as "softer" in pronunciation and discourse than Netherlandic Dutch, and some Dutch find it quaint. In contrast, Netherlandic Dutch is perceived as harsh and guttural to Belgians, and some Belgians perceive it as overly assertive, hostile and even somewhat arrogant. One can draw a parallel with the American and British English differences. Americans and the English use slightly divergent vocabularies, though both officially correct. However, while American is considered by some a poorer derivative of English, Flemish and northern Dutch are historically equal. In Flanders, there are roughly four dialect groups: West Flemish, East Flemish, Brabantian and Limburgish. They have all incorporated French loanwords in everyday language. An example is fourchette in various forms (originally a French word meaning fork), instead of vork. Brussels, especially, is heavily influenced by French because roughly 75% of the inhabitants of Brussels speak French. The Limburgish in Belgium is closely related to Dutch Limburgish. An oddity of West Flemish (and to a lesser extent, East Flemish) is that the pronunciation of the "soft g" sound (the voiced velar fricative) is almost identical to that of the "h" sound (the voiced glottal fricative), thus, the words held (hero) and geld (money) sound nearly the same. Some Flemish dialects are so distinct that they might be considered as separate language variants. West Flemish in particular has sometimes been considered as such. It should also be noted that the dialect borders of these dialects do not correspond to present geopolitical boundaries. They reflect much older medieval divisions. The Brabantian dialect group, for instance, also extends to much of the south of the Netherlands, and so does Limburgish. West-Flemish is also spoken in the Dutch province of Zeeland, in a variant called Zeeuws (or Zealandic, in English) and even in a small part near Dunkirk, France, bordering on Belgium. The Netherlands also has different dialect regions. In the east there is an extensive Low Saxon dialect area: the provinces of Groningen (Gronings), Drenthe and Overijssel are almost exclusively Low Saxon. Zuid-Gelders is a dialect also spoken in the German land of North Rhine-Westphalia. Limburgish (Limburg (Netherlands)) and Brabantian (Noord-Brabant) fade into the dialects spoken in the adjoining provinces of Belgium. Zealandic of most of Zeeland is a transitional regional language between West Flemish and Hollandic, with the exception of the eastern part of Zealandic Flanders where East Flemish is spoken. In Holland proper, Hollandic is spoken, though the original forms of this dialect, heavily influenced by a Frisian substrate, are now relatively rare; the urban dialects of the Randstad, which are Hollandic dialects, do not diverge from standard Dutch very much, but there is a clear difference between the city dialects of Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam or Utrecht. In some rural Hollandic areas more authentic Hollandic dialects are still being used, especially north of Amsterdam. Limburgish and Low Saxon have been elevated by the European Union to the legal status of streektaal (regional language), which causes some native speakers to consider them separate languages. Some dialects are unintelligible to some speakers of Hollandic. Dutch dialects are not spoken as often as they used to be. Nowadays in The Netherlands only older people speak these dialects in the smaller villages, with the exception of the Low Saxon and Limburgish streektalen, which are actively promoted by some provinces and still in common use. Most towns and cities stick to standard Dutch - although many cities have their own city dialect, which continues to prosper. In Belgium dialects are very much alive however; many senior citizens there are unable to speak standard Dutch. In both the Netherlands and Belgium, many larger cities also have several distinct smaller dialects. By many native speakers of Dutch, both in Belgium and the Netherlands, Afrikaans and Frisian are often assumed to be very deviant dialects of Dutch. In fact, they are two different languages, Afrikaans having evolved mainly from Dutch. There is no dialect continuum between the Frisian and adjoining Low Saxon. A Frisian standard language has been developed. Until the early 20th century, variants of Dutch were still spoken by some descendants of Dutch colonies in the United States. New Jersey in particular had an active Dutch community with a highly divergent dialect that was spoken as recently as the 1950s. See Jersey Dutch for more on this dialect.

Accents

In addition to the many dialects of the Dutch language many provinces and larger cities have their own accents, which sometimes are also called dialects. Ethnic communities tend to have varying accents: for example many people from the Dutch Antilles or Suriname speak with a "Surinaams" accent, and the Dutch-Moroccan and Dutch-Turkish youth have also developed their own accents, which in some cases are enhanced by a debased Dutch slang with Arabic or Turkish words thrown in, which serves in making their speech nearly unintelligible to some older speakers of standard Dutch.

Derived languages

Afrikaans, a language spoken in South Africa and Namibia, is derived primarily from 17th century Dutch dialects, and a great deal of mutual intelligibility still exists. One who can speak Dutch is usually very able to read and understand Afrikaans.

Sounds

Vowels

The vowel inventory of Dutch is large, with 14 simple vowels and four diphthongs. The vowels , , are included on the diphthong chart because they are actually produced as narrow closing diphthongs in many dialects, but behave phonologically like the other simple vowels.

Consonants

Where symbols for consonants occur in pairs, the left represents the voiceless consonant and the right represents the voiced consonant. Notes: 1) is not a native phoneme of Dutch and only occurs in borrowed words, like goal. 2) is not a separate phoneme in Dutch, but is inserted before vowel-initial syllables within words after and . 3) In some dialects, the voiced fricatives have almost completely merged with the voiceless ones, and is usually realized as , is usually realized as , and is usually realized as . 4) and are not native phonemes of Dutch, and usually occur in borrowed words, like show and bagage (baggage). However, + phoneme sequences in Dutch are often realized as , like in the word huisje (='little house'). often is realized as . 5) The realization of the phoneme varies considerably from dialect to dialect. In the so-called "standard" Dutch of Amsterdam7, is realized as indicated here—as the voiced uvular fricative . In other dialects, however, it is realized as the uvular trill or as the alveolar trill . 6) The realization of the varies considerably from the Northern to the Southern and Belgium dialects of the Dutch language. In the South, including Belgium, it is realized as . Note that in the South is usually considered an allophone of . 7) The "standard" Dutch is that as spoken in Haarlem, not the Amsterdams dialect. Amsterdams dialect is different from standard Dutch in that is replaced by in nearly all cases. The standard Dutch is more accurately described as the Dutch that is spoken by most people in Amsterdam, and is the dominating accent used on television.

Phonology

Dutch devoices all consonants at the ends of words (e.g. a final d sound becomes a t sound; to become 'ents of worts'), which presents a problem for Dutch speakers when learning English. Because of assimilation, often the initial consonant of the next word is also devoiced, e.g. het vee (the cattle) is . This process of devoicing is taken to an extreme in some regions (Amsterdam, Friesland) with almost complete loss of , and . Further south these phonemes are certainly present in the middle of a word. Compare e.g. logen and loochen vs. . In the South (i.e. Zeeland, Brabant en Limburg) and in Flanders the contrast is even greater because the g becomes a palatal. ('soft g'). The final 'n' of the plural ending -en is normally not pronounced (as in Afrikaans), except in the North East (Low Saxon) and the South West (West Flemish) where the ending becomes a syllabic n sound. Dutch is a stress language, the stress position of words matters. Stress can occur on any syllable position in a word. There is a tendency for stress to be at the beginning of words. In composite words, secondary stress is often present. There are some cases where stress is the only difference between words. For example vóórkomen (occur) and voorkómen (prevent). Marking the stress in written Dutch is optional, never obligatory, but sometimes recommended.

Historical sound changes

Dutch (with the exception of the Limburg dialects) did not participate in the second (High German) sound shifting - compare German machen Dutch maken, English make, German Pfanne , Dutch pan, English pan, German zwei , Dutch twee, English two. It also underwent a few changes of its own. For example, words in -old or -olt lost the l in favor of a diphthong. Compare English old, German alt, Dutch oud. A word like hus with (English "house") first changed to huus with , then finally to huis with a diphthong that resembles the one in French l'oeil. The phoneme /g/ was lost in favor of a (voiced) velar fricative , or a voiced palatal fricative (in the South: Flanders, Limburg).

Grammar

:Main article: Dutch grammar Like all other continental West Germanic languages, Dutch has a word order that is markedly different from English, which presents a problem for some Anglophones learning Dutch. The Dutch written grammar has simplified over the past 100 years: cases are now mainly used for the pronouns, such as ik (I), mij, me (me), mijn (my), wie (who), wiens, wier (whose). Nouns and adjectives are not case inflected (except for the genitive of nouns: -'s or -'). In the spoken language cases and case inflections had already gradually disappeared from a much earlier date on (probably the 15th century) as in many continental West Germanic dialects. Inflection of adjectives is a little more complicated: nothing with indefinite neuter nouns in singular and -e in all other cases: :een mooi huis (a beautiful house) :het mooie huis (the beautiful house) :mooie huizen (beautiful houses) :de mooie huizen (the beautiful houses) :een mooie vrouw (a beautiful woman) More complex inflection is still found in certain lexicalized expressions like de heer des huizes (litt.: the man of the house), etc. These are usually remnants of cases (in this instance, the genitive case which is still used in German, cf. Der Herr des Hauses) and other inflections no longer in general use today. Dutch nouns can take endings for size: -je for singular diminutive and -jes for plural diminutive. Between these suffixes and the radical can come extra letters depending on the ending of the word: :boom (tree) - boompje :ring (ring) - ringetje :koning (king) - koninkje :tien (ten) - tientje Like most Germanic languages, Dutch forms left-branching noun compounds, where the first noun modifies the category given by the second, for example: hondenhok (doghouse). Unlike English, where newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written in open form with separating spaces, Dutch (like the other Germanic languages) always uses the closed form without spaces, for example: boomhuis (eng. tree house). Like English, Dutch allows arbitrarily long compounds, but these are rare. The longest serious entry in the Van Dale dictionary is wapenstilstandsonderhandeling (ceasefire negotiation). Sometimes hottentottensoldatententententoonstellingsterreinen (hottentot soldiers tents exhibition terrains) is jocularly quoted as the longest Dutch word (note the four times consecutive ten), but outside this usage it actually never occurs. One of the clues to recognise that a piece of text is written in Dutch, is the occurrence of many doubled letters. This happens both to vowels and consonants, but is mainly a spelling device to distinguish the many more vowel sounds in the Dutch language, than there are vowel letters in the Latin alphabet. A prime example is the word voorraaddoos (supply box).

Vocabulary

:See the list of Dutch words and list of words of Dutch origin at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project Dutch has more French loanwords than German, but much fewer than English. The number of English loanwords in Dutch is substantial and steadily increasing, especially on the streets and some professions. New loanwords are almost never pronounced as the original English word, or are spelled differently. Like English, Dutch has large numbers words of Greek and Latin origin. There are also some German loanwords, like überhaupt and sowieso. Even though few true loanwords are present, German has had a considerable effect upon the lexicon of the language, mainly by the change of German words into words that seem Dutch (so called germanisme), a process probably to be ascribed to the likeness of the two languages. Most of these forms have become so integral to Dutch that few Dutch notice them; they include words like opname (from German Aufnahme), aanstalten (Anstalten) and many more.

Writing system

Dutch is written using the Latin alphabet, see Dutch alphabet. The diaeresis is used to mark vowels that are pronounced separately, and called trema. In the most recent spelling reform, a hyphen has replaced the trema in a few words where it had been previously used: zeeëend (seaduck) is now spelled zee-eend. The acute accent (accent aigu) occurs mainly on loanwords like café, but can also be used for emphasis or to differentiate between two forms. Its most common use is to differentiate between the indefinite article 'een' (a, an) and the numeral 'één' (one). The grave accent (accent grave) is used to clarify pronunciation ('hè' (what?, what the ...?), 'appèl' (call for), 'bèta') and in loanwords ('caissière' (cashier), 'après-ski'). In the recent spelling reform, the accent grave was dropped as stress sign on short vowels in favour of the accent aigu (e.g. 'wèl' was changed to 'wél'). Other diacritical marks such as the circumflex only occur on a few words, most of them loanwords from French. The most important dictionary of the modern Dutch language is the Van Dale groot woordenboek der Nederlandse taal[http://www.vandale.nl], more commonly referred to as the Dikke van Dale ("dik" is Dutch for "fat" or "thick"), or as linguists nicknamed it: De Vandaal (the vandal). However, it is dwarfed by the "Woordenboek der Nederlandsche taal", a scholarly endeavour that took 147 years from initial idea to first edition, resulting in over 45,000 pages. The semi-official spelling is given by the Woordenlijst Nederlandse taal, more commonly known as "het groene boekje" (i.e. "the green booklet", because of its colour.)

Dutch as a foreign language

The number of non native speakers of Dutch who voluntarily learn the language is small. This is partly because Dutch is not geographically widespread and partly because in its home countries of The Netherlands and Belgium many in the population are proficient in other European languages. In The Netherlands German is widely spoken (particularly in the regions bordering onto Germany) and the language is part of the core curriculum in schools for 2-5 years. In Belgium, German is less widely spoken, and not always required, but it still spoken by a lot of people. The French language is also taught (optionally) for 3-6 years in the Netherlands, but it is not as widely spoken as German. In Belgium (Flanders) French is required from age 10 to 18 and is very widely spoken, not least because the southern half of Belgium, Wallonia, is French speaking. In both The Netherlands and Belgium English is taught in schools from a young age - from age 11 or 12 (or earlier) until the completion of secondary education. Most universities in the two countries, recognising the importance of the English language in the modern world, continue to teach the language to those students who need to improve their skills. As a result English is spoken throughout The Netherlands and Belgium with members of the younger generation often being fluent speakers. Some long term non native residents of The Netherlands or Belgium have never learnt to speak Dutch/Flemish - perhaps put off by its guttural sound or by a perception of its difficulties. There is also the problem that because the native Dutch/Flemish speakers themselves are often so linguistically proficient they will try and help a struggling Dutch/Flemish learner by addressing him in his own language! The Dutch often make fun of their own language - for example Tom Meyer, a radio commentator, used to say on air that "Dutch isn't a language; it's a disease of the throat." Pronunciation can be a challenge as many of the Dutch vowel sounds are difficult for non native speakers. Diphthongs such as the "ui" sound in such words as "huis" (house) and "muis" (mouse), the "eu" in sleutel (key), and the "ij" sound in words like "fijn" (fine) or "wijn" (wine) present difficulties and even though some of these words are superficially like their English equivalents the correct sound is very different. Native speakers of German usually find Dutch easy from a grammar and vocabulary point of view but also struggle with the pronunciation. However those residents or visitors who do learn some Dutch will be rewarded, not only by the extra fillip this gives to their understanding of Dutch history and culture, but also because it will enable them to converse with people in areas away from the big cities where other languages are less commonly spoken.

See also


- Bargoens
- Common phrases in different languages
- Dutch grammar
- Dutch spelling
- Dutchism - Dutch loanwords in English
- Gezellig -- One of the ten non-English words that were voted "words hardest to translate" in June 2004 by a British translation company.
- List of languages

Dutch literature

see Dutch literature

External links


- [http://www.linguasphere.net/secure/ip/pdf/zones/52.pdf Linguasphere on dialects of the Dutch language and other languages]
- [http://www.learnonline.nl Online Nederlands leren]
- [http://www.leren.nl/rubriek/talen/nederlands/learn_dutch/ Learn the Dutch Language]
- [http://www.ned.univie.ac.at/publicaties/taalgeschiedenis/en/ History of the Dutch Language]
- [http://www.taalunie.org/ Nederlandse Taalunie] (Dutch Language Union -- in Dutch)
- [http://www.forbeginners.info/dutch/ Dutch for Beginners] (Introduction to Dutch grammar and vocabulary)
- [http://oase.uci.kun.nl/~ans/ Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst] (General Dutch Grammar -- in Dutch)
- [http://www.dutchgrammar.com/ Online Dutch Grammar Course] (Dutch Grammar -- in English)
- [http://www.sprachprofi.de.vu/english/nl.htm Free online resources for learners]
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=nld Ethnologue report for Dutch]
- [http://www.uoc.es/euromosaic/web/document/neerlandes/an/i1/i1.html Euromosaic - Flemish in France] - The status of Dutch in France
- [http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/dutch.htm Sampa for Dutch]
- [http://language-directory.50webs.com/languages/dutch.htm List of online Dutch-related resources]
- [http://www.ielanguages.com/dutch.html Dutch Language Tutorial at ielanguages.com]
- [http://homepage.mac.com/schuffelen/index.html Dutch pronounced]
- [http://www.loecsen.com/travel/discover_pop.php?lang=en&to_lang=25&learn-Dutch/ Learn and listen to useful expressions in Dutch] Each expression is presented with an audio recording and an illustration

Dictionaries


- [http://nl.wiktionary.org/ WikiWoordenboek, the Dutch Wiktionary]
- [http://www.dicts.info/dictlist1.php?k1=25 All Dutch free dictionaries]
- [http://blackorwhite.nl/woordenboek/ Online Nederlands Woordenboek]
- [http://www.majstro.com/Web/Majstro/taleninfo/dut_en.php Majstro Dutch-English-Dutch Online Dictionary]
- [http://lookwayup.com/free/DutchEnglishDictionary.htm Lookwayup English-Dutch-English dictionary]
- [http://www.freedict.com/onldict/dut.html Freedict English-Dutch-English dictionary]
- [http://dictionaries.travlang.com/DutchEnglish/ Travlang Dutch-English dictionary]
- [http://www.euroglotonline.nl/ Euroglot] (Translation Dictionary)
- [http://www.vandale.nl/ Van Dale] (Dictionary -- in Dutch)
- [http://www.woorden-boek.nl/ Woorden-Boek] (Online Dictionary -- in Dutch)
- http://www.notam02.no/~hcholm/altlang/ht/Dutch.html - The Alternative Dutch Dictionary
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Flemish-english/ Flemish - English Dictionary]: from [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Webster's Online Dictionary] - the Rosetta Edition.
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Dutch-english/ Dutch - English Dictionary]: from [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Webster's Online Dictionary] - the Rosetta Edition.
- [http://www.woc.science.ru.nl/ A dictionary of Organic Chemistry (in Dutch)]
- Category:Languages of Belgium Category:Languages of the Netherlands Category:Low Germanic languages ko:네덜란드어 ja:オランダ語

Franks

:Francia redirects here. For the Bolognese artist, see Francesco Raibolini. The Franks or the Frankish people were one of several west Germanic tribes who entered the late Roman Empire from Frisia as foederati and established a lasting realm (sometimes referred to as Francia) in an area that covers most of modern-day France and the western regions of Germany (Franconia, Rhineland, Hesse), forming the historic kernel of both these two modern countries. The conversion to Christianity of the pagan Frankish king Clovis was a crucial event in the history of Europe. The Frankish realm underwent many partitions and repartitions, since the Franks divided their property among surviving sons, and lacking a broad sense of a res publica, they conceived of the realm as a large extent of private property. This practice explains in part the difficulty of describing precisely the dates and physical boundaries of any of the Frankish kingdoms and who ruled the various sections. The contraction of literacy while the Franks ruled compounds the problem: they produced few written records. In essence however, two dynasties of leaders succeeded each other, first the Merovingians and then the Carolingians. The Merovingian kings claimed descent of their dynasty from the Sicambri, a Scythian or Cimmerian tribe, asserting that this tribe had changed their name to "Franks" in 11 BC, following their defeat and relocation by Drusus, under the leadership of a certain chieftain called Franko. The ethnonym has also been traced to a
- frankon "javelin, lance" (Old English franca, compare the Saxons, named after the seax, and the Lombards, named after the battle-axe; the throwing axe of the Franks is known as the Francisca), but conversely, the weapon may also have been named after the tribe. The meaning of "free" (English frank, frankly) arose because after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks had the status of freemen. Initially two main subdivisions existed within the Franks: the Salian ("salty") and the Ripuarian ("river") Franks. By the 9th century, if not earlier, this division had in practice become virtually non-existent, but continued for some time to have implications for the legal system under which a person could go on trial.

The earliest records of the Franks

9th century, Germany.]] The earliest Frankish history remains relatively unclear. Our main source, the Gallo-Roman chronicler Gregory of Tours, whose Historia Francorum (History of the Franks) covers the period up to 594, quotes from otherwise lost sources like Sulpicius Alexander and Frigeridus and profits from Gregory's personal contact with many Frankish notables. Apart from Gregory's History there exist some earlier Roman sources, such as Ammianus and Sidonius Apollinaris. Gregory states that the Franks originally lived in Pannonia, but later settled on the banks of the Rhine. Additional early sources likewise relate that the Franks migrated in prehistoric times from the mouth of the Danube on the Black Sea, to the Rhine, where they adopted their name (circa. 11 BC) in honour of a hereditary chieftain called Franko – replacing the earlier tribal name Sicambri (or Sugambri) – said to be an offshoot of the Cimmerians or Scythians. This legend of a Scythian or Cimmerian background is thus consistent with the origin legends of nearly all other European nations as well. Modern scholars of the period of the migrations have similarly suggested that the Frankish Confederacy emerged from the unification of various earlier, smaller Germanic groups (including the Sugambri, Usipeti, Tencteri, and Bructeri) who inhabited the Rhine valley and lands immediately to the east – a social development perhaps accelerated by increasing upheaval in the area arising from the war between Rome and the Marcomanni beginning in 166, and subsequent conflicts of the late 2nd century and the 3rd century. A region in the north-east of the modern-day Netherlands – north of the erstwhile Roman border – bears the name Salland, and may have received that name from the Salians – likewise, the island of Sjælland in Denmark. Around 250, one group of Franks, taking advantage of a weakened Roman Empire, penetrated as far as Tarragona in present-day Spain, plaguing this region for about a decade before Roman forces subdued them and expelled them from Roman territory. About forty years later