Yahoo Web Search

Search results

  1. 4 days ago · Czech Republic, landlocked country located in central Europe. It comprises the historical provinces of Bohemia and Moravia along with the southern tip of Silesia, collectively often called the Czech Lands. In 2016 the country adopted the name “Czechia” as a shortened, informal name for the Czech Republic. Czech Republic.

  2. May 17, 2024 · Czechoslovakia, former country in central Europe encompassing the historical lands of Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia. It was formed from several provinces of the collapsing empire of Austria-Hungary in 1918, at the end of World War I. In 1993 it was split into the new countries of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

    • The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. John Michael Wallace-Hadrill Patrick J. Geary. History of Germany, a survey of important events and people in the history of Germany from ancient times to the present. Germanic peoples occupied much of the present-day territory of Germany in ancient times. The Germanic peoples are those who spoke one of the Germanic languages, and they thus.

    • Overview
    • High German (Hochdeutsch)
    • Low German (Plattdeutsch, or Niederdeutsch)
    • Other major dialects

    German language, official language of both Germany and Austria and one of the official languages of Switzerland. German belongs to the West Germanic group of the Indo-European language family, along with English, Frisian, and Dutch (Netherlandic, Flemish).

    The recorded history of Germanic languages begins with their speakers’ first contact with the Romans, in the 1st century bce. At that time and for several centuries thereafter, there was only a single “Germanic” language, with little more than minor dialect differences. Only after about the 6th century ce can one speak of a “German” (i.e., High German) language.

    Britannica Quiz

    Languages & Alphabets

    German is an inflected language with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative), three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), and strong and weak verbs. Altogether, German is the native language of more than 90 million speakers and thus ranks among the languages with the most native speakers worldwide. German is widely studied as a foreign language and is one of the main cultural languages of the Western world.

    As a written language, German is quite uniform; it differs in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland no more than written English does in the United States and the British Commonwealth. As a spoken language, however, German exists in many dialects, most of which belong to either the High German or Low German dialectal groups. The main difference between High and Low German is in the sound system, especially in the consonants. High German, the language of the southern highlands of Germany, is the official written language.

    Old High German, a group of dialects for which there was no standard literary language, was spoken until about 1100 in the highlands of southern Germany. During Middle High German times (after 1100), a standard language based on the Upper German dialects (Alemannic and Bavarian) in the southernmost part of the German speech area began to arise. Middle High German was the language of an extensive literature that includes the early 13th-century epic Nibelungenlied.

    Modern standard High German is descended from the Middle High German dialects and is spoken in the central and southern highlands of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It is used as the language of administration, higher education, literature, and the mass media in the Low German speech area as well. Standard High German is based on, but not identical with, the Middle German dialect used by Martin Luther in his 16th-century translation of the Bible. Within the modern High German speech area, Middle and Upper German dialect groups are differentiated, the latter group including Austro-Bavarian, Alemannic (Swiss German), and High Franconian.

    Special offer for students! Check out our special academic rate and excel this spring semester!

    Learn More

    Low German, with no single modern literary standard, is the spoken language of the lowlands of northern Germany. It developed from Old Saxon and the Middle Low German speech of the citizens of the Hanseatic League. The language supplied the Scandinavian languages with many loanwords, but, with the decline of the league, Low German declined as well.

    Although the numerous Low German dialects are still spoken in the homes of northern Germany and a small amount of literature is written in them, no standard Low German literary or administrative language exists.

    Alemannic dialects, which developed in the southwestern part of the Germanic speech area, differ considerably in sound system and grammar from standard High German. These dialects are spoken in Switzerland, western Austria, Swabia, and Liechtenstein and in the Alsace region of France. Yiddish, the language of the Ashkenazic Jews (Jews whose ancesto...

    • The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
  4. 3 days ago · Germany, country of north-central Europe. Although Germany existed as a loose polity of Germanic-speaking peoples for millennia, a united German nation in roughly its present form dates only to 1871. Modern Germany is a liberal democracy that has become ever more integrated with and central to a united Europe.

  5. Apr 19, 2024 · Wikipedia, free Internet-based encyclopedia, started in 2001, that operates under an open-source management style. It is overseen by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation and is one of the most-visited sites on the Internet.

  6. Apr 23, 2024 · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (born August 28, 1749, Frankfurt am Main [Germany]—died March 22, 1832, Weimar, Saxe-Weimar) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, critic, and amateur artist, considered the greatest German literary figure of the modern era. Goethe is the only German literary figure whose ...

  1. People also search for