1.
Rhine
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The largest city on the river Rhine is Cologne, Germany, with a population of more than 1,050,000 people. It is the second-longest river in Central and Western Europe, at about 1,230 km, with an average discharge of about 2,900 m3/s. The Rhine and the Danube formed most of the inland frontier of the Roman Empire and, since those days. The many castles and fortifications along the Rhine testify to its importance as a waterway in the Holy Roman Empire, in the modern era, it has become a symbol of German nationalism. The variant of the name of the Rhine in modern languages are all derived from the Gaulish name Rēnos, spanish is with French in adopting the Germanic vocalism Rin-, while Italian, Occitan and Portuguese retain the Latin Ren-. The Gaulish name Rēnos belongs to a class of river names built from the PIE root *rei- to move, flow, run, the grammatical gender of the Celtic name is masculine, and the name remains masculine in German, Dutch and French. The Old English river name was variously inflected as masculine or feminine, the length of the Rhine is conventionally measured in Rhine-kilometers, a scale introduced in 1939 which runs from the Old Rhine Bridge at Constance to Hoek van Holland. The river length is shortened from the rivers natural course due to a number of canalisation projects completed in the 19th and 20th century. The total length of the Rhine, to the inclusion of Lake Constance and its course is conventionally divided as follows, The Rhine carries its name without distinctive accessories only from the confluence of the Vorderrhein and Hinterrhein near Tamins-Reichenau. Above this point is the catchment of the headwaters of the Rhine. It belongs almost exclusively to the Swiss Canton of Graubünden, ranging from Gotthard Massif in the west via one valley lying in Ticino, traditionally, Lake Toma near the Oberalp Pass in the Gotthard region is seen as the source of the Vorderrhein and the Rhine as a whole. The Hinterrhein rises in the Rheinwald valley below Mount Rheinwaldhorn, the Vorderrhein, or Anterior Rhine, springs from Lai da Tuma, near the Oberalp Pass and passes the impressive Ruinaulta formed by the largest visible rock slide in the alps, the Flims Rockslide. A multiday trekking route is signposted along the young Rhine called Senda Sursilvana, the Hinterrhein/Rein Posteriur, or Posterior Rhine, starts from the Paradies Glacier, near the Rheinwaldhorn. One of its tributaries, the Reno di Lei, drains the Valle di Lei on politically Italian territory, after three main valleys separated by the two gorges, Roflaschlucht and Viamala, it reaches Reichenau. The Vorderrhein arises from numerous source streams in the upper Surselva, one source is Lai da Tuma with the Rein da Tuma, which is usually indicated as source of the Rhine, flowing through it. Into it flow tributaries from the south, some longer, some equal in length, such as the Reno di Medel, the Rein da Maighels, and the Rein da Curnera. The Cadlimo Valley in the Canton of Ticino is drained by the Reno di Medel, all streams in the source area are partially, sometimes completely, captured and sent to storage reservoirs for the local hydro-electric power plants. In its lower course the Vorderrhein flows through a gorge named Ruinaulta through the Flims Rockslide, the whole stretch of the Vorderrhein to the Rhine confluence near Reichenau-Tamins is accompanied by a long-distance hiking trail called Senda Sursilvana
2.
St. Goar
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Sankt Goar is a town on the west bank of the Middle Rhine in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Sankt Goar-Oberwesel, whose seat is in the town of Oberwesel, Sankt Goar is well known for its central location in the Rhine Gorge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since July 2002. The famous Lorelei rock is close-by, slightly upstream on the opposite bank, Sankt Goar lies in the Rhine Gorge and the narrow canal on the Rhine that flows through the Rhein Massive. This part of the gorge on the left bank borders on the edge of the Rhein - Hunsrück, the characteristic narrow-valley form came into use through downcutting in a massive that was undergoing an uplift. The nearest major Towns are the city of Koblenz, some 24 km to the north, Sankt Goar is linked by the Loreley Ferry with its sister town of Sankt Goarshausen directly across the Rhine. The Rhine’s width here is roughly 250 m, in Sankt Goar and the Gründelbach, Rainwater flows from the Hunsrück and empties into the Rhine. The town is made up of parts that belong to St. The area around what is now the town of Sankt Goar was already settled in Roman times, the name in the Early Middle Ages was Wochara, after a short brook emptying into the Rhine here. The name by which the town today is from Goar of Aquitaine. Goar came as a clergyman from Aquitaine in the southwest of France. With leave from the Bishop of Trier, he worked as a missionary to the local people and he was well known for his great hospitality, particularly towards the Rhine boatmen. Later, he built on the site where the now stands a hospice. After his death, about 575, Goar’s grave became a pilgrimage site, Frankish King Pepin the Younger transferred the hospice and chapel in 765 to the Abbot of the Benedictine Prüm Abbey as a personal benefice. From this grew the Sankt Goar Canonical Foundation, witnessed as early as the late 11th century. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that “a small church” was dedicated to Goar of Aquitaine in 1768 “in the little town on the banks of the Rhine which bears his name. ”It is also reported that Charlemagne built a church over the site of Goar’s hermitage. It is around this church that the town of Sankt Goar grew on the bank of the Rhine between Wesel and Boppard. Beginning in 1190, the town was under protection and the jurisdiction of the Counts of Katzenelnbogen, the monastery Vögte. In 1245, Count Diether V of Katzenelnbogen built the castle, when the last of the Counts of Katzenelnbogen died in 1479, Sankt Goar passed to the Landgraviate of Hesse
3.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, 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-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
4.
Slate
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Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock, foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering, but instead is in planes perpendicular to the direction of metamorphic compression. The foliation in slate is called slaty cleavage and it is caused by strong compression causing fine grained clay flakes to regrow in planes perpendicular to the compression. Slate is frequently grey in color, especially when seen, en masse, Slate is not to be confused with shale, from which it may be formed, or schist. The word slate is used for certain types of object made from slate rock. It may mean a single roofing tile made of slate, or a writing slate and this was traditionally a small smooth piece of the rock, often framed in wood, used with chalk as a notepad or noticeboard, and especially for recording charges in pubs and inns. The phrases clean slate and blank slate come from this usage, before the mid-19th century, the terms slate, shale and schist were not sharply distinguished. In the context of underground mining in the United States. For example, roof slate referred to shale above a coal seam, occasionally, as in the purple slates of North Wales, ferrous reduction spheres form around iron nuclei, leaving a light green spotted texture. These spheres are sometimes deformed by a subsequent applied stress field to ovoids, Slate can be made into roofing slates, a type of roof shingle, or more specifically a type of roof tile, which are installed by a slater. Slate has two lines of breakability – cleavage and grain – which make it possible to split the stone into thin sheets, when broken, slate retains a natural appearance while remaining relatively flat and easy to stack. Slate is particularly suitable as a material as it has an extremely low water absorption index of less than 0. 4%. In fact, this natural slate, which requires only minimal processing, has the lowest embodied energy of all roofing materials, natural slate is used by building professionals as a result of its beauty and durability. Slate is incredibly durable and can last several hundred years, often little or no maintenance. Its low water makes it very resistant to frost damage and breakage due to freezing. Natural slate is also fire resistant and energy efficient, Slate roof tiles are usually fixed either with nails, or with hooks as is common with Spanish slate. In the UK, fixing is typically with double nails onto timber battens or nailed directly onto timber sarking boards, nails were traditionally of copper, although there are modern alloy and stainless steel alternatives. Both these methods, if used properly, provide a long-lasting weathertight roof with a lifespan of around 80–100 years, Slate roofs are still used today
5.
Rhine Gorge
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The Rhine Gorge is a popular name for the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, a 65 km section of the River Rhine between Koblenz and Bingen in Germany. It was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in June 2002 for a combination of geological, historical, cultural and industrial reasons. The regions rocks were laid down in the Devonian period and are known as Rhenish Facies and this is a fossil-bearing sedimentary rock type consisting mainly of slate. The rocks underwent considerable folding during the Carboniferous period, the gorge was carved out during a much more recent uplift to leave the river contained within steep walls 200 m high, the most famous feature being the Loreley. The gorge produces its own microclimate and has acted as a corridor for species not otherwise found in the region and its slopes have long been terraced for agriculture, in particular viticulture which has good conditions on south-facing slopes. Most of the vineyards belong to the wine region Mittelrhein, but the southernmost parts of the Rhine Gorge fall in Rheingau, the river has been an important trade route into central Europe since prehistoric times and a string of small settlements has grown up along the banks. Constrained in size, many of old towns retain a historic feel today. With increasing wealth, many castles appeared and the became a core region of the Holy Roman Empire. It was at the centre of the Thirty Years War, which many of the castles in ruins. At one time forming a border of France, in the 19th Century the valley part of Prussia. This part of the Rhine features strongly in folklore, such as a castle on the Rhine being the setting for the opera Götterdämmerung. The annual Rhine in Flames festivals include spectacular firework displays at Sankt Goar in September and Koblenz in August, Koblenz Lahnstein Rhens Braubach Boppard St
6.
Middle Rhine
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This gorge is quite deep, about 130 metres from the top of the rocks down to the average water-line. The Middle Rhine is one of four sections of the river between Lake Constance and the North Sea, the upper half of the Middle Rhine from Bingen to Koblenz is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with more than 40 castles and fortresses from the Middle Ages and many wine-villages. The lower half from Koblenz to Bonn is famous for the formerly volcanic Siebengebirge with the Drachenfels volcano, both parts together are known as the romantic Rhine. The Middle Rhine Valley has been a major tourist attraction since the 19th century and it is also home to some 450,000 people. The valley owes its appearance to both its natural shape and human alterations. For two millennia, it has one of the most important routes for cultural exchange between the Mediterranean region and northern Europe. Situated in the heart of Europe, it was sometimes a border, the history of the valley reflects the history of Western Europe. It inspired Heinrich Heine to write his famous poem Lorelei and Richard Wagner to write his opera Götterdämmerung, the vineyards along the Middle Rhine form the wine-growing region of the same name, see Mittelrhein. Between Rüdesheim and Lorch, the bank belongs to the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Downstream of Lorch, both belong to Rhineland-Palatinate until the river crosses the border with North Rhine-Westphalia shortly before Bonn. The Middle Rhine basin at Neuwied separates the upper and lower halves of the Middle Rhine, on the Namedyer Werth peninsula, is the Andernach Geyser, which at 50 to 60 metres is the highest cold-water geyser in the world. On 7 July 2006, the geyser was reactivated for tourists, there are major railway lines on both sides of the river, the Linke Rheinstrecke on the left and the Rechte Rheinstrecke on the right. Major roads are the federal roads B9 and B42 and, of course, larger tributaries on the left include Nahe, Moselle and Ahr, on the right Lahn, Wied and Sieg. The Stolzenfels Castle is a synonym for the Rhine romanticism like no other and it did not just encourage the acceptance of the existing castles, it also encouraged their restoration and the building of even more castles. The Electoral Palace in Koblenz was the last residence of the Electors of Trier and it was demolished by the French revolutionary army. The most powerful fortress in Rhineland-Palatinate, the Fortress Koblenz, was built in the 19th century by the Prussians, the Festung Ehrenbreitstein, once part of the fortification system, dominates the Rhine Valley to this day. The following castles are found along the Middle Rhine, in downstream order, evidence of this are the barrow fields around the city forest of Boppard and in the forest of Brey and the ring walls on the Dommelberg in Koblenz and on the giant hill at St. Goarshausen. On the western border of the Middle Rhine region, there are traces of a Celtic settlement, with the grave pillars of Pfalzfeld
7.
Sankt Goarshausen
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It is located within the Nassau Nature Park and the Rhine Gorge UNESCO world heritage site, and was historically part of the Duchy of Nassau. It lies approximately 30 km south of Koblenz, and it is above all famous for the Lorelei rock nearby, Sankt Goarshausen is the seat of the Loreley collective municipality. The towns economy is based on making and tourism. The Sankt Goarshausen railway station connects the town with Wiesbaden, Frankfurt, Sankt Goarshausen was formerly the terminus of the Nassau Light Railway line between Sankt Goarshausen and Nastätten. In 1885, St. Goarshausen had almost 1,456 inhabitants, close to the town in the hillside just above it, lie the ruins of 14th century Castle Katz, ruined since 1806. Around 50% of the population are Protestants, while around 30% are Catholics, Sankt Goarshausen had a small Jewish community from the 17th century to the 1930s, peaking at 2, 4% in 1895. The town has 1,585 inhabitants as of December 31,2002, with the villages Ehrental, Wellmich and Heide, the number of inhabitants is over 2,000. The most important economic areas for St. Goarshausen are tourism, in earlier times was the town an important place along the Rhein for fishing and as an embarcation area. Today, the very busy town is losing its importance. Especially problematic for St. Goarshausen is the distance to the larger city Nastätten. In tourism, the biggest competitor is the twin city St. Goar on the shore of the Rhine. St. Goar is only reachable by ferry, as the closest bridge is 30 km away, while there is an established need for a bridge across the Rhine, plans for connecting the towns have not yet been realised. To help tourism, a centre has been established in connection to the Lorelei rock. The most famous point in town, that brings the most tourists is the site of the Lorelei rock. In St. Goarshausen there are two castles, Burg Katz and Burg Maus, Burg Katz is not open for visitors. There is a view over the town from Burg Maus. The third weekend of September, Rhein in Flammen, large fireworks from Burg Katz in St. Goarshausen, Burg Rheinfels in St. Goar, about Verbandsgemeinde Loreley, with map St. Goarshausen Loreley City
8.
Rhineland
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The Rhineland is the name used for a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine River, chiefly its middle section. In the High Middle Ages, numerous Imperial States along the river emerged from the stem duchy of Lotharingia. The term covered the whole occupied zone west of the Rhine including the bridge-heads on the eastern banks, after the collapse of the French dominated West Bank in the early 19th century, the regions of Lower Rhine and Jülich-Cleves-Berg were annexed to the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1822 the Prussian administration reorganized the territory as the Rhine Province, following the First World War, the western part of Rhineland was occupied by Entente forces, then demilitarized under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. German forces remilitarized the territory in 1936, as part of a diplomatic test of will, stretching down to the North Palatine Uplands in the south, this area, except for the Saarland, more or less corresponds with the modern use of the term. The southern and eastern parts are mainly hill country, cut by valleys, principally the Middle Rhine up to Bingen and its Ahr, Moselle. The border of the North German plain is marked by the lower Ruhr, in the south, the river cuts the Rhenish Massif. The area encompasses the western part of the Ruhr industrial region, toponyms as well as local family names often trace back to the Frankish heritage. The lands on the shore of the Rhine are strongly characterised by Roman influence. In the core territories, large parts of the population are members of the Catholic Church. On the right bank of the Rhine, between the Main and the Lahn, were the settlements of the Mattiaci, a branch of the Germanic Chatti, while farther to the north were the Usipetes and Tencteri. Julius Caesar conquered the tribes on the left bank, and Augustus established numerous fortified posts on the Rhine. The Frankish conquerors of the Rhenish districts were singularly little affected by the culture of the Roman provincials they subdued, by the 8th century the Frankish dominion was firmly established in western Germania and northern Gaul. On the division of the Carolingian Empire at the Treaty of Verdun the part the province to the east of the fell to East Francia. As the central power of the Holy Roman Emperor weakened, the Rhineland split up into small independent principalities, each with its separate vicissitudes. After the Imperial Reform of 1500/12, the territory was part of the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian, Upper Rhenish, aachen was the place of coronation of the German emperors, and the ecclesiastical principalities of the Rhine played a large role in German history. At the Peace of Basel in 1795, the whole of the bank of the Rhine was taken by France. The population was about 1.6 million in small states
9.
Celtic languages
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The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, a branch of the greater Indo-European language family. Modern Celtic languages are spoken on the north-western edge of Europe, notably in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall. There are also a number of Welsh speakers in the Patagonia area of Argentina. Some people speak Celtic languages in the other Celtic diaspora areas of the United States, Canada, Australia, in all these areas, the Celtic languages are now only spoken by minorities though there are continuing efforts at revitalisation. Welsh is the only Celtic language not classified as endangered by UNESCO, the spread to Cape Breton and Patagonia occurred in modern times. SIL Ethnologue lists six living Celtic languages, of four have retained a substantial number of native speakers. These are the Goidelic languages and the Brittonic languages, the other two, Cornish and Manx, died in modern times with their presumed last native speakers in 1777 and 1974 respectively. For both these languages, however, revitalisation movements have led to the adoption of these languages by adults and children, taken together, there were roughly one million native speakers of Celtic languages as of the 2000s. In 2010, there were more than 1.4 million speakers of Celtic languages, shelta, based largely on Irish with influence from an undocumented source. Some forms of Welsh-Romani or Kååle also combined Romany itself with Welsh language, beurla-reagaird, Highland travellers language Celtic divided into various branches, Lepontic, the oldest attested Celtic language. Anciently spoken in Switzerland and in Northern-Central Italy, from the Alps to Umbria, coins with Lepontic inscriptions have been found in Noricum and Gallia Narbonensis. Celtiberian, anciently spoken in the Iberian peninsula, in parts of modern Galicia, Asturias, La Rioja, Aragón, Cantabria, Old Castile, the relationship of Celtiberian with Gallaecian, in the northwest of the peninsula, is uncertain. Gallaecian, anciently spoken in the former Gallaecia, northwest of the peninsula, Gaulish languages, including Galatian and possibly Noric. These languages were spoken in a wide arc from Belgium to Turkey. Brittonic, including the living languages Breton, Cornish, and Welsh, before the arrival of Scotti on the Isle of Man in the 9th century, there may have been a Brittonic language in the Isle of Man. Goidelic, including the living languages Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic, scholarly handling of the Celtic languages has been rather argumentative owing to scarceness of primary source data. Other scholars distinguish between P-Celtic and Q-Celtic, putting most of the Gaulish and Brittonic languages in the former group, the P-Celtic languages are sometimes seen as a central innovating area as opposed to the more conservative peripheral Q-Celtic languages. In the P/Q classification schema, the first language to split off from Proto-Celtic was Gaelic and it has characteristics that some scholars see as archaic, but others see as also being in the Brittonic languages
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lorelei". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
