1.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
2.
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
3.
Czech language
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Czech, historically also Bohemian, is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group. It is spoken by over 10 million people and is the language of the Czech Republic. Czech is closely related to Slovak, to the point of being intelligible to a very high degree. In the later 18th to mid-19th century, the written standard was codified in the context of the Czech National Revival. The main vernacular, known as Common Czech, is based on the vernacular of Prague, the Moravian dialects spoken in the eastern part of the country are mostly also counted as Czech, although some of their eastern variants are closer to Slovak. The Czech phoneme inventory is moderate in size, comprising five vowels, words may contain uncommon consonant clusters, including one consonant represented by the grapheme ř, or lack vowels altogether. Czech orthography is simple, and has used as a model by phonologists. Czech is classified as a member of the West Slavic sub-branch of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and this branch includes Polish, Kashubian, Upper and Lower Sorbian and Slovak. Slovak is by far the closest genetic neighbor of Czech, the West Slavic languages are spoken in an area classified as part of Central Europe. Around the 7th century, the Slavic expansion reached Central Europe, the West Slavic polity of Great Moravia formed by the 9th century. The Christianization of Bohemia took place during the 9th and 10th centuries, the Bohemian language is first recorded in writing in glosses and short notes during the 12th to 13th centuries. Literary works written in Czech appear in the early 14th century, the first complete Bible translation also dates to this period. Old Czech texts, including poetry and cookbooks, were produced outside the university as well, literary activity becomes widespread in the early 15th century in the context of the Bohemian Reformation. There was no standardization distinguishing between Czech and Slovak prior to the 15th century, the publication of the Kralice Bible between 1579 and 1593 became very important for standardization of the Czech language in the following centuries. In 1615, the Bohemian diet tried to declare Czech to be the official language of the kingdom. After the Bohemian Revolt which was defeated by the Habsburgs in 1620 and this emigration together with other consequences of the Thirty Years War had a negative impact on the further use of the Czech language. In 1627, Czech and German became official languages of the Kingdom of Bohemia and in the 18th century German became dominant in Bohemia and Moravia, the modern standard Czech language originates in standardization efforts of the 18th century. Changes include the shift of í to ej and é to í and the merging of í
4.
States of Germany
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Germany is a federal republic consisting of sixteen federal states. Since todays Germany was formed from a collection of several states, it has a federal constitution. The remaining 13 states are called Flächenländer, the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 was through the unification of the western states created in the aftermath of World War II. West Berlin, while not part of the Federal Republic, was largely integrated and considered as a de facto state. In 1952, following a referendum, Baden, Württemberg-Baden, in 1957, the Saar Protectorate rejoined the Federal Republic as the Saarland. Federalism is one of the constitutional principles of Germany. After 1945, new states were constituted in all four zones of occupation, in 1949, the states in the three western zones formed the Federal Republic of Germany. This is in contrast to the development in Austria, where the Bund was constituted first. The use of the term Länder dates back to the Weimar Constitution of 1919, before this time, the constituent states of the German Empire were called Staaten. Today, it is common to use the term Bundesland. However, this term is not used officially, neither by the constitution of 1919 nor by the Basic Law of 1949, three Länder call themselves Freistaaten, Bavaria, Saxony, and Thuringia. He summarizes the arguments for boundary reform in Germany. The German system of dual federalism requires strong Länder that have the administrative and fiscal capacity to implement legislation, too many Länder also make coordination among them and with the federation more complicated. But several proposals have failed so far, territorial reform remains a topic in German politics. Federalism has a tradition in German history. The Holy Roman Empire comprised many petty states numbering more than 300 around 1796, the number of territories was greatly reduced during the Napoleonic Wars. After the Congress of Vienna,39 states formed the German Confederation, the new German Empire included 25 states and the imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine. The empire was dominated by Prussia, which controlled 65% of the territory, after the territorial losses of the Treaty of Versailles, the remaining states continued as republics of a new German federation
5.
States of the Holy Roman Empire
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The Holy Roman Empire was a complex political entity that existed in central Europe for most of the medieval and early modern periods. In the 18th century, the Holy Roman Empire consisted of approximately 1,800 such territories and this page does not directly contain the list, but it discusses the format of the various lists, and offers some background to understand the complex organisation of the Holy Roman Empire. For a more complete history of the empire, see Holy Roman Empire, while any such list could never be definitive, the list attempts to be as comprehensive as possible. It is sorted alphabetically and split into separate articles linked in the box below, there is also a separate list of Free Imperial Cities, as well as a list of participants in the Imperial Diet as of 1792. The Circle column shows the Imperial Circle that the state belonged to, the Bench column shows where the state was represented in the Imperial Diet. Note that in the Circle column, n/a denotes a state that had ceased to exist before the Reichsreform, Imperial Diet, The Imperial Diet was the parliament of the Holy Roman Empire. The same name was used within the North German Confederation and within Germany until 1945, Imperial Estate, An Imperial State or Imperial Estate was an entity in the Holy Roman Empire with a vote in the Imperial Diet. Several states had no seats in the Empire, while officials were non-voting members. Free cities also had independent representation in the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire, an immediate city, abbey or territory was under the direct authority of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Imperial Diet, without any intermediary Liege lord. Advantages were that immediate regions had the right to taxes and tolls themselves. De facto immediacy corresponded to a semi-independence with a far-reaching autonomy, Imperial Reform, In 1495, an attempt was made at a Diet in the city of Worms to give the disintegrating Holy Roman Empire a new structure, commonly referred to as Imperial Reform. Imperial State, An Imperial State or Imperial Estate was an entity in the Holy Roman Empire with a vote in the Imperial Diet. Mediatization, defined broadly, is the annexation of one monarchy by another monarchy in such a way that the ruler of the state keeps his or her noble title. Prince of the Empire, A Prince of the Empire is any ruling Prince whose territory is a member of the Holy Roman Empire, the designated abbey may be a monastery or a convent. Thus, because of the possibility of it being a convent, in many cases they were prince of the empire of a Reichsabtei in or near Germany, with a seat in the Imperial Diet. If the see is an archbishopric, the term is prince-archbishop. Secularization, Secularization is a process of transformation as a society slowly migrates from close identification with the institutions of religion to a more clearly separated relationship. In this context, often referring to the transfer of Prince-Bishoprics to the control of lay rulers, the following excerpt from François Veldes Unequal and Morganatic Marriages in German Law provides an excellent overview on what an Estate of the Empire is
6.
Holy Roman Empire
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The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Emperor, reviving the title in Western Europe, more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The title was revived in 962 when Otto I was crowned emperor, fashioning himself as the successor of Charlemagne, some historians refer to the coronation of Charlemagne as the origin of the empire, while others prefer the coronation of Otto I as its beginning. Scholars generally concur, however, in relating an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, the office of Holy Roman Emperor was traditionally elective, although frequently controlled by dynasties. Emperor Francis II dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon, before 1157, the realm was merely referred to as the Roman Empire. In a decree following the 1512 Diet of Cologne, the name was changed to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, by the end of the 18th century, the term Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had fallen out of official use. As Roman power in Gaul declined during the 5th century, local Germanic tribes assumed control, by the middle of the 8th century, however, the Merovingians had been reduced to figureheads, and the Carolingians, led by Charles Martel, had become the de facto rulers. In 751, Martel’s son Pepin became King of the Franks, the Carolingians would maintain a close alliance with the Papacy. In 768 Pepin’s son Charlemagne became King of the Franks and began an expansion of the realm. He eventually incorporated the territories of present-day France, Germany, northern Italy, on Christmas Day of 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, restoring the title in the west for the first time in over three centuries. After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, however, the Carolingian Empire broke apart, according to Regino of Prüm, the parts of the realm spewed forth kinglets, and each part elected a kinglet from its own bowels. After the death of Charles the Fat, those crowned emperor by the pope controlled only territories in Italy, the last such emperor was Berengar I of Italy, who died in 924. Around 900, autonomous stem duchies reemerged in East Francia, on his deathbed, Conrad yielded the crown to his main rival, Henry the Fowler of Saxony, who was elected king at the Diet of Fritzlar in 919. Henry reached a truce with the raiding Magyars, and in 933 he won a first victory against them in the Battle of Riade, Henry died in 936, but his descendants, the Liudolfing dynasty, would continue to rule the Eastern kingdom for roughly a century. Upon Henry the Fowlers death, Otto, his son and designated successor, was elected King in Aachen in 936 and he overcame a series of revolts from an elder brother and from several dukes. After that, the managed to control the appointment of dukes. In 951, Otto came to the aid of Adelaide, the queen of Italy, defeating her enemies, marrying her. In 955, Otto won a victory over the Magyars in the Battle of Lechfeld
7.
Gera
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Gera is the third-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, located 55 kilometres south of Leipzig,75 km east of Erfurt and 120 km west of Dresden. Gera was first mentioned in 995 and developed to a city during the 13th century, later, it was the residence of several lines of the Reussians until the end of monarchy in Germany in 1918. Over the 19th century, Gera became a centre of the textile industry, in 1952, the city also became an administrative centre in GDR as one of the capitals of Gera administrative district. Since 1990, Gera is again part of Thuringia, the loss of its administrative functions as well as its industrial core, precipitated the citys slide into a deep economic crisis, which continues to today. Since 1990, many of Geras buildings were restored and big urban planning programmes like the Bundesgartenschau 2007 were implemented to stimulate Geras economy. Sights include some retained buildings of the royal residence epoque and a number of public. The famous painter Otto Dix was born in Gera in 1891, Gera lies in a hilly landscape in the east of Thuringia, within the wide valley of the Weiße Elster river. The place name Gera originally referred to the area of the Elster river valley where the city stands now, the name most likely originated before the European Migration Period – the Slavic people who first settled the area during the 8th century adopted the name. The first known mention of Gera dates from 995. In 999 Emperor Otto III assigned the province of Gera to the Quedlinburg Abbey, in turn, the church assigned the protectorship of this area in 1209 to the Vogts of Weida who served as its administrators. The Vogts of Weida were the ancestors of the Reussians, who ruled Gera until 1918, Gera was first mentioned as a town in 1237, though it is unclear in which year Gera got the municipal law. The small town got circumvallated in the 13th century on an area of 350 x 350 m, a municipal seal was first used in 1350, the council was first named in 1360 and the town hall was mentioned in 1426. The abbess of Quedlinburg remained the sovereign of Gera until 1358. The Vogts couldnt emancipate theirselfs from Wettin rule, in 1450, Gera was almost totally destroyed during the Saxon Fratricidal War, but it could recuperate quick because the starting textile manufacture brought wealth to the town. The Reformation was introduced in Gera in 1533 against the will of the Vogts by the Wettins. After the Schmalkaldic War in 1546, the Wettins lost Gera to the Bohemian Crown, during the 16th century, some cloth-makers from the Spanish Netherlands migrated to Gera as religious refugees at Count Henrys invitation and raised the textile business in Gera. In the 18th century, there was a first peak in this industry, in 1673, the Reussians were raised to Imperial Counts which granted them full sovereignty within the Holy Roman Empire, Gera became their royal residence. In 1686 and 1780, big fires destroyed most buildings in Gera
8.
Plauen
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Plauen is a town in the Free State of Saxony, east-central Germany. It is the town of the district Vogtlandkreis. The town is situated near the border of Bavaria and the Czech Republic, Plauen was founded by Polabian Slavs in the 12th century as Plawe and was passed to the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1327. The town was captured by the Archbishop of Magdeburg, Lippold von Bredow, in 1466, it was passed to Albertine Saxony and later in 1569 to the Electorate of Saxony. Plauen became incorporated into the Kingdom of Saxony in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars, in the late-19th century, Plauen became a centre of textile manufacturing, specializing in Chemical lace, called Plauen lace. Around 1910, Plauen, as a boomtown of the region. In the 1930s, Plauen hosted the first chapter of the Nazi Party outside of Bavaria, plauens population, however, has shrunk dramatically since the Second World War. It was occupied by American troops on 16 April 1945 but was left to Red Army on 1 July 1945, from 1945 onwards, Plauen fell into the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, which later became the German Democratic Republic. Plauen hosted a large Red Army occupation garrison and, in the last years of the GDR, the exposé Fast Food Nation gives special mention to Plauen as the first town of the GDR to have a McDonalds restaurant following the collapse of the Berlin Wall. In the district reform of 1 July 2008, Plauen lost its district status and was merged into the district Vogtlandkreis. Plauen Oberer station lies on the Leipzig–Hof line, the section of this line through Plauen is part of the Saxon-Franconian trunk line running between Nürnberg, Hof, Plauen, Zwickau, Chemnitz and Dresden. The town had another station, Plauen Unterer station, on the Elster Valley Railway, there is a plan to rename the Oberer station into Plauen Hauptbahnhof. Vogtlandbahn, a train company, operates services from Plauen to Hof, Werdau, Chemnitz, Zwickau, Falkenstein and Adorf within Germany. At these stations, there are other Vogtlandbahn services to München, Regensburg, Marktredwitz, Dresden and Leipzig within Germany and Karlovy Vary, a Vogtlandbahn Express Bus service runs between Plauen and Berlin Schönefeld Airport and Zoological Garden. The Plauen Straßenbahn is a tramway that has 6 lines connecting the centre of town, Plauen-Tunnel stop, to the surrounding areas, embroidery Machine Museum Museum Plauener Spitze Galerie e. O. O
"Vogtland". Encyclopædia Britannica. 28 (11th ed.). 1911.
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