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120-452: The Berlin tramway ( German : Straßenbahn Berlin ) is the main tram system in Berlin , Germany . It is one of the oldest tram networks in the world having its origins in 1865 and is operated by Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), which was founded in 1929. It is notable for being the third-largest tram system in the world, after Melbourne and St. Petersburg . Berlin's tram system

240-460: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it

360-402: A second language , and 75–100   million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220   million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90   million people, or 16% of

480-587: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become

600-556: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from

720-532: A hub for regional rail and commuter rail and is surrounded by a large commercial area. Lichterfelde Süd was developed in the 1960s and 1970s and is large made up of suburban housing estates, being a significant architectural deviation from the older mansion settlements. The Otto Lilienthal Memorial Park with the artificial conical hill, from which he started many of his flight attempts, is located in Lichterfelde Süd. The following personalities were buried in

840-536: A line number. Most of the current network is within the confines of the former East Berlin , as tram lines within West Berlin were replaced by buses during the division of Berlin. However, the first extension into West Berlin opened in 1994 on today's M13. In the eastern vicinity of the city there are also three private tram lines that are not part of the main system; the Potsdam tram system , with its own network of lines,

960-601: A line pair to the existing line. The surrounding businesses were not affected by the change in May 1902 and set on their own markings. The lines of the urban trams and the meterspurigen lines of the Teltower circular orbits were still marked with signal panels, on the other hand, the BESTAG and in Heiligensee, not the lines, but only the targets were marked with different colored signs. In 1908,

1080-507: A long walk to get to the restored train station. Since then, trams have terminated along the reversing loop "Am Kupfergraben" near Humboldt University and Museum Island. The following year saw the re-opening of tram facilities at Alexanderplatz. These routes now arrive directly from the intersection with Otto-Braun-Straße across the square, stopping both at the U2 underground station and the overground station for regional and commuter trains, where there

1200-453: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained

1320-679: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In

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1440-475: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it

1560-650: A second line was opened in the western part of the city, and the M10 line was extended beyond its former terminus Eberswalderstraße  [ de ] along Bernauer Straße in Gesundbrunnen to Berlin Nordbahnhof in the district of Mitte , before being further extended to Berlin Hauptbahnhof in 2015. In May 2007, a new line from Prenzlauer Tor  [ de ] along Karl-Liebknecht-Straße towards Alexanderplatz

1680-809: A subcamp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . There were seven known escape attempts, five successful. From 1945 to 1994 the Hauptkadettenanstalt was in use as "Andrews Barracks" by the United States Army 's Berlin Brigade . Today it belongs to the German Federal Archives , headquartered in Koblenz . Two other kasernes "Roosevelt Barracks" in Gardeschützen-Kaserne (former seat of

1800-520: A terminus which is still in service today. Like the horse-bus, many companies took advantage of the new development and built horse-tram networks in all parts of today's urban area. In 1873, a route from Rosenthaler Platz to the Gesundbrunnen was opened, to be operated by the new Große Berliner Pferde-Eisenbahn (Great Berlin Horse Railway) which would later become the dominant company in Berlin under

1920-688: Is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and

2040-626: Is a direct interchange to the U5 and U8 lines. An increase in tram accidents in pedestrian zones was feared by critics but did not materialize. In 2000, the tram tracks were extended from the previous terminus at Revalerstraße, past the Warschauer Straße S-Bahn station to the U-Bahn station of the same name. Since there is no room for a return loop, a blunt ending track was built. In order to accomplish this, bi-directional vehicles were procured. However,

2160-580: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as

2280-596: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German

2400-546: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic

2520-472: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German

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2640-599: Is centered around the Lichterfelde West railway station , which also serves nearby Free University of Berlin in neighboring Dahlem . Most of the commercial and residential buildings in Lichterfelde West are protected landmarks. Lichterfelde Ost, like Lichterfelde West, was also developed as a settlement of mansions, yet many of the estates were damaged in World War II. The Lichterfelde Ost railway station serves as

2760-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25   million speak it as

2880-520: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in

3000-595: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as

3120-528: Is just to the south-west of Berlin. In 1865, a horse tramway was established in Berlin. In 1881, the world's first electric tram line was opened in the city. Numerous private and municipal operating companies constructed new routes, so by the end of the 19th century the network had developed quite rapidly, and the horse trams had been replaced by electric ones. By 1930, the network had a route length of over 630 km (391 mi) with more than 90 lines. In 1929, all operating companies were unified into

3240-559: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are

3360-421: Is made up of 22 lines that operate across a standard gauge network, with almost 800 stops and measuring almost 190 kilometres (120 mi) in route length and 430 kilometres (270 mi) in line length . Nine of the lines, called Metrotram, operate 24 hours a day and are identified with the letter "M" before their number; the other thirteen lines are regular city tram lines and are identified by just

3480-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and

3600-587: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as

3720-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German

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3840-510: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c.  1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period

3960-649: Is the oldest one in Germany . In 1825, the first bus line from Brandenburger Tor to Charlottenburg was opened by Simon Kremser , already with a timetable. The first bus service inside the city operated from 1840 between Alexanderplatz and Potsdamer Bahnhof . It was run by Israel Moses Henoch , who had run the cab service since 1815. On 1 January 1847, the Koncessionierte Berliner Omnibus Compagnie (Concessionary Berlin Bus Company) started its first horse-bus line. The growing market witnessed

4080-566: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish

4200-407: Is the subsequently established line 37, which, together with lines M17 and 27, travels a common route. Of the lines numbered 50–59 the only one remaining was the 50; the lines numbered 60–69 remained largely unaffected by the measures. The then-new lines operated as follows: Termini in italics above have been subject to change, further information about the current termini is given below. In 2006,

4320-481: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers

4440-673: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to

4560-639: The Allgemeine Berliner Omnibus-Actien-Gesellschaft (ABOAG) (General Berlin Bus Corporation). The following table includes all companies that operated tramways in today's Berlin before the formation of the BVG. The background color of each line marks the drive method which the respective company used to serve their lines at the time of the formation (blue = horse tram, yellow = steam tram, white = electric tram, red = benzole tram). On

4680-627: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as

4800-728: The BVG ;West in the three western sections (with 36 tram lines) and the BVG Ost (Berlin Public Transit Authority East) (with 13 lines) in the Soviet sector. The latter became in 1969 the VEB Kombinat Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVB). On 14 October 1950, traffic on the lines from West Berlin to the Brandenburgian suburbs Kleinmachnow and Schönefeld ceased; on 15 January 1953, traffic over

4920-582: The Campus Benjamin Franklin , built in 1968 and today part of the Charité university hospital . Lichterfelde West was developed as a settlement of mansions and is one of the wealthiest residential areas of Berlin. It is home to the Berlin Botanical Garden and embassies. The Teltow Canal geographically separates it from the eastern parts of Lichterfelde. Its 19th-century commercial area

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5040-522: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share

5160-417: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language

5280-514: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout

5400-722: The Gross-Lichterfelde tramway , opened between the Lichterfelde-Ost railway station and the Hauptkadettenanstalt in 1881. In 1920 Lichterfelde became part of Greater Berlin . Between 1920 and 1933, the former military academy in Lichterfelde was used by the Berlin Police . From 1933 to 1945, the grounds of the military academy were the home of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler . During this same period,

5520-526: The Groß-Berliner Damm  [ de ] . There are also some minor closures: At the timetable change on 14 December 2014, a new tram line was opened from Naturkundemuseum to Hauptbahnhof via Invalidenstraße, with the final stop at Lüneburger Straße in the district of Alt-Moabit. The double-track line is 2.3 kilometers long to the main station, and new stops have been built on the Chausseestraße,

5640-724: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in

5760-644: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c.  765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in

5880-427: The Prussian Army 's Guards Rifles Battalion ) and " McNair Barracks ", a former Telefunken manufacturing plant on Goerzallee were nearby. While Lichterfelde-Ost was in parts badly damaged during World War II , Lichterfelde West is still largely intact and today one of the prime residential areas of Berlin. The Lichterfelde locality also houses the Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum and

6000-427: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung

6120-461: The Spree , upon completion of the Spreetunnel between Stralau and Treptow . Owing to structural problems, it was closed on 25 February 1932. From 1916 to 1951, the tram had a second tunnel, the Lindentunnel , passing under the well-known boulevard Unter den Linden . The history of tram companies of the Berlin Strassenbahn is very complicated. Besides the private companies, which often changed because of takeovers , mergers , and bankruptcies ,

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6240-422: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit.   ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this

6360-400: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and   Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German

6480-408: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from

6600-428: The 1880s, most major German cities therefore used colored target signs or signal boards, sometimes both together. In Berlin, these were always kept in the same combination. As identification colors red, yellow, green and white were used, from 1898 additionally blue. The panels were one or two colors, the latter either half / half divided or in thirds with a line in the second color. However, the number of signal panels used

6720-468: The 1970s. The city center lines of the tram should receive the line numbers 1 to 30, in Köpenick should retain their 80s numbers. The remaining numbers were intended for the bus. Night lines received from 1973 uniformly 100 numbers, for the tram were initially provided only the numbers from 120. The conversion of the daily lines was only partially completed. German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] )

6840-413: The BVG. After World War II , BVG was divided into an eastern and a western company but was once again reunited in 1992, after the fall of East Germany . In West Berlin by 1967 the last tram lines had been shut down. With the exception of two lines constructed after German reunification , the Berlin tram continues to be limited to the eastern portion of Berlin. The public transport system of Berlin

6960-452: The Berlin tram network began to decline; after partial closing of the world's first electric tram in 1930, on 31 October 1934, Germany's oldest tram line followed. The Straße des 17. Juni , formerly the Charlottenburger Chaussee, was rebuilt by Nazi planners following a monumental east–west-Axis, and the tramway had to leave. In 1938, however, there were still 71 tram lines, 2,800 tram cars and about 12,500 employees. Consequently,

7080-405: The City Hall in Charlottenburg , Jungfernheide S-Bahn station , Siemensdamm, Nonnendammallee, Falkenseer Platz, and Neuendorfer Allee to Spandau, Hakenfelde . Today, many MetroBus lines follow the routes of former tram lines. The division of the city resulted in many problems and difficulties for the public transportation system. Tram lines could no longer operate through the city center, and

7200-614: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In

7320-414: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of

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7440-417: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of

7560-399: The German states; the invention of the printing press c.  1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of

7680-623: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by

7800-440: The Invalidenpark and the Hauptbahnhof. This is followed by the 1.1 km single track block bypass that has three stops at Lesser-Ury-Weg, Lueneburger Straße and Clara Jaschke -Straße, as well as the installation area. The planned opening date has already been postponed several times. Originally planned to complete in 2002. However, the plan was caught by the Administrative Court in 2004 and revised to either 2006 and 2007. However,

7920-547: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are

8040-644: The Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ), the Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German

8160-406: The M5 from line 5, and so on. In addition, the two Pankow lines 52 and 53 were included as line M1 in the scheme. The supplementary lines of these radials continue to be numbered from 10 to 19, unless they augment the respective metro service. Metro services of the ring and tangential net received a number in the range 10–19; the supplementary lines retained a number in the range of 20–29. An exception

8280-408: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c.  thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c.  1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy

8400-468: The March 1903. They bore the letter E behind the line number of their main line. In later years, these lines increasingly took over the tasks of booster drives and were therefore shown in the timetables as separate lines. On 15 April 1912, the GBS introduced the first line with three-digit number. The 164 was created by extending the 64, which was maintained in parallel. In the following months more lines were provided with 100 numbers or newly set up, usually as

8520-399: The SBV Roman numbers as line numbers. The other companies, including the standard-gauge lines of the Teltower Kreisbahnen, did not use a line marking. With the merger of companies for the Berlin tram, the GBS's numbering scheme was extended to cover the rest of the network. Usually, those numbers are assigned, whose lines were continued during the World War I . For example, it came about that

8640-541: The Spandauer Straßenbahn introduced the line identification with letters, which corresponded to the initial letter of the destination (line P to Pichelsdorf, etc.), in 1917 the company switched to numbers. In Cöpenick, the lines were marked from 1906 with numbers, from 1910 additionally with colored signal panels for the individual routes (red lines to Friedrichshagen, etc.). The Berlin Ostbahnen used from 1913 also like

8760-778: The West Berlin suburban railway were assigned the letters A to M, the Berlin-Charlottenburg tram the letters N to Z and the lines of the Southern Berlin suburban railway were numbered with Roman numerals. The 1910 taken over by the GBS northeastern Berliner Vorortbahn received in 1913 the line designation NO. The colored signal panels remained in parallel until about 1904. In addition, the lines created during this period were still colored signal panels with new, sometimes even three-color color combinations. Insertors were marked separately from

8880-575: The West Berlin transport company BVG took over East Berlin's BVB. (In addition to bus and U-Bahn lines, the new BVG also ran the trams, by now only operating in the former East Berlin districts). There was an attempt to shut down the tram routes running to Pankow, because the trams in Schönhauser Allee run parallel to the U2 line, though the latter does not run to Rosenthal. However, in line with other tram networks expanding at that time, plans for network expansions were soon made - some of those across

9000-513: The anti-Nazi Kreisau Circle resistance group surrounding Count Peter Yorck von Wartenburg and Helmuth James Graf von Moltke held their secret meetings inside Wartenburg's apartment on Hortensienstraße 50 , Lichterfelde-West, during the Third Reich . Generaloberst Ludwig Beck had his house on Goethestraße 24 in Lichterfelde-Ost. In 1942–1945, Lichterfelde was the location of

9120-471: The battle, many destroyed and gutted trams were turned into makeshift roadblocks (being pushed by civilians/ Volkssturm militia) into the middle of streets and mostly filled with piles of building rubble to serve as solid obstacles) through major roads in the city to halt the advance of Soviet tanks and vehicles invading Berlin. The BVG was—like most other Berlin institutions—split into two different companies on 1 August 1949. Two separate companies were formed,

9240-456: The bus network was extended during this time. From 1933, Berlin also had trolley buses . During World War II, some transport tasks were given back to the tramway to save oil. Thus an extensive transport of goods was established. Bombings (from March 1943 on) and the lack of personnel and electricity caused the transportation performance to decline. Due to the final Battle for Berlin, the tram system finally collapsed on 23 April 1945. Prior to

9360-612: The cadet school on Zehlendorfer Straße (today Finckensteinallee ). Initially, the route was intended merely as a testing facility. Siemens named it an "elevated line taken down from its pillars and girders" because he wanted to build a network of electric elevated lines in Berlin. But the skeptical town council did not allow him to do this until 1902, when the first elevated line opened. The first tests of electric traction on Berlin's standard gauge began on 1 May 1882, with overhead supply and in 1886 with batteries , were not very successful. Electric traction of standard-gauge trams in Berlin

9480-693: The cities of Berlin , Spandau , Köpenick , Rixdorf ; the villages Steglitz , Mariendorf , Britz , Niederschönhausen , Friedrichshagen , Heiligensee and Französisch Buchholz , and the Kreis Teltow (Teltow district) had municipal tram companies. The most important private operating company was the Große Berliner Pferde-Eisenbahn (Great Berlin Horse Railway), which called itself Große Berliner Straßenbahn (GBS) (Great Berlin Tramway) after commencing electrification. GBS acquired nearly all of

9600-407: The day of its formation, the BVG had 89 tram lines: a network of 634 km (394 mi) in length, over 4,000 tramway cars, and more than 14,400 employees. An average tram car ran over 42,500 km (26,400 mi) per year. The Berlin tram system had more than 929 million passengers in 1929, at which point, the BVG already had increased its service to 93 tram lines. In the early 1930s,

9720-527: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with

9840-452: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in

9960-403: The distinction of the master lines 200 and 300 numbers. From 1941, the night routes of the bus and the tram networks were later classified into the 400-series numbers. The measures were existed until the end of the war. The last 100 numbers were renumbered on 31 May 1949. After the administrative separation of the BVG initially only changed the numbering scheme. Tram lines running from the east to

10080-464: The downtown sector border followed. From 1949 to 1955, line by line, both companies replaced the Thomson-Houston type trolley poles of their tramcars with pantographs . From 1954 onwards, a shift took place with the public transit plans for West Berlin . From that moment, planning aimed at discontinuing the tram service and replacing it with extended underground and bus lines. The tramway system

10200-507: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of

10320-404: The first 80 metres of the track has already been built during the construction of Berlin Hauptbahnhof. A new approval procedure was completed on 15 January 2010. In April 2011, the preparatory construction work had begun. The Ministry of Transport revised the 50 metres of the length, a two-meter-wide strip of garden to the state of Berlin to provide enough space for all road users. In the course of

10440-664: The historical villages of |Lichterfelde and Giesensdorf were united in 1880 under the name Groß-Lichterfelde (Greater Lichterfelde). Lichterfelde was chosen as the seat of the Prussian Main Military academy , the Preußische Hauptkadettenanstalt , in 1882, and the district became the home to many famous families from the German nobility due to their connections with the Prussian Army . The world's first commercially successful electrified tram line,

10560-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,

10680-474: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of

10800-566: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Berlin-Lichterfelde The Prussian village Lichtervelde was founded in the 13th century by Flemish settlers. It witnessed considerable growth in the 19th century when the two "villa colonies" of Lichterfelde-West and Lichterfelde-Ost were founded: elegant settlements for wealthy Berliners consisting completely of villas or mansions . These settlements and

10920-511: The launch of numerous additional companies, with 36 bus companies in Berlin by 1864. On 22 June 1865, the opening of Berlin's first horse tramway marked the beginning of the age of trams in Germany, stretching from Brandenburger Tor along today's Straße des 17. Juni (17 June Road) to Charlottenburg . Two months later, on 28 August, it was extended along Dorotheenstraße to Kupfergraben near today's Museumsinsel ( Museum Island ),

11040-423: The lines M8 and M10. In 2023 work on increasing the supply voltage from 600 V to 750 V was completed. The first horse-drawn tramlines did not use any special labeling as they were radially inferior from the respective endpoints in the center and thus had few points of contact with other lines. Only with the expansion of the network into the city center was there a need to distinguish the lines from each other. From

11160-535: The lines operating in Köpenick received mainly 80s numbers. Letters were still awarded to the tram lines in the BVG until 1924, after which it was reserved for the suburban tariff buses. With the outbreak of the Second World War, the Berlin public transport companies had to stop a large part of the bus traffic to save fuel. Tram traffic has been extended accordingly. The newly established amplifier lines contributed to

11280-533: The main tram depot was moved to Uferstraße in Western Berlin. Soviet Moscow, with its tram-free avenues, was the role model for East Berlin's transport planning. The car-oriented mentality of West Berlin also spread in the East, with many tram lines also closing in the latter in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1967, the lines through the city center closed down at the same time as the new city expansion around Alexanderplatz

11400-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted

11520-567: The name of Große Berliner Straßenbahn (GBS; Great Berlin Tramway). On 16 May 1881, the region of Berlin again made transport history. In the village of Groß-Lichterfelde , which was incorporated into Berlin-Steglitz 39 years later, Werner von Siemens opened the world's first electric tramway . The electric tram in Groß-Lichterfelde was built to 1,000 mm ( 3 ft  3 + 3 ⁄ 8  in ) metre gauge and ran from today's suburban station, Lichterfelde Ost , to

11640-630: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from

11760-566: The now-abolished border into West-Berlin. In 1995, the first stretch of the tram route along Bornholmer Straße was opened to the west in two stages. The Rudolf-Virchow-Klinikum and the metro stations located in Seestraße, Wedding, and Osloer Straße in Gesundbrunnen have since re-connected to the tram network. Since 1997, the tram has stopped right at Friedrichstraße station. Previously, passengers changing between modes of transport here had to take

11880-553: The other companies through the years. In 1920, the GBS merged with the municipal companies BESTAG and SSB to become the Berliner Straßenbahn (Berlin Tramway), which was reorganized in 1929 into the newly formed municipal Berliner Verkehrs-AG ( BVG ) (Berlin Transport Company). Besides the tramway, the BVG also took over the elevated and underground rail lines and the bus routes which were previously operated primarily by

12000-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation

12120-574: The same time, letter-number combinations as they appeared in the timetable booklet should be avoided. The scheme introduced on 6 May 1902 was relatively simple: single numbers were reserved for the ring lines, two-digit for the remaining lines. Initially, the tens gave information about where the line was going; 10 lines were to be found in Moabit, 60 lines in Weissensee and 70 lines in Lichtenberg. The lines of

12240-541: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,

12360-496: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in

12480-649: The tracks, which were further extended in 1995 to the Oberbaumbrücke, have not yet been expanded to Hermannplatz, as had been planned. Since 2000, the tram in Pankow has run beyond the previous terminus Pankow Kirche on to Guyotstraße, connecting the local development areas to the network. On 12 December 2004, BVG introduced the BVG 2005 plus transport concept. The main focus was the introduction of Metrotram or Metrobus lines on very busy routes which have no U-Bahn or S-Bahn lines. On

12600-474: The tram network, therefore, nine MetroTram lines were introduced and the remaining lines were partially rearranged. The numbering scheme is based on that from 1993, but has undergone minor adjustments. MetroTram and MetroBus lines have an "M" in front of the line number. Single MetroTram/MetroBus lines operate on the main radial network. As a rule, the line number corresponds to that of 1993: the M4 from lines 2, 3, and 4,

12720-460: The turn of the century abruptly. With a view of the Hamburg tram, where in the summer of 1900 for the first time in German-speaking countries line numbers were introduced, experimented the GBS from 1901 also with the numbers. In the timetables of this time, the lines were numbered, but could change their order every year. The numbering scheme should include not only the GBS but also its secondary lines. At

12840-534: The west of Berlin kept their number after the grid separation in 1953 and as a result of network thinning, individual lines were disappeared. The BVG-West waived from July 1966, the prefix A on the bus lines, the BVG-Ost waived on 1 January 1968. While in the west tram traffic was stopped 15 months later, the passenger in the east could not tell from the line number whether it was a tram or bus line. The Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe therefore planned to systematise their network in

12960-438: The work on the new line sector, the line branch along, Chausseestraße (between Invalidenstraße and Wöhlertstraße), Schwartzkopffstraße, Pflugstraße, Wöhlertstraße was permanently closed on 26 August 2013. The commissioning of the new line was initially only with the line M5. With the restoration of the connection from the Nordbahnhof to the underground station Naturkundemuseum, the new line from 28 August 2015 could also be used by

13080-543: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during

13200-579: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching

13320-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of

13440-530: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially

13560-470: Was considered old-fashioned and unnecessary since Berlin already had a well-developed underground network. From 1954 to 1962 numerous tram lines were replaced with bus routes and extended underground lines and stops. By 1962, the western part of the city had only 18 tram lines left out of the original 36. On 2 October 1967 the final tramcar traveled through West Berlin over the last line, numbered 55—from Zoo Station via Ernst-Reuter-Square,

13680-526: Was definitively established in 1895. The first tram line with an overhead track supply ran in an industrial area near Berlin-Gesundbrunnen station . The first line in a more inhabited area operated with batteries for its first year; a catenary was installed four years later. In 1902, electrification with overhead wiring had been completed, except for a very small number of lines on the periphery. The last horse-drawn tram line closed in 1910. On 28 December 1899, it became possible to travel underground, even under

13800-485: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which

13920-625: Was not sufficient to equip each line with its own color code. In addition, crossing or side by side lines should run with different signal panels. This meant that individual lines had to change their color code several times in the course of their existence. As a result of the electrification and the takeover of the New Berlin Horse Ride by the Great Berlin Horse Railways / Great Berlin Tram (GBPfE / GBS) increased their number of lines at

14040-647: Was opened. It runs from the Adlershof science and business hub ( WISTA ) to the provisional terminus provisional terminus Karl-Ziegler-Straße  [ Wikidata ] at the Adlershof campus of the Humboldt University of Berlin . The route, with three newly built stops, cost 13 million euros and was first serviced by lines 60 and 61 at overlapping 10-minute intervals. Since 13 December 2015, line 63 has run to Karl Ziegler Street, replacing line 60. The connection

14160-511: Was originally planned for completion in 1999. However, the plan approval procedure was only completed in 2002. Shortly before the plan approval decision expired after five years, the project was approved on 9 August 2007, and soon after the first masts for the overhead line were set up. It was expected to carry 9,000 passengers per workday. On 31 October 2021, it was again extended from Karl-Ziegler Straße, via Landschaftspark Johannisthal  [ de ] to Schöneweide  [ de ] via

14280-466: Was put into operation, where the line M2 leads directly to the urban and regional train station instead of the current service via Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz to Hackescher Markt . The previous route along Alt and Neu Schönhauser Straße no longer carries regular services but operates only as a feeder line. On 4 September 2011, a one-and-a-half-kilometer-long new line from the Adlershof S-Bahn station

14400-475: Was starting to develop. However, a complete elimination of the city's tram network was neither planned nor even discussed. The following streets were constructed in order to connect the new housing estates Marzahn , Hohenschönhausen , and finally Hellersdorf to the city's tram network from the late 1970s to the early 1990s: Some streets were closed, especially those too close to the Berlin Wall : In 1992,

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