132-646: Central European University ( CEU ; German : Zentraleuropäische Universität , Hungarian : Közép-európai Egyetem ) is a private research university with a campus in Vienna and a non-degree, research and civic engagement presence in Budapest . The university offers graduate and undergraduate programs in the social sciences and humanities . Admissions are classified as highly selective with an acceptance rate of 13%. All CEU programs and courses are accredited in Austria and
264-460: 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
396-402: 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
528-587: 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
660-667: A Hungarian university and has sought to continue teaching and research activity in Budapest as long as possible, with current students completing their studies in Budapest. After failing to promote a deal between the US and Hungary that would keep the CEU in Budapest, US Ambassador to Hungary, David Cornstein , an appointee of the first Trump administration , said on 30 November that the whole issue "had to do with [Orban and Soros]. It had nothing to do with academic freedom or civil liberties". This withdrawal
792-529: A Jew who survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary, accusing him of seeking to destroy European civilization by promoting illegal immigration, and often tapping into anti-Semitic tropes." Vox wrote that CEU "was a casualty of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's turn toward authoritarianism, his development of a quietly repressive system that I've termed 'soft fascism'. CEU, a university dedicated to liberal principles and founded by Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros, posed
924-449: A civil war is based on individual factions' faith in the state's unbiased distribution of the benefits of stability ; an external intervention shakes that faith by implying that such faith was misplaced to begin with. An additional problem raised by Marina Ottaway is that interventions too often rush to implement formal democratic institutions, such as elections, without allowing time for competing elites to separate responsibly; because of
1056-479: A democratic one as a result of gradual reforms over time. The basic mechanism for this is a four-player game theoretical set-up in which (1) moderate regime and (2) moderate opposition figures form a pro-democratic reform coalition to sideline (3) core regime members and (4) opposition calling for radical pro-democratic changes, with the aim of making the state more democratic while preserving its stability. Alfred Stepan and Juan Linz argue that this model requires both
1188-556: 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
1320-463: A heavy research focus, and all courses are delivered in small, seminar-style classes, emphasising a low student-faculty ratio of 7 to 1. QS World University Rankings by Subject (2024) Until the 2019–2020 academic year, CEU was exclusively a postgraduate university and therefore not eligible for general world university rankings. Two new bachelor's degree programs were introduced in the 2020–2021 academic year. Regardless of this limitation due to
1452-403: A highly institutionalized regime and public sphere. The regime must not be sultanistic (based entirely around one central ruler's desires) in order that different members retain some degree of autonomy and have different interests; meanwhile, in the public sphere , there must be a strong civil society that can both maintain pressure on the authoritarian regime while also providing support for
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#17328490907931584-472: A large collection of underground samizdat literature and materials from Central and Eastern Europe under communism. The archive also houses a growing collection of documents and audiovisual materials on international human rights and war crimes. The CEU Press is the largest English-language publisher in Central and Eastern Europe. Since its founding in 1993, it has played an important role in publishing books on
1716-453: 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
1848-502: A political process versus those who see it as a developmental process (see international relations and development aid for context). This basic division between the political and developmental approaches has existed inchoately in the field of democracy support for many years. It has come into sharper relief during this decade, as democracy-aid providers face a world increasingly populated by countries not conforming to clear or coherent political transitional paths. [...] Some adherents of
1980-679: 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
2112-776: 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
2244-464: A report prepared by Hungary's Educational Authority, which revealed that 28 universities, including CEU, were being investigated for operating unlawfully in Hungary. CEU issued a statement in response to the article, claiming the allegations of cheating and regulatory infractions constituted defamations and libel, and threatened to sue the website if the article was not corrected. On 29 March 2017 Ignatieff,
2376-475: 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
2508-528: A serious attempt was undertaken to establish Central European University in the Slovak capital of Bratislava , but it fell through due to nationalist politicians' opposition. The university was founded in 1991 in response to the fall of the Socialist Bloc . The founding vision was to create a university dedicated to examining the contemporary challenges of " open societies " and democratization . The initial aim
2640-402: A statement thereafter, calling "for the government to withdraw this legislation and enter into negotiations to find a solution." On 31 March 2017, Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán stated in an interview on public radio that the future of "Soros University" depended on US-Hungarian talks. He said that CEU was "cheating" by awarding both Hungarian and American degrees, despite not operating abroad. This
2772-407: A threat to Orbán's ideological project. So Orbán put into place a set of characteristically sneaky regulations aimed at forcing out CEU without needing to formally ban them, eventually crushing the university's ability to operate." The Washington Post commented that CEU "has become the prime target of Orban's campaign to dismantle Europe's multicultural, tolerant liberalism and cement a culture that
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#17328490907932904-460: Is a manifestation of the plurality of opinions and approaches by international actors, be they governments, NGOs or other third parties. For example, the term 'promotion' itself can be seen by some as too intrusive, or implying outside interference, whilst 'support' can be seen by some as more benign but, by others, as insufficiently assertive. In the early twenty-first century, the differences tended to divide into two main camps: those who see it as
3036-580: 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
3168-658: Is accredited by the Agency for Quality Assurance and Accreditation Austria. The CEU Library has a large English-language print collection of more than 150,000 documents and over 50,000 e-journals and 200,000 e-books. The Blinken Open Society Archives (OSA) at CEU is a Cold War research facility, holding over 7,500 linear meters of material, 11,000 hours of audiovisual recordings and 12 terabytes of data related to communist-era political, social, economic and cultural life. OSA's collection includes an extensive archive of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty transcripts and reports, along with
3300-596: 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
3432-546: 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
3564-472: 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
3696-430: 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
3828-520: 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
3960-595: 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
4092-420: Is in full conformity with Hungarian law." The same day, the pro-government news website Origo.hu published an article asserting that CEU, to which it referred as "Soros University" ( George Soros being its founder and main benefactor, and also known as an opponent of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party ), operated unlawfully in Hungary, citing regulatory infractions. The article also referred to
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4224-559: 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
4356-435: 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
4488-587: 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
4620-449: Is only useful at defending democratic consolidation, and not at encouraging democratization of regimes where one faction already dominates. Still others fall in Freytag and Heckelman's camp, advocating the long-game, positing that although USAID programs have so far had little net effect on democratization, they have demonstrably improved basic democratic features, including civil society and
4752-401: 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
4884-623: Is seen by critics as placing CEU at a particular disadvantage, given that it relies largely on non-EU faculty. Finally, the law would also prohibit the American and Hungarian entities from sharing the same name. CEU issued a statement expressing its opposition to the bill, noting that "these amendments [to Act CCIV of 2011 on National Higher Education] would make it impossible for the University to continue its operations as an institution of higher education in Budapest, CEU's home for 25 years", and that "CEU
5016-510: 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
5148-566: 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
5280-578: Is the result of a long legal battle between the university and Viktor Orbán's government, and is set in the wider context of contemporary Hungarian politics . This situation has sparked discourse regarding academic freedom in Hungary , and spurred widespread protests in favour of CEU. On 6 October 2020, the European Court of Justice ruled that the "lex CEU" legislation, drawn up by the Hungarian government,
5412-509: Is unapologetically Christian, conservative, and nationalist." On 3 December 2018 the university announced it would relocate the majority of its operations to Vienna in September 2019, after the Hungarian government's refusal to sign an agreement allowing it to continue teaching its US-accredited programs in Hungary. Less than one fifth of CEU's programs, that are locally accredited, would remain in Budapest. "The university retains accreditation as
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5544-481: 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
5676-673: 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
5808-627: 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
5940-522: 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
6072-473: 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
6204-514: 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
6336-724: 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
6468-668: 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 the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as
6600-644: 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
6732-607: The President and Rector of CEU , Pro-Rector for Hungarian Affairs Zsolt Enyedi and Pro-Rector for Social Sciences and Humanities Éva Fodor held a press conference. Ignatieff said, among other things, that "the legislation tabled by the Hungarian government relating to higher education is targeted and discriminatory, attacks the CEU, and is an unacceptable assault on our academic freedom", and "the academic freedom of Hungarian higher education in general". Later, Ignatieff and Enyedi met Secretary of State for Education László Palkovics. CEU issued
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#17328490907936864-640: 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
6996-536: 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
7128-525: The United States . CEU was founded in 1991 by hedge fund manager, political activist , and billionaire philanthropist George Soros , who provided it with a $ 250 million endowment in 2001, making the university one of the wealthiest in Europe, especially on a per-student basis. The university was founded in Central Europe because of a perceived need for an independent and international university for
7260-503: 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
7392-462: 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
7524-421: The rule of law . CEU has extended its outreach and financial aid programs to certain areas of the developing world. CEU began the region's first master's degree programs in gender studies and environmental sciences . The CEU Center for Media, Data and Society (now the newly independent Media and Journalism Research Center ) is the leading center of research on media, communication, and information policy in
7656-672: The unilateral destabilizing intervention represented by the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the stabilizing intervention represented by United States invasion of Panama . All these missions aimed on some level to promote democracy, with varying degrees of success. Michael Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis have found that the peacekeeping missions most successful at producing fledgling democracies have strong mandates backing them up, but tend not to revolve around military enforcement. Successful democratizing interventions consist of monitoring factions' adherence to their negotiated settlement , while
7788-714: 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
7920-718: 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
8052-524: 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
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#17328490907938184-447: 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
8316-675: 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
8448-637: The Hungarian Coalition József Berényi , Azerbaijani opposition politician Ilgar Mammadov , and former Croatian Minister of Justice Orsat Miljenic . The international spokesman of the Hungarian government, Zoltán Kovács , is also an alumnus of CEU. Central European University also has alumni who are academics in the social sciences, environmental sciences, and humanities. Jaroslav Miller , professor of history and rector at Palacký University , political scientist Tomasz Kamusella , historian of religions Andrei Oișteanu , vice-president of
8580-523: The Hungarian government has an agreement with the university's other country of operation (in the case of CEU, the agreement is between the State of New York and the city of Budapest ). In addition, universities operating outside of the European Union should have a campus in their other country of operation, where comparable degree programs would be offered (in 2017 it was not the case for CEU). Furthermore, both existing and new non-EU academic staff would be required to apply for work permits. This requirement
8712-547: 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
8844-408: 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
8976-478: The Netherlands , the United Kingdom , the United States , and other countries have expressed support for CEU. CEU itself has started a campaign of support, with the slogans #aCEUvalvagyok Central European University in Hungarian and #IstandwithCEU Central European University in English. The campaign uses social media to call on supporters to express their solidarity to CEU and write to Hungarian representatives. British author Tibor Fischer expressed his support for
9108-603: The OECD Development Assistance Committee's aid flow database. The classification makes the distinction between different types of aid flows relevant for democracy assistance, such as democratic participation and civil society, elections, legislatures and political parties, media and free flow of information, human rights, women's rights organisations and movement and government, decentralisation and support to subnational government institutions, and anti-corruption organisations and institutions. The types and objectives of democracy assistance aid delivered by international donors depend on
9240-408: The Polish Academy of the Sciences Paweł Rowiński , and Serbian political scientist Srđan Cvijić are alumni. The university also has alumni in the fields of art and activism, including Azerbaijani dissident Rashadat Akhundov and filmmaker Dylan Mohan Gray . German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language in
9372-570: The Social Sciences , ESSEC Business School , Bard College Berlin , Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich , Technical University of Munich , University of Hamburg , Corvinus University , Eotvos Lorand University , Hungarian Academy of Sciences , Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies , Hitotsubashi University , Tokyo University of Foreign Studies , Bard College , Columbia University , Cornell University , Stanford University , University of California, Berkeley , among others. As of 2023, 18,667 students from 151 countries have graduated from CEU,
9504-674: The United States, CEU is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education . In Hungary , CEU is officially recognized as a privately maintained and operated university. The university was accredited by the Hungarian Accreditation Committee in 2004. In Austria, CEU is recognized as a private higher education institution, pursuant to section 7 of the Decree on Accreditation of Private Universities (PU-AkkVO). Central European University Private University (CEU PU)
9636-491: The academic year of 2026 Admission into CEU programs is highly selective. In 2021, the admission rate of the university was 13%. As of 2019, 1217 students were enrolled in the university, of which 962 were international students, making the student body the fourth most international in the world. CEU offers doctoral programmes in 13 different subjects and master's programmes in 37 different subjects, in addition to 3 interdisciplinary bachelor's programmes. All programmes at CEU have
9768-518: The amendment to the Higher Education Law "discriminatory against CEU", and said that during his 17 years in office he had never received any complaint about CEU's legal status. Hungarian EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth Tibor Navracsics , and former President of Hungary László Sólyom also expressed support. Academics and academic institutions from Hungary , Latvia , Poland , Russia , Romania , Germany ,
9900-430: The costs mount; this impels the factions to turn to a combination of internal and external arbitrators to forge a power-sharing agreement: elections and outside, neutral institutions to guarantee that every faction participates in the new democracy fairly. External interventions see different levels of democratization success depending on the type of intervener, type of intervention, and level of elite cooperation prior to
10032-430: 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
10164-613: The developmental approach criticize the political approach as too easily turning confrontational vis-à-vis "host" governments and producing unhelpful counterreactions. Some adherents of the political approach, meanwhile, fault the developmental approach for being too vague and unassertive in a world where many leaders have learned to play a reform game with the international community, absorbing significant amounts of external political aid while avoiding genuine democratization. Thomas Carothers , 2009, in Journal of Democracy At least part of
10296-452: 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
10428-507: 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
10560-741: The economic, social, and political transformation of the region, including titles by Hungarians or on Hungarian themes. Four of its top-10 best-selling books worldwide are related to Hungary. Graduate students of CEU and University of Vienna could attend courses at the partner institution, and transfer their credits towards their degrees at their home institution. CEU has partnerships and student and/or faculty exchange agreements with University of Graz , Vienna University of Economics and Business , University of Toronto , Antai College of Economics and Management , Beijing Normal University , China University of Political Science and Law , Centre International de Formation Européenne , School for Advanced Studies in
10692-437: The electoral process, in countries receiving aid. Not all CSOs will be helpful in promoting democracy—if the organization is too large to inspire its members, or its constituents' identity is too narrowly defined, the organization will fail to support four-player democratic transition pacts, and may even encourage divisiveness and civil war. There is also some concern that the international community may be propping up NGOs to
10824-444: The first elections to prevent interference by hardliner members of the regime. Further, many scholars partial to the gradual reformism perspective on democratization agree with Francis Fukuyama, who asserts that the role of CSOs in directing the part of individuals' lives not under the liberal democratic state's control makes CSOs critical to sustaining the social capital and self-advocacy important for liberal democracy. Even beyond
10956-469: The freedom to dissent respectfully and to expound controversial ideas within the bounds of legality and civility. As of 2024, the university is composed of 13 academic departments and 17 research centers , in addition to the Doctoral School of Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations. "*"Due to high expenses and not enough funding the department for nationalism studies will close by
11088-440: The history of their own country with democracy, and may explain the diversity of democracy promotion contexts. If historically Western countries championed democracy promotion worldwide, new non-Western actors have emerged in the last decades with particular goals and geographical reaches, participating in the construction of a broad definition of democracy promotion. External democracy promotion has two main patterns that depend on
11220-435: 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,
11352-474: 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
11484-528: The intentionally small size and specialised nature of the university, CEU has consistently performed well in subject rankings produced by various publishers. In 2014, the university's Economics department was ranked 8th in Europe by the European Research Council (ERC), based on research excellence. Of the three European Research Council Starting Investigator Grant that came to Hungary two were awarded to CEU faculty. CEU's Department of Legal Studies
11616-551: The intervention. The level of neutrality and geopolitical disinterest the intervener possesses is important, as is the severity of the intervention's infringement on sovereignty. The differences can be highlighted with several examples: a neutral, mostly unobtrusive monitor missions like UN election observers in Nicaragua in 1989; the multilateral NATO IFOR mission in Yugoslavia to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1031 in 1995;
11748-455: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Democracy promotion Democracy promotion , also referred to as democracy building, can be domestic policy to increase the quality of already existing democracy or a strand of foreign policy adopted by governments and international organizations that seek to support
11880-444: The legislation passed on the initiative of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán 's government, which affects CEU as well as all other Hungarian universities. Fischer defended Orban against "charges of antisemitism ", indicating that the government "introduced Holocaust education into schools, passed a Holocaust denial law and...financed Son of Saul , a film about Auschwitz that [went on to win] an Oscar ." He specified that he opposes
12012-452: The like), while others take the bottom-up approach of promoting citizen participation and building strong civil and political society to prepare the ground on which systems of government can then be planted. The European Partnership for Democracy defines 'democracy support' as the political or financial "efforts to reinforce or create democratic development or to halt autocratisation", while 'democracy assistance' refers to financial flows "in
12144-600: The majority of whom went on to be employed in business, education, research, or government. Among the university's alumni in law and government are the former President of Georgia , Giorgi Margvelashvili as well as the first Romani woman Members of the European Parliament Lívia Járóka and Monica Macovei , former Georgian Minister of Defense Tinatin Khidasheli , chairman of the Slovakian Party of
12276-412: The most successful ones include extensive state-building (such as improving government efficiency and professionalism , or classical infrastructure assistance ) or prior experience with democracy. Interventions that fail to expend resources on state-building can sometimes be counter-productive to democracy promotion because, as McBride, Milante, and Skaperdas have proposed, a negotiated settlement to
12408-402: 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
12540-544: The name of human rights or democracy by an interested party, which, she theorizes, spawns counter-productive nationalist backlash; however, even neutral monitors must be careful that their reports do not invite a unilateral intervention, as the Council of Freely-Elected Heads of Government's 1989 report on Panamanian election fraud did for the United States. Another school of thought on how democratization most successfully occurs involves an authoritarian regime transitioning to
12672-630: 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
12804-434: The point that they themselves become an unrepresentative elite. Domestic policies can improve the quality of democracies, and reduce the chance of democratic backsliding. Democracy promotion measures include voting advice applications , participatory democracy , increasing youth suffrage , increasing civic education, and electoral reforms such as reducing barriers to entry to candidacy and politics, and reducing
12936-745: The practice whereby the CEU, being registered in New York City , can issue a diploma accredited in the United States but without actually operating a campus in America within the provisions of the law as every other Hungarian campus, a situation that he named as CEU students "getting a double bubble." 2017 Protests in Hungary were held on April 2 in the form of a walk from Budapest's Corvinus University to Parliament, passing by Eötvös Loránd University and CEU. The demonstration brought together thousands of protesters according to Reuters , with protest speeches held by both CEU and foreign academics and activists, and
13068-402: The problem lies in the absence of a consensus on what democracy constitutes. W. B. Gallie argued that it is impossible to find a consensus definition, and instead included democracy in a list of ' essentially contested concepts '. To date, the disagreement over definitions has seen some actors focus on supporting technical systems of democratic governance (elections, government structures and
13200-462: 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
13332-553: The proposed amendment to Act CCIV of 2011 on national higher education, and pledged to continue to contest this law using all available legal means in Hungary and in the EU. On the same day, the Hungarian parliament decided to debate and vote on the draft bill the following day, after a request by Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén , also head of the Christian Democrats , the junior party in the government coalition. Semjén said his request
13464-414: The question of what and whether external intervention is an effective democracy support strategy, a number of issues continue to divide the proponents of a democracy support-based international policy. Carles Boix and Susan Stokes advocate economic development aid, contending that the more advanced an economy, the less willing factions will be to break the peace; others, however, contend that this strategy
13596-402: The reform pact and the moderates who formulated it. According to Ray Salvatore Jennings, during the second half of the twentieth century, the success of democratic transitions depended substantially on the ability of civil society organizations (CSOs) to disseminate dissident information to counter authoritarian regimes' narratives, as well as their mobilizing high voter turnout and monitoring
13728-473: The region, in light of the fall of the Socialist Bloc and concomitant democratisation . A central tenet of the university's mission is the promotion of open societies , a result of its close association with the Open Society Foundations . CEU is a part of The European University of Social Sciences (CIVICA). The CIVICA Alliance is a group of 10 prestigious European higher education institutions in
13860-547: The region, the need for a new, independent, international university was being considered. The minutes of the gathering held in April 1989 record a discussion among scholars such as Rudolf Andorka , Hanák Péter , Márton Tardos, István Teplán , Miklós Vámos and Miklós Vásárhelyi from Budapest , William Newton-Smith and Kathleen Wilkes from Oxford , Jan Havranek, Michal Illner and Jiří Kořalka from Prague , and Krzysztof Michalski and Włodzimierz Siwiński from Warsaw . In 1989–90,
13992-462: The region. On 14 October 2007, George Soros stepped down as chairman of CEU Board. Leon Botstein (president of Bard College , New York), who had previously served as the vice-chair of the board, was elected as new chairman for a two-year term. George Soros is a Life-CEU trustee and serves as honorary chairman of the board. On 1 August 2009, Rector Yehuda Elkana was succeeded by human rights leader and legal scholar John Shattuck . On 5 May 2016, it
14124-409: The same study found that quick, decisive victories for one faction—even an ostensibly pro-democratic rebellion—similarly discourage peaceful, electoral competition for control of a government after the conflict is over. Leonard Wantchekon has suggested that one of the most reliable forces of democratization is a stalemated civil war, in which the original motivation for the conflict becomes irrelevant as
14256-419: The short timeframe, they either unite into a new authoritarian arrangement or rely on overly divisive party platforms, such as identity, which precludes “permanent fragmentation” of the elite within a cooperative regime framework. A final concern raised with external interventions, particularly unilateral or narrowly multilateral ones, is the perception or actualization of imperialism or neo-imperialism in
14388-598: The social sciences, humanities, business management and public policy, such as Sciences Po , The London School of Economics and Political Science , Bocconi University and the Stockholm School of Economics . CEU evolved from a series of lectures held at the Inter-University Centre Dubrovnik - IUC in Dubrovnik , Yugoslavia , (now Croatia ). In Spring 1989, as historic change was gathering momentum in
14520-430: The spirit of ‘international assistance". EPD further acknowledges that 'democracy promotion' is the term widespreadly used by academics but has a more active and often coercive connotation compared to ‘democracy support’. Support is something given to existing internal efforts for democratisation while promotion does not require any such internal (national) desire". Another definition of democracy support can be drawn from
14652-552: The spread of democracy as a system of government . In practice, it entails consolidating and building democratic institutions International democracy promotion typically takes three forms: assistance, monitoring, and conditionality . In financial terms, democracy promotion grew from 2% of aid in 1990 to nearly 20% in 2005. More controversially and rare, it can also take the form of military intervention . The precise definition of democracy promotion has been debated for more than twenty-five years. The multiplicity of terms used
14784-541: 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,
14916-552: The subsequent war in Israel and Gaza , there were repeated incidents at the CEU that were classified as antisemitic by various organizations. A series of events planned in cooperation with the University of Vienna , at which BDS activists were also due to speak, was canceled by the University of Vienna, nevertheless took place at the CEU. A lecture at the CEU entitled "CEU Talks: Hamas' 7 October Attack, Terrorism Strategy and State-building"
15048-442: The success of democratic consolidation . Civil wars cause a number of problems for democratization. Laura Armey and Robert McNab found that the longer a civil war lasts, and the more casualties it produces, the more hostile the warring factions become to each other; this hostility in turn makes stabilization along terms of peaceful competition, required in a democratic regime , more difficult. Problematically for democracy promotion,
15180-496: 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
15312-414: The type of democratization a state is dealing with: external intervention and as a solution to civil war , or supporting an internal push for reform. Democracy promotion advocates are divided on which pattern tends to be most successful for the resources that democracy promotion programs invest; they are similarly divided on which components and factors of the democratization process are most important to
15444-445: The university has processes in place to ensure that its students can report any incidents of antisemitism as well as all other forms of ethnic or religious hate speech, which are dealt with by its internal mechanisms within the parameters set out by CEU's Code of Ethics. CEU’s founding mission in defence of open societies enjoins it to protect critical discussion, and the freedom to scrutinize competing ideas. Such academic freedom includes
15576-543: 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
15708-579: 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
15840-429: 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
15972-441: Was a breach of Hungarian regulations, which gave an unfair advantage to CEU over the other 21 foreign universities in Hungary. In response to those claims, CEU issued a statement rejecting the suggestion that it was cheating and in breach of Hungarian regulations. Indeed, according to CEU, no laws in effect required universities such as CEU to also operate in their countries of origin. However, Szilard Nemeth, vice chairman of Fidesz ,
16104-530: 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
16236-563: Was announced that Michael Ignatieff would succeed Shattuck, becoming the fifth president and rector of the university. Ignatieff's inauguration took place at the university's new auditorium on 21 October 2017. On 28 March 2017, Hungarian Minister of Human Resources Zoltán Balog , also responsible for education, submitted a bill to Parliament to amend Act CCIV of 2011 on National Higher Education. The bill aimed to introduce new regulations for foreign-operating universities, several of which affect CEU. Notably, such universities could only operate if
16368-553: Was broadcast live on Facebook by Hír TV . In the wake of the new Hungarian legislation, the Czech Minister of Finance Andrej Babiš proposed the CEU be moved to Prague , Czech Republic , offering particular buildings in the centre of the city that the university might use. On 3 April 2017, CEU submitted a legal memorandum to the Hungarian Parliament , raising substantial issues about the legality and constitutionality of
16500-485: 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
16632-459: Was incompatible with European Union law . In June 2021, Ignatieff announced that he would be stepping down as president and rector of the university, and that Shalini Randeria would succeed him as the sixth rector and president. Randeria is the first woman to serve in this role at the university. In October 2023, Russia designated the university as an 'undesirable' organization . In the context of Hamas' attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and
16764-412: Was justified by "government interests to pass the law early." According to The New York Times , "Mr. Orban has long viewed the school as a bastion of liberalism, presenting a threat to his vision of creating an ' illiberal democracy ,' and his desire to shut it down was only deepened by its association with Mr. Soros, a philanthropist who was born in Hungary. [He] has spent years demonizing Mr. Soros,
16896-638: Was massively disrupted by students despite the presence of Rector Shalini Randeria . In a press release, the Austrian Union of Jewish Students (JÖH) and the European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS) accused the CEU of ignoring the threat to Jewish students and that the Rector was refusing to meet with Jewish student representatives. CEU published a statement clarifying that the university does not tolerate antisemitism or all forms of hate speech, or any form of harassment or discrimination. The statement clarified that
17028-570: Was more blunt, stating that civil society groups with funding from Soros should be "swept out" of Hungary. On the same day, the United States government ( first Trump administration ) released a statement expressing concern about the proposed legislation, which would "negatively affect or even lead to the closure of Central European University (CEU) in Budapest", and urging the Hungarian government not to take "any legislative action that would compromise CEU's operations or independence." Hungary's ombudsman for educational rights Lajos Aary-Tamas called
17160-453: Was moved to Budapest . In its second decade, CEU broadened its focus from regional to global, with a special emphasis on democracy promotion and human rights around the world. It has since developed a distinct academic approach, combining regional studies with an international perspective, emphasizing comparative and interdisciplinary research in order to generate new scholarship and policy initiatives, and to promote good governance and
17292-687: Was ranked first in Central Europe by the Czech newspaper, Lidové noviny . The survey included Austrian, Czech, German, Hungarian, Polish, and Slovak universities. CEU is organized as an American-style institution, governed by a board of trustees , with a charter from the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York , for and on behalf of the New York State Education Department . In
17424-585: Was to create a Western-modeled yet distinctly Central European institution that would foster inter-regional cooperation and educate a new corps of regional leaders to help usher in democratic transitions across the region. CEU was set up in Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw. It was originally located mostly in Prague , but because of "political and financial conflict between its founder and [the] Czech government", represented by then prime minister Vaclav Klaus , in January 1993 it
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