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155-640: The culture of Germany has been shaped by major intellectual and popular currents in Europe, both religious and secular. German culture originated with the Germanic tribes , the earliest evidence of Germanic culture dates to the Jastorf culture in Northern Germany and Denmark . Contact with Germanic tribes were described by various Greco-Roman authors. The first extensive writing done on Germanic culture can be seen during

310-491: A Germanic language", are sometimes referred to as "Germanic-speaking peoples". Today, the term "Germanic" is widely applied to "phenomena including identities, social, cultural or political groups, to material cultural artefacts, languages and texts, and even specific chemical sequences found in human DNA". Several scholars continue to use the term to refer to a culture existing between the 1st to 4th centuries CE, but most historians and archaeologists researching Late Antiquity and

465-696: A Gothic group in modern Ukraine under the rule of Ermanaric , were among the first peoples attacked by the Huns, apparently facing Hunnic pressure for some years. Following Ermanaric's death, the Greuthungi's resistance broke and they moved toward the Dniester river. A second Gothic group, the Tervingi under King Athanaric , constructed a defensive earthwork against the Huns near the Dniester. However, these measures did not stop

620-705: A Gothic ruler of the Amal dynasty, seems to have consolidated power over a large part of the Goths in the Hunnic domain. For the next 20 years, the former subject peoples of the Huns would fight among each other for preeminence. The arrival of the Saxons in Britain is traditionally dated to 449, however, archaeology indicates they had begun arriving in Britain earlier. Latin sources used Saxon generically for seaborne raiders, meaning that not all of

775-564: A common identity. Scholars generally agree that it is possible to refer to Germanic languages from about 500 BCE. Archaeologists usually associate the earliest clearly identifiable Germanic speaking peoples with the Jastorf culture of the Pre-Roman Iron Age in central and northern Germany and southern Denmark from the 6th to 1st centuries BCE. This existed around the same time that the First Germanic Consonant Shift

930-917: A common language. Several ancient sources list subdivisions of the Germanic tribes. Writing in the first century CE, Pliny the Elder lists five Germanic subgroups: the Vandili, the Inguaeones, the Istuaeones (living near the Rhine), the Herminones (in the Germanic interior), and the Peucini Basternae (living on the lower Danube near the Dacians). In chapter 2 of the Germania , written about

1085-516: A complex society and economy throughout Germania. Germanic-speaking peoples originally shared similar religious practices. Denoted by the term Germanic paganism , they varied throughout the territory occupied by Germanic-speaking peoples. Over the course of Late Antiquity , most continental Germanic peoples and the Anglo-Saxons of Britain converted to Christianity, but the Saxons and Scandinavians converted only much later. The Germanic peoples shared

1240-678: A culinary culture with Switzerland and Austria. Pork, beef, and poultry are the main varieties of meat consumed in Germany; pork is the most popular. Throughout all regions, meat is often eaten in sausage form. More than 1,500 different types of sausage are produced in Germany. Organic food has gained a market share of almost 6%, and this is predicted to increase further. Germanic peoples The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical Antiquity and

1395-447: A group of mutually intelligible dialects . They share distinctive characteristics which set them apart from other Indo-European sub-families of languages, such as Grimm's and Verner's law , the conservation of the PIE ablaut system in the Germanic verb system (notably in strong verbs ), or the merger of the vowels a and o qualities ( ə , a , o > a; ā , ō > ō ). During

1550-728: A half-century later, Tacitus lists only three subgroups: the Ingvaeones (near the sea), the Herminones (in the interior of Germania), and the Istvaeones (the remainder of the tribes); Tacitus says these groups each claimed descent from the god Mannus , son of Tuisto . Tacitus also mentions a second tradition that there were four sons of either Mannus or Tuisto from whom the groups of the Marsi, Gambrivi, Suebi, and Vandili claim descent. The Herminones are also mentioned by Pomponius Mela , but otherwise, these divisions do not appear in other ancient works on

1705-569: A high degree of Celtic-Germanic shared material culture and social organization. Some evidence of linguistic convergence between Germanic and Italic languages , whose Urheimat is supposed to have been situated north of the Alps before the 1st millennium BCE, have also been highlighted by scholars. Shared changes in their grammars also suggest early contacts between Germanic and Balto-Slavic languages ; however, some of these innovations are shared with Baltic only, which may point to linguistic contacts during

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1860-426: A lancehead) and linguistic cognates attested in the later Old Norse , Old Saxon and Old High German languages: fremja , fremmian and fremmen all mean 'to carry out'. In the absence of earlier evidence, it must be assumed that Proto-Germanic speakers living in Germania were members of preliterate societies. The only pre-Roman inscriptions that could be interpreted as Proto-Germanic, written in

2015-412: A language's lexicon. Neologisms are often introduced by children who produce erroneous forms by mistake. Other common sources are slang and advertising. There are two types of borrowings (neologisms based on external sources) that retain the sound of the source language material: The following are examples of external lexical expansion using the source language lexical item as the basic material for

2170-437: A language's rules. For example, the suffix "-able" is usually only added to transitive verbs , as in "readable" but not "cryable". A compound word is a lexeme composed of several established lexemes, whose semantics is not the sum of that of their constituents. They can be interpreted through analogy , common sense and, most commonly, context . Compound words can have simple or complex morphological structures. Usually, only

2325-455: A lexicon, essentially a catalogue of a language's words (its wordstock); and a grammar , a system of rules which allow for the combination of those words into meaningful sentences. The lexicon is also thought to include bound morphemes , which cannot stand alone as words (such as most affixes ). In some analyses, compound words and certain classes of idiomatic expressions, collocations and other phrasemes are also considered to be part of

2480-424: A minimal description. To describe the size of a lexicon, lexemes are grouped into lemmas. A lemma is a group of lexemes generated by inflectional morphology . Lemmas are represented in dictionaries by headwords that list the citation forms and any irregular forms , since these must be learned to use the words correctly. Lexemes derived from a word by derivational morphology are considered new lemmas. The lexicon

2635-489: A name for any group of people and was revived as such only by the humanists in the 16th century. Previously, scholars during the Carolingian period (8th–11th centuries) had already begun using Germania and Germanicus in a territorial sense to refer to East Francia . In modern English, the adjective Germanic is distinct from German , which is generally used when referring to modern Germans only. Germanic relates to

2790-522: A native script—known as runes —from around the first century or before, which was gradually replaced with the Latin script , although runes continued to be used for specialized purposes thereafter. Traditionally, the Germanic peoples have been seen as possessing a law dominated by the concepts of feuding and blood compensation . The precise details, nature and origin of what is still normally called " Germanic law " are now controversial. Roman sources state that

2945-665: A number of public holidays in Germany . The country is particularly known for its Oktoberfest celebrations in Munich , its carnival culture and globally influential Christmas customs known as Weihnachten . 3 October has been the national day of Germany since 1990, celebrated as the German Unity Day ( Tag der Deutschen Einheit ). The UNESCO inscribed 52 properties in Germany on the World Heritage List . A global opinion poll for

3100-465: A number of modern western universities. In the 21st century Germany has been an important country for the development of contemporary analytic philosophy in continental Europe, along with France, Austria, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries. In the field of music, Germany claims some of the most renowned classical composers of the world, including Bach , Mozart and Beethoven , who marked

3255-586: A policy of trying to prevent strong leaders from emerging among the barbarians, using treachery, kidnapping, and assassination, paying off rival tribes to attack them, or by supporting internal rivals. The Migration Period is traditionally cited by historians as beginning in 375 CE, under the assumption that the appearance of the Huns prompted the Visigoths to seek shelter within the Roman Empire in 376. The end of

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3410-466: A printed newspaper every day, while around 14.6 million make use of newspapers’ digital offerings. Architectural contributions from Germany include the Carolingian and Ottonian styles , important precursors of Romanesque . The region has also produced significant works in styles such as the Gothic , Renaissance and Baroque . The nation was particularly important in the early modern movement through

3565-500: A range of digital-only channels. Reality TV is the most popular programming in Germany and a key part in modern German culture. Germany is home to some of the world's largest media conglomerates, including Bertelsmann , the Axel Springer AG and ProSiebenSat.1 Media . The German-speaking book publishers produce about 700,000,000 copies of books every year, with about 80,000 titles, nearly 60,000 of them new publications. Germany

3720-627: A regional language. They are officially protected by the ECRML . The most used immigrant languages are Turkish , Kurdish , Polish , the Balkan languages , and Russian . Standard German is a West Germanic language and is closely related to and classified alongside English, Dutch, and the Frisian languages . To a lesser extent, it is also related to the East (extinct) and North Germanic languages . Most German vocabulary

3875-576: A relatively late period, at any rate after the initial breakup of Balto-Slavic into Baltic and Slavic languages , with the similarities to Slavic being seen as remnants of Indo-European archaisms or the result of secondary contacts. According to some authors the Bastarnae , or Peucini , were the first Germani to be encountered by the Greco-Roman world and thus to be mentioned in historical records. They appear in historical sources going as far back as

4030-658: A religious affiliation). The north and east are predominantly Protestant, the south and west predominantly Catholic. Nowadays there is a non-religious majority in Hamburg and the former East German states. Germany was, at one point, almost in its entirety within the Roman Catholic Holy Roman Empire , but was also the source of Protestant reformers such as Martin Luther . During the Kulturkampf (from about 1872 to 1886)

4185-714: A renewed political crisis in Rome, the Rhine frontier had collapsed, and in order to restore it, the Roman magister militum Flavius Aetius engineered the destruction of the Burgundian kingdom in 435/436, possibly with Hunnic mercenaries, and launched several successful campaigns against the Visigoths. In 439, the Vandals conquered Carthage , which served as an excellent base for further raids throughout

4340-530: A revenue of 28 billion Euro. Almost 44 percent of the products are exported. The textile branch thus is the second largest producer of consumer goods after food production in the country. Berlin is the center of young and creative fashion in Germany, prominently displayed at Berlin Fashion Week (twice a year). It also hosts Europe's largest fashion trade fair called Bread & Butter . Munich, Hamburg and Düsseldorf are also important design and production hubs of

4495-496: A speaker of standard German, since they often differ in lexicon , phonology , and syntax . Around the world, German has approximately 100 million native speakers and also about 80 million non-native speakers. German is the main language of about 90 million people (18%) in the EU. 67% of German citizens claim to be able to communicate in at least one foreign language, 27% in at least two languages other than their first. In

4650-557: A term corresponding to Germanic-speaking peoples, this new definition—which used the Germanic language as the main criterion—presented the Germani as a people or nation ( Volk ) with a stable group identity linked to language. As a result, some scholars treat the Germani (Latin) or Germanoi (Greek) of Roman-era sources as non-Germanic if they seemingly spoke non-Germanic languages. For clarity, Germanic peoples, when defined as "speakers of

4805-488: A territorial definition ("those living in Germania ") and an ethnic definition ("having Germanic ethnic characteristics"), and the two definitions did not always align. In the 3rd century, when Romans encountered Germanic-speaking peoples living north of the Lower Danube who fought on horseback, such as Goths and Gepids, they did not call them Germani . Instead, they connected them with non-Germanic-speaking peoples such as

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4960-642: A war-god or a mark of ownership engraved by its possessor. The inscription Fariarix ( * farjōn- 'ferry' + * rīk- 'ruler') carved on tetradrachms found in Bratislava (mid-1st c. BCE) may indicate the Germanic name of a Celtic ruler. By the time Germanic speakers entered written history, their linguistic territory had stretched farther south, since a Germanic dialect continuum (where neighbouring language varieties diverged only slightly between each other, but remote dialects were not necessarily mutually intelligible due to accumulated differences over

5115-414: Is a large aspect of the culture. This large community draws in people from all around the world. There are around 500 galleries in Germany that caters to this modern form of art. Art Cologne is a popular fair that displays contemporary art. Christianity was introduced to the area of modern Germany by 300 AD and became fully Christianized by the time of Charlemagne in the eighth and ninth century. After

5270-695: Is a prominent example of the city symphony genre. The Nazi era produced mostly propaganda films although the work of Leni Riefenstahl still introduced new aesthetics to film. During the 1970s and 1980s, New German Cinema directors such as Volker Schlöndorff , Werner Herzog , Wim Wenders , and Rainer Werner Fassbinder put West German cinema back on the international stage with their often provocative films. More recently, films such as Good Bye Lenin! (2003), Gegen die Wand (Head-on) (2004), Der Untergang (Downfall) (2004), and Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (2008) have enjoyed international success. The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film went to

5425-431: Is also organized according to open and closed categories. Closed categories , such as determiners or pronouns , are rarely given new lexemes; their function is primarily syntactic . Open categories, such as nouns and verbs , have highly active generation mechanisms and their lexemes are more semantic in nature. A central role of the lexicon is documenting established lexical norms and conventions . Lexicalization

5580-466: Is also very well known for its many renowned opera houses , such as Semperoper , Komische Oper Berlin and Munich State Theatre . Richard Wagner established the Bayreuth Festspielhaus . One of the most famous composers of the international film business is Hans Zimmer . The year 2020 was designated “Beethoven Year” to mark 250 years since the composer was born. German cinema dates back to

5735-578: Is derived from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Significant minorities of words are derived from Latin and Greek, with a smaller amount from French and most recently English (known as Denglisch ). German is written using the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with Umlaut , namely ä, ö, and ü, as well as the Eszett or scharfes S ( sharp s ) which

5890-473: Is equally inconsistent. Additionally, there is no linguistic or archaeological evidence for these subgroups. New archaeological finds have tended to show that the boundaries between Germanic peoples were very permeable, and scholars now assume that migration and the collapse and formation of cultural units were constant occurrences within Germania. Nevertheless, various aspects such as the alliteration of many of

6045-579: Is generally used in the context of a single language. Therefore, multi-lingual speakers are generally thought to have multiple lexicons. Speakers of language variants ( Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese , for example) may be considered to possess a single lexicon. Thus a cash dispenser (British English) as well as an automatic teller machine or ATM in American English would be understood by both American and British speakers, despite each group using different dialects. When linguists study

6200-621: Is in third place on international statistics after the English-speaking book market and the People's Republic of China. The Frankfurt Book Fair is considered to be the most important book fair in the world for international deals and trading and has a tradition that spans over 500 years. Many of Europe's best-selling newspapers and magazines are produced in Germany. The papers with the highest circulation are Die Zeit , Süddeutsche Zeitung , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Die Welt ,

6355-401: Is little evidence for a common Germanic identity. The Anglo-Saxonist Leonard Neidorf writes that historians of the continental-European Germanic peoples of the 5th and 6th centuries are "in agreement" that there was no pan-Germanic identity or solidarity. Whether a scholar favors the existence of a common Germanic identity or not is often related to their position on the nature of the end of

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6510-572: Is one of the world's foremost film festivals. An international jury places emphasis on representing films from all over the world and awards the winners with the Golden and Silver Bears. The annual European Film Awards ceremony is held every second year in the city of Berlin, where the European Film Academy (EFA) is located. The Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam are the oldest large-scale film studios in

6665-481: Is referred to as the birth of modern Science Fiction movies. Founded in 1912, the Babelsberg Film Studio is the oldest large-scale film studio in the world. In 1930, Josef von Sternberg directed The Blue Angel , which was the first major German sound film and it brought world fame to actress Marlene Dietrich . Impressionist documentary Berlin: Symphony of a Great City , directed by Walter Ruttmann ,

6820-416: Is related to a lack of stable frontiers in this area such as were maintained by Roman armies along the Rhine and Danube. The geographer Ptolemy (2nd century CE) applied the name Germania magna ("Greater Germania", Greek : Γερμανία Μεγάλη ) to this area, contrasting it with the Roman provinces of Germania Prima and Germania Secunda (on the west bank of the Rhine). In modern scholarship, Germania magna

6975-421: Is sometimes also called Germania libera ("free Germania"), a name coined by Jacob Grimm around 1835. Caesar and, following him, Tacitus, depicted the Germani as sharing elements of a common culture. A small number of passages by Tacitus and other Roman authors (Caesar, Suetonius) mention Germanic tribes or individuals speaking a language distinct from Gaulish. For Tacitus ( Germania 43, 45, 46), language

7130-500: Is the German techno and minimal scene (e.g. Ricardo Villalobos , Paul Kalkbrenner and Sven Väth ). Germany hosts many large rock music festivals every year. The Rock am Ring festival is the largest music festival in Germany, and among the largest in the world. German artists also make up a large percentage of industrial and Neue Deutsche Härte acts. Germany hosts some of the largest goth or dark culture scenes and festivals in

7285-526: Is the largest music market in Europe, and third largest in the world. It has exerted a strong influence on rock and heavy metal music . Artists such as Herbert Grönemeyer , Scorpions , Blind Guardian , Rammstein , Nena , Unheilig , Xavier Naidoo , Tokio Hotel and Modern Talking have enjoyed international fame. German musicians have contributed heavily to developments in electronic music , in synth-pop , electronic body music , trance and hardcore . Krautrock band Kraftwerk are considered to be

7440-443: Is the most common of word formation strategies cross-linguistically. Comparative historical linguistics studies the evolution of languages and takes a diachronic view of the lexicon. The evolution of lexicons in different languages occurs through a parallel mechanism. Over time historical forces work to shape the lexicon, making it simpler to acquire and often creating an illusion of great regularity in language. The term "lexicon"

7595-564: Is the process by which new words, having gained widespread usage, enter the lexicon. Since lexicalization may modify lexemes phonologically and morphologically, it is possible that a single etymological source may be inserted into a single lexicon in two or more forms. These pairs, called a doublet , are often close semantically. Two examples are aptitude versus attitude and employ versus imply . The mechanisms, not mutually exclusive, are: Neologisms are new lexeme candidates which, if they gain wide usage over time, become part of

7750-495: Is theorized to have occurred, leading to recognizably Germanic languages. Germanic languages expanded south, east, and west, coming into contact with Celtic , Iranic , Baltic , and Slavic peoples before they were noted by the Romans. Roman authors first described the Germani near the Rhine in the 1st century BCE, while the Roman Empire was establishing its dominance in that region. Under Emperor Augustus (27 BCE – 14 CE),

7905-593: Is thought to possibly reflect a Germanic and Slavic component. The identification of the Jastorf culture with the Germani has been criticized by Sebastian Brather , who notes that it seems to be missing areas such as southern Scandinavia and the Rhine-Weser area, which linguists argue to have been Germanic, while also not according with the Roman era definition of Germani , which included Celtic-speaking peoples further south and west. A category of evidence used to locate

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8060-667: Is unlikely that Germanic populations spoke a single dialect, and traces of early linguistic varieties have been highlighted by scholars. Sister dialects of Proto-Germanic itself certainly existed, as evidenced by the absence of the First Germanic Sound Shift (Grimm's law) in some "Para-Germanic" recorded proper names, and the reconstructed Proto-Germanic language was only one among several dialects spoken at that time by peoples identified as "Germanic" by Roman sources or archeological data. Although Roman sources name various Germanic tribes such as Suevi, Alemanni, Bauivari , etc., it

8215-492: Is unlikely that the members of these tribes all spoke the same dialect. Definite and comprehensive evidence of Germanic lexical units only occurred after Caesar 's conquest of Gaul in the 1st century BCE, after which contacts with Proto-Germanic speakers began to intensify. The Alcis , a pair of brother gods worshipped by the Nahanarvali , are given by Tacitus as a Latinized form of * alhiz (a kind of ' stag '), and

8370-460: Is written "ß" (not used in Switzerland and Liechtenstein , where it is written ss instead). German orthography has gone through a series of reforms, the most recent in 1996 . German dialects are distinguished from varieties of standard German . German dialects are traditional local varieties and can be traced back to the different German tribes. Many of them are not easily understandable to

8525-648: The Urheimat ('original homeland') of the Proto-Germanic language , the ancestral idiom of all attested Germanic dialects, existed in or near the archaeological culture known as the late Jastorf culture , of the central Elbe in present day Germany, stretching north into Jutland and east into present day Poland. If the Jastorf Culture is the origin of the Germanic peoples, then the Scandinavian peninsula would have become Germanic either via migration or assimilation over

8680-654: The BBC revealed that Germany is recognized for having the most positive influence in the world in 2011, 2013, and 2014. German is the official and predominant spoken language in Germany. It is one of 23 official languages in the European Union, and one of the three working languages of the European Commission , along with English and French. Recognised native minority languages in Germany are Danish , Sorbian , North Frisian and Saterland Frisian , with Low German being

8835-562: The Cimbrian War (113–101 BCE) against the Romans, in which the Teutons and Cimbri were victorious over several Roman armies but were ultimately defeated. The first century BCE was a time of the expansion of Germanic-speaking peoples at the expense of Celtic-speaking polities in modern southern Germany and the Czech Republic. Before 60 BCE, Ariovistus , described by Caesar as king of

8990-585: The Corded Ware culture towards modern-day Denmark, resulting in cultural mixing with the earlier Funnelbeaker culture . The subsequent culture of the Nordic Bronze Age (c. 2000/1750 – c. 500 BCE) shows definite cultural and population continuities with later Germanic peoples, and is often supposed to have been the culture in which the Germanic Parent Language , the predecessor of

9145-535: The Deutscher Werkbund and the Bauhaus movement identified with Walter Gropius . The Nazis closed these movements and favoured a type of neo-classicism . Since World War II post-modern structures have been built. Since the reunification of Germany the trend has continued. German art has a long and distinguished tradition in the visual arts , from the earliest known work of figurative art to its current output of contemporary art . Important German Renaissance painters include Albrecht Altdorfer , Lucas Cranach

9300-423: The Early Middle Ages . In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era Germani who lived in both Germania and parts of the Roman empire, but also all Germanic speaking peoples from this era, irrespective of where they lived, most notably the Goths . Another term, ancient Germans , is considered problematic by many scholars since it suggests identity with present-day Germans . Although

9455-438: The Etruscan alphabet , have not been found in Germania but rather in the Venetic region. The inscription harikastiteiva \\\ip , engraved on the Negau helmet in the 3rd–2nd centuries BCE, possibly by a Germanic-speaking warrior involved in combat in northern Italy, has been interpreted by some scholars as Harigasti Teiwǣ ( * harja-gastiz 'army-guest' + * teiwaz 'god, deity'), which could be an invocation to

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9610-419: The German diaspora , aspects of German culture are passed on to younger generations through naming customs and through the use of spoken and written German. The Goethe Institute seeks to spread the knowledge of German culture worldwide. A total of 15.5 million people are currently learning German as a second language. German literature can be traced back to the Middle Ages , with the most notable authors of

9765-401: The Germani and Celtic peoples , usually identified with the archaeological La Tène culture , found in southern Germany and the modern Czech Republic. Early contacts probably occurred during the Pre-Germanic and Pre-Celtic periods, dated to the 2nd millennium BCE, and the Celts appear to have had a large amount of influence on Germanic culture from up until the first century CE, which led to

9920-414: The Germani as a large category of peoples distinct from the Gauls and Scythians was Julius Caesar , writing around 55 BCE during his governorship of Gaul. In Caesar's account, the clearest defining characteristic of the Germani people was that their homeland was east of the Rhine , opposite Gaul on the west side. Caesar sought to explain both why his legions stopped at the Rhine and also why

10075-473: The Germani may instead be called "ancient Germans" or Germani by using the Latin term in English. The modern definition of Germanic peoples developed in the 19th century, when the term Germanic was linked to the newly identified Germanic language family . Linguistics provided a new way of defining the Germanic peoples, which came to be used in historiography and archaeology. While Roman authors did not consistently exclude Celtic-speaking people or have

10230-461: The Germani were more dangerous than the Gauls to the empire. Explaining this threat he also classified the Cimbri and Teutons , who had previously invaded Italy, as Germani . Although Caesar described the Rhine as the border between Germani and Celts, he also describes the Germani cisrhenani on the west bank of the Rhine, who he believed had moved from the east. It is unclear if these Germani were actually Germanic speakers. According to

10385-420: The Germani , led a force including Suevi across the Rhine into Gaul near Besançon , successfully aiding the Sequani against their enemies the Aedui at the Battle of Magetobriga . Ariovistus was initially considered an ally of Rome. In 58 BCE, with increasing numbers of settlers crossing the Rhine to join Ariovistus, Julius Caesar went to war with them, defeating them at the Battle of Vosges . In

10540-444: The Germani , though they did not live in Germania, and they were beginning to look like Sarmatians through intermarriage. The Osi and Cotini lived in Germania, but were not Germani , because they had other languages and customs. The Aesti lived on the eastern shore of the Baltic and were like Suebi in their appearance and customs, although they spoke a different language. Ancient authors did not differentiate consistently between

10695-443: The Germani . There are a number of inconsistencies in the listing of Germanic subgroups by Tacitus and Pliny. While both Tacitus and Pliny mention some Scandinavian tribes, they are not integrated into the subdivisions. While Pliny lists the Suebi as part of the Herminones, Tacitus treats them as a separate group. Additionally, Tacitus's description of a group of tribes as united by the cult of Nerthus ( Germania 40) as well as

10850-418: The Huns , Sarmatians , and Alans , who shared a similar culture. Romans also called them "Gothic peoples", ( gentes Gothicae ) even if they did not speak a Germanic language, and they often referred to the Goths as " Getae ", equating them to a non-Germanic people residing in the same region. The writer Procopius described these new "Getic" peoples as sharing similar appearance, laws, Arian religion, and

11005-403: The Nazis . During the second half of the 20th century, the controversial misuse of ancient Germanic history and archaeology was discredited and has since resulted in a backlash against many aspects of earlier scholarship. The etymology of the Latin word Germani , from which Latin Germania and English Germanic are derived, is unknown, although several proposals have been put forward. Even

11160-481: The Pre-Germanic linguistic period (2500–500 BCE), the proto-language was almost certainly influenced by an unknown non-Indo-European language , still noticeable in the Germanic phonology and lexicon . Although Proto-Germanic is reconstructed without dialects via the comparative method , it is almost certain that it never was a uniform proto-language. The late Jastorf culture occupied so much territory that it

11315-512: The Reformation started by Martin Luther in the early 16th century, many people left the Catholic Church and became Protestant , mainly Lutheran and Calvinist . 59.4% of the German population belongs to Christian denominations: 30% are Roman Catholic , and 29% are affiliated with Protestantism (the figures are known accurately because Germany imposes a church tax on those who disclose

11470-556: The Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg is one of the oldest universities in Europe. German designers were leaders of modern product design , with the Bauhaus designers like Mies van der Rohe , and Dieter Rams of Braun being essential. Germany is a leading country in the fashion industry . The German textile industry consisted of about 1,300 companies with more than 130,000 employees in 2010, which generated

11625-515: The Saxon tribes towards modern-day England. The Germanic languages are traditionally divided between East , North and West Germanic branches. The modern prevailing view is that North and West Germanic were also encompassed in a larger subgroup called Northwest Germanic. Further internal classifications are still debated among scholars, as it is unclear whether the internal features shared by several branches are due to early common innovations or to

11780-654: The history of philosophy . Kantianism inspired the work of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche as well as German idealism defended by Fichte and Hegel . Marx and Engels developed communist theory in the second half of the 19th century while Heidegger and Gadamer pursued the tradition of German philosophy in the 20th century. A number of German intellectuals were also influential in sociology , most notably Adorno , Elias , Habermas , Horkheimer , Luhmann , Marcuse , Simmel , Tönnies , and Weber . The University of Berlin founded in 1810 by linguist and philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt served as an influential model for

11935-544: The 1st to 4th centuries CE. Different academic disciplines have their own definitions of what makes someone or something "Germanic". Some scholars call for the term's total abandonment as a modern construct, since lumping "Germanic peoples" together implies a common group identity for which there is little evidence. Other scholars have defended the term's continued use and argue that a common Germanic language allows one to speak of "Germanic peoples", regardless of whether these ancient and medieval peoples saw themselves as having

12090-572: The 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, migrations of East Germanic gentes from the Baltic Sea coast southeastwards into the hinterland led to their separation from the dialect continuum. By the late 3rd century CE, linguistic divergences like the West Germanic loss of the final consonant -z had already occurred within the "residual" Northwest dialect continuum. The latter definitely ended after the 5th- and 6th-century migrations of Angles , Jutes and part of

12245-652: The 3rd century BCE through the 4th century CE. Another eastern people known from about 200 BCE, and sometimes believed to be Germanic-speaking, are the Sciri (Greek: Skiroi ), who are recorded threatening the city of Olbia on the Black Sea. Late in the 2nd century BCE, Roman and Greek sources recount the migrations of the Cimbri, Teutones and Ambrones whom Caesar later classified as Germanic. The movements of these groups through parts of Gaul , Italy and Hispania resulted in

12400-662: The Celtic word for their war cries, gairm , which simplifies into 'the neighbours' or 'the screamers'. Regardless of its language of origin, the name was transmitted to the Romans via Celtic speakers. It is unclear that any people group ever referred to themselves as Germani . By late antiquity , only peoples near the Rhine, especially the Franks and sometimes the Alemanni, were called Germani or Germanoi by Latin and Greek writers respectively. Germani subsequently ceased to be used as

12555-581: The Cherusci—initially an ally of Rome—drew a large Roman force into an ambush in northern Germany, and destroyed the three legions of Publius Quinctilius Varus at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest . Marboduus and Arminius went to war with each other in 17 CE; Arminius was victorious and Marboduus was forced to flee to the Romans. Following the Roman defeat at the Teutoburg Forest, Rome gave up on

12710-660: The Early Middle Ages no longer use it. Apart from the designation of a language family (i.e., "Germanic languages"), the application of the term "Germanic" has become controversial in scholarship since 1990, especially among archaeologists and historians. Scholars have increasingly questioned the notion of ethnically defined people groups ( Völker ) as stable basic actors of history. The connection of archaeological assemblages to ethnicity has also been increasingly questioned. This has resulted in different disciplines developing different definitions of "Germanic". Beginning with

12865-484: The Elder , Matthias Grünewald , Hans Holbein the Younger and the well-known Albrecht Dürer . The most important Baroque artists from Germany are Cosmas Damian Asam . Further artists are the painter Anselm Kiefer , romantic Caspar David Friedrich , the surrealist Max Ernst , the conceptualist Joseph Beuys , or Wolf Vostell or the neo-expressionist Georg Baselitz . Within modern day society, contemporary art

13020-553: The German fashion industry, among smaller towns. Renowned fashion designers from Germany include Karl Lagerfeld , Jil Sander , Wolfgang Joop , Philipp Plein and Michael Michalsky . Important brands include Hugo Boss , Escada and Triumph , as well as special outfitters like Adidas , PUMA and Jack Wolfskin . The German supermodels Claudia Schiffer , Heidi Klum , Tatjana Patitz and Nadja Auermann came to global fame. German cuisine varies from region to region. The southern regions of Bavaria and Swabia, for instance, share

13175-621: The German production Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) in 1979, to Nowhere in Africa in 2002, and to Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) in 2007. Among the most famous German actors are Marlene Dietrich, Klaus Kinski , Hanna Schygulla , Armin Mueller-Stahl , Jürgen Prochnow , Thomas Kretschmann , Til Schweiger and Daniel Brühl . The Berlin Film Festival , held annually since 1951,

13330-591: The Germanic Marcomanni and Quadi with their allies, which was known as the Marcomannic Wars . After this major disruption, new Germanic peoples appear for the first time in the historical record, such as the Franks , Goths , Saxons , and Alemanni . During the Migration Period (375–568), such Germanic peoples entered the Roman Empire and eventually established their own " barbarian kingdoms " within

13485-623: The Germanic peoples divided and fractious. Rome established relationships with individual Germanic kings that are often discussed as being similar to client states ; however, the situation on the border was always unstable, with rebellions by the Frisians in 28 CE, and attacks by the Chauci and Chatti in the 60s CE. The most serious threat to the Roman order was the Revolt of the Batavi in 69 CE, during

13640-465: The Germanic peoples made decisions in a popular assembly (the thing ) but that they also had kings and war leaders. The ancient Germanic-speaking peoples probably shared a common poetic tradition, alliterative verse , and later Germanic peoples also shared legends originating in the Migration Period. The publishing of Tacitus 's Germania by humanist scholars in the 1400s greatly influenced

13795-470: The Greuthungi. The Goths and their allies defeated the Romans first at Marcianople , then defeated and killed emperor Valens in the Battle of Adrianople in 378, destroying two-thirds of Valens' army. Following further fighting, peace was negotiated in 382, granting the Goths considerable autonomy within the Roman Empire. However, these Goths—who would be known as the Visigoths —revolted several more times, finally coming to be ruled by Alaric . In 397,

13950-565: The Huns and the majority of the Tervingi abandoned Athanaric; they subsequently fled—accompanied by a contingent of Greuthungi—to the Danube in 376, seeking asylum in the Roman Empire. The emperor Valens chose only to admit the Tervingi, who were settled in the Roman provinces of Thrace and Moesia . Due to mistreatment by the Romans, the Tervingi revolted in 377, starting the Gothic War , joined by

14105-662: The Huns had largely conquered them by 406. One Gothic group under Hunnic domination was ruled by the Amal dynasty , who would form the core of the Ostrogoths . The situation outside the Roman empire in 410s and 420s is poorly attested, but it is clear that the Huns continued to spread their influence onto the middle Danube. In 428, the Vandal leader Geiseric moved his forces across the strait of Gibraltar into north Africa. Within two years, they had conquered most of north Africa. By 434, following

14260-563: The Huns interfered in a Frankish succession dispute, leading in 451 to an invasion of Gaul. Aetius, by uniting a coalition of Visigoths, part of the Franks, and others, was able to defeat the Hunnic army at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains . In 453, Attila died unexpectedly, and an alliance led by Ardaric's Gepids rebelled against the rule of his sons, defeating them in the Battle of Nedao . Either before or after Attila's death, Valamer ,

14415-554: The Marcomanni and Quadi, and Commodus forbid them to hold assemblies unless a Roman centurion was present. The period after the Marcomannic Wars saw the emergence of peoples with new names along the Roman frontiers, which were probably formed by the merger of smaller groups. These new confederacies or peoples tended to border the Roman imperial frontier. Many ethnic names from earlier periods disappear. The Alamanni emerged along

14570-738: The Mediterranean and became the basis for the Vandal Kingdom . The loss of Carthage forced Aetius to make peace with the Visigoths in 442, effectively recognizing their independence within the boundaries of the empire. During the resulting peace, Aetius resettled the Burgundians in Sapaudia in southern Gaul. In the 430s, Aetius negotiated peace with the Suevi in Spain, leading to a practical loss of Roman control in

14725-758: The Proto-Germanic homeland is founded on traces of early linguistic contacts with neighbouring languages. Germanic loanwords in the Finnic and Sámi languages have preserved archaic forms (e.g. Finnic kuningas , from Proto-Germanic * kuningaz 'king'; rengas , from * hringaz 'ring'; etc.), with the older loan layers possibly dating back to an earlier period of intense contacts between pre-Germanic and Finno-Permic (i.e. Finno-Samic ) speakers. Shared lexical innovations between Celtic and Germanic languages, concentrated in certain semantic domains such as religion and warfare, indicates intensive contacts between

14880-457: The Proto-Germanic language, developed. However, it is unclear whether these earlier peoples possessed any ethnic continuity with the later Germanic peoples. Generally, scholars agree that it is possible to speak of Germanic-speaking peoples after 500 BCE, although the first attestation of the name Germani is not until much later. Between around 500 BCE and the beginning of the common era , archeological and linguistic evidence suggest that

15035-566: The Rhine as a border. Starting in 13 BCE, there were Roman campaigns across the Rhine for a 28-year period. First came the pacification of the Usipetes, Sicambri, and Frisians near the Rhine, then attacks increased further from the Rhine, on the Chauci , Cherusci , Chatti and Suevi (including the Marcomanni ). These campaigns eventually reached and even crossed the Elbe, and in 5 CE Tiberius

15190-703: The Rhine for an indeterminate distance, bounded by the Baltic Sea and the Hercynian Forest . Pliny the Elder and Tacitus placed the eastern border at the Vistula . The Upper Danube served as a southern border. Between there and the Vistula Tacitus sketched an unclear boundary, describing Germania as separated in the south and east from the Dacians and the Sarmatians by mutual fear or mountains. This undefined eastern border

15345-473: The Roman Empire . Defenders of continued use of the term Germanic argue that the speakers of Germanic languages can be identified as Germanic people by language regardless of how they saw themselves. Linguists and philologists have generally reacted skeptically to claims that there was no Germanic identity or cultural unity, and they may view Germanic simply as a long-established and convenient term. Some archaeologists have also argued in favor of retaining

15500-788: The Roman Imperial Period with Germania by Tacitus . Germany has been the center for various important phenomena such as the Migration Period , the Carolingian Empire , Holy Roman Empire , the Medieval renaissances , Scholasticism , the Hanseatic League , the German Renaissance , the Printing Revolution , Protestant reformation , Prussia , Romanticism , Kaiserreich , Weimar and National Socialism . There are

15655-621: The Roman emperor Flavius Constantius , the Visigoths were settled as Roman allies in Gaul between modern Toulouse and Bourdeaux. Other Goths, including those of Athanaric, continued to live outside the empire, with three groups crossing into the Roman territory after the Tervingi. The Huns gradually conquered Gothic groups north of the Danube, of which at least six are known, from 376 to 400. Those in Crimea may never have been conquered. The Gepids also formed an important Germanic people under Hunnic rule;

15810-675: The Roman historian Tacitus in his Germania (c. 98 CE), it was among this group, specifically the Tungri , that the name Germani first arose, before it spread to further groups. Tacitus reported that in his time many of the peoples west of the Rhine within Roman Gaul were still considered Germani . Caesar's division of the Germani from the Celts was not taken up by most writers in Greek. Caesar and authors following him regarded Germania as stretching east of

15965-593: The Roman territory. The revolt ended following several defeats, with Civilis claiming to have only supported the imperial claims of Vespasian , who was victorious in the civil war. The century after the Batavian Revolt saw mostly peace between the Germanic peoples and Rome. In 83 CE, Emperor Domitian of the Flavian dynasty attacked the Chatti north of Mainz (Mogontiacum). This war would last until 85 CE. Following

16120-609: The Romans appear to have reserved the right to choose rulers among the barbarians on the frontier. Following sixty years of quiet on the frontier, 166 CE saw a major incursion of peoples from north of the Danube during the reign of Marcus Aurelius , beginning the Marcomannic Wars . By 168 (during the Antonine plague ), barbarian hosts consisting of Marcomanni, Quadi, and Sarmatian Iazyges, attacked and pushed their way to Italy. They advanced as far as Upper Italy, destroyed Opitergium/Oderzo and besieged Aquileia. The Romans had finished

16275-470: The Romans attempted to conquer a large part of Germania between the Rhine and Elbe , but withdrew after their shocking defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE. The Romans continued to manage the Germanic frontier carefully, meddling in cross-border politics, and constructing a long fortified border, the Limes Germanicus . From 166 to 180 CE, Rome was embroiled in a conflict against

16430-568: The Saxons, a term used generically in Latin for Germanic-speaking pirates. A system of defenses on both sides of the English Channel , the Saxon Shore , was established to deal with their raids. From 250 onward, the Gothic peoples formed the "single most potent threat to the northern frontier of Rome". In 250 CE a Gothic king Cniva led Goths with Bastarnae, Carpi, Vandals, and Taifali into

16585-523: The ancient Germani or the broader Germanic group. In modern German, the ancient Germani are referred to as Germanen and Germania as Germanien , as distinct from modern Germans ( Deutsche ) and modern Germany ( Deutschland ). The direct equivalents in English are, however, Germans for Germani and Germany for Germania although the Latin Germania is also used. To avoid ambiguity,

16740-477: The basis for the modern "High German" language. Among the most admired German philosophers and authors are Lessing , Goethe , Schiller , Kleist , Hoffmann , Brecht , Heine and Schmidt . Nine Germans have won the Nobel Prize in literature : Theodor Mommsen , Paul von Heyse , Gerhart Hauptmann , Thomas Mann , Nelly Sachs , Hermann Hesse , Heinrich Böll , Günter Grass , and Herta Müller . The rise of

16895-476: The beginnings of space travel. The work of Albert Einstein and Max Planck was crucial to the foundation of modern physics , which Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger developed further. They were preceded by such key physicists as Hermann von Helmholtz , Joseph von Fraunhofer , and Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit , among others. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered X-rays , an accomplishment that earned him

17050-605: The civil wars following the death of Nero known as the Year of the Four Emperors . The Batavi had long served as auxiliary troops in the Roman army as well as in the imperial bodyguard as the so-called Numerus Batavorum , often called the Germanic bodyguard. The uprising was led by Gaius Julius Civilis , a member of the Batavian royal family and Roman military officer, and attracted a large coalition of people both inside and outside of

17205-419: The confrontation with Rome as things that could cause a sense of shared "Germanic" culture. Despite being cautious of the use of Germanic to refer to peoples, Sebastian Brather , Wilhelm Heizmann and Steffen Patzold nevertheless refer to further commonalities such as the widely attested worship of deities such as Odin , Thor and Frigg , and a shared legendary tradition . The first author to describe

17360-571: The course of the same period. Alternatively, Hermann Ament  [ de ] has stressed that two other archaeological groups must have belonged to the Germani , one on either side of the Lower Rhine and reaching to the Weser , and another in Jutland and southern Scandinavia. These groups would thus show a "polycentric origin" for the Germanic peoples. The neighboring Przeworsk culture in modern Poland

17515-441: The crisis. From the later third century onward, the Roman army relied increasingly on troops of Barbarian origin, often recruited from Germanic peoples, with some functioning as senior commanders in the Roman army. In the 4th century, warfare along the Rhine frontier between the Romans and Franks and Alemanni seems to have mostly consisted of campaigns of plunder, during which major battles were avoided. The Romans generally followed

17670-789: The cult of the Alcis controlled by the Nahanarvali ( Germania 43) and Tacitus's account of the origin myth of the Semnones ( Germania 39) all suggest different subdivisions than the three mentioned in Germania chapter 2. The subdivisions found in Pliny and Tacitus have been very influential for scholarship on Germanic history and language up until recent times. However, outside of Tacitus and Pliny there are no other textual indications that these groups were important. The subgroups mentioned by Tacitus are not used by him elsewhere in his work, contradict other parts of his work, and cannot be reconciled with Pliny, who

17825-671: The distance) covered a region roughly located between the Rhine , the Vistula , the Danube , and southern Scandinavia during the first two centuries of the Common Era . East Germanic speakers dwelled on the Baltic sea coasts and islands, while speakers of the Northwestern dialects occupied territories in present-day Denmark and bordering parts of Germany at the earliest date when they can be identified. In

17980-488: The disunited eastern Empire submitted to some of his demands, possibly giving him control over Epirus . In the aftermath of the large-scale Gothic entries into the empire, the Franks and Alemanni became more secure in their positions in 395, when Stilicho , the barbarian generalissimo who held power in the western Empire, made agreements with them. In 401, Alaric invaded Italy, coming to an understanding with Stilicho in 404/5. This agreement allowed Stilicho to fight against

18135-505: The emerging idea of "Germanic peoples". Later scholars of the Romantic period , such as Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm , developed several theories about the nature of the Germanic peoples that were highly influenced by romantic nationalism . For those scholars, the "Germanic" and modern "German" were identical. Ideas about the early Germans were also highly influential among members of the nationalist and racist völkisch movement and later co-opted by

18290-470: The empire, laying siege to Philippopolis . He followed his victory there with another on the marshy terrain at Abrittus , a battle which cost the life of Roman emperor Decius . In 253/254, further attacks occurred reaching Thessalonica and possibly Thrace . In 267/268 there were large raids led by the Herules in 267/268, and a mixed group of Goths and Herules in 269/270. Gothic attacks were abruptly ended in

18445-400: The end of the war with the Chatti, Domitian reduced the number of Roman soldiers on the upper Rhine and shifted the Roman military to guarding the Danube frontier, beginning the construction of the limes , the longest fortified border in the empire. The period afterwards was peaceful enough that the emperor Trajan reduced the number of soldiers on the frontier. According to Edward James ,

18600-401: The entire world, with events like Wave-Gotik-Treffen and M'era Luna Festival attracting up to 30,000 people. In addition, the country hosts Wacken Open Air , the biggest heavy metal open air festival in the world. Since about 1970, Germany has once again had a thriving popular culture, now increasingly led by its reinstated capital Berlin , and a self-confident music and art scene. Germany

18755-598: The first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. The Walhalla temple for "laudable and distinguished Germans" features a number of scientists, and is located east of Regensburg , in Bavaria . Germany is home to some of the finest academic centers in Europe. Some famous universities are those of Munich and Berlin, University of Tübingen , University of Göttingen , University of Marburg , University of Berlin , Mining Academy Freiberg and Freiburg University , among many others. Moreover,

18910-448: The first Roman descriptions of Germani involved tribes west of the Rhine, their homeland of Germania was portrayed as stretching east of the Rhine , to southern Scandinavia and the Vistula in the east, and to the upper Danube in the south. Other Germanic speakers, such as the Bastarnae and Goths, lived further east in what is now Moldova and Ukraine . The term Germani is generally only used to refer to historical peoples from

19065-550: The first of them was Maroboduus of the Marcomanni, who had led his people away from the Roman activities into Bohemia , which was defended by forests and mountains, and had formed alliances with other peoples. In 6 CE, Rome planned an attack against him but the campaign was cut short when forces were needed for the Illyrian revolt in the Balkans. Just three years later (9 CE), the second of these Germanic figures, Arminius of

19220-450: The following years Caesar pursued a controversial campaign to conquer all of Gaul on behalf of Rome, establishing the Rhine as a border. In 55 BCE he crossed the Rhine into Germania near Cologne . Near modern Nijmegen he also massacred a large migrating group of Tencteri and Usipetes who had crossed the Rhine from the east. Throughout the reign of Augustus—from 27 BCE until 14 CE—the Roman empire expanded into Gaul, with

19375-435: The force of Radagaisus , who had crossed the Middle Danube in 405/6 and invaded Italy, only to be defeated outside Florence. That same year, a large force of Vandals, Suevi, Alans, and Burgundians crossed the Rhine , fighting the Franks but facing no Roman resistance. In 409, the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans crossing the Pyrenees into Spain, where they took possession of the northern part of the peninsula. The Burgundians seized

19530-522: The government opposed the Catholic church. Historically, Germany had a substantial Jewish population . Only a few thousand people of Jewish origin remained in Germany after the Holocaust , but the German Jewish community now has about 100,000 members, many from the former Soviet Union . Germany also has a substantial Muslim population, most of whom are descendants of Turkish workers from Turkey . German theologians include Luther , Melanchthon , Schleiermacher , Feuerbach , and Rudolf Otto . Germany

19685-406: The head requires inflection for agreement. Compounding may result in lexemes of unwieldy proportion. This is compensated by mechanisms that reduce the length of words. A similar phenomenon has been recently shown to feature in social media also where hashtags compound to form longer-sized hashtags that are at times more popular than the individual constituent hashtags forming the compound. Compounding

19840-403: The invaders belonged to the continental Saxons. According to the British monk Gildas (c. 500 – c. 570), this group had been recruited to protect the Romano-British from the Picts , but had revolted. They quickly established themselves as rulers on the eastern part of the island. Lexicon Linguistic theories generally regard human languages as consisting of two parts:

19995-448: The land around modern Speyer , Worms , and Strasbourg, territory that was recognized by the Roman Emperor Honorius . When Stilicho fell from power in 408, Alaric invaded Italy again and eventually sacked Rome in 410; Alaric died shortly thereafter. The Visigoths withdrew into Gaul where they faced a power struggle until the succession of Wallia in 415 and his son Theodoric I in 417/18. Following successful campaigns against them by

20150-425: The language from which it derives is a subject of dispute, with proposals of Germanic, Celtic , and Latin, and Illyrian origins. Herwig Wolfram , for example, thinks Germani must be Gaulish . The historian Wolfgang Pfeifer more or less concurs with Wolfram and surmises that the name Germani is likely of Celtic etymology and is related to the Old Irish word gair ('neighbours') or could be tied to

20305-444: The largest magazines include Der Spiegel , Stern and Focus . The Bild is a tabloid and has the largest circulation of all German papers. However, the publishing industry is in flux – amongst other things because meanwhile almost 800,000 newspaper copies sold daily are distributed digitally and the number of digital subscriptions is continually rising. Nevertheless, a total of around 38 million people in Germany still read

20460-424: The later diffusion of local dialectal innovations. The Germanic-speaking peoples speak an Indo-European language . The leading theory for the origin of Germanic languages, suggested by archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence, postulates a diffusion of Indo-European languages from the Pontic–Caspian steppe towards Northern Europe during the third millennium BCE, via linguistic contacts and migrations from

20615-413: The lexicon. Dictionaries are lists of the lexicon, in alphabetical order, of a given language; usually, however, bound morphemes are not included. Items in the lexicon are called lexemes, lexical items, or word forms. Lexemes are not atomic elements but contain both phonological and morphological components. When describing the lexicon, a reductionist approach is used, trying to remain general while using

20770-624: The migration period is usually set at 568 when the Lombards invaded Italy. During this time period, numerous barbarian groups invaded the Roman Empire and established new kingdoms within its boundaries. These Germanic migrations traditionally mark the transition between antiquity and the beginning of the early Middle Ages . The reasons for the migrations of the period are unclear, but scholars have proposed overpopulation, climate change, bad harvests, famines, and adventurousness as possible reasons. Migrations were probably carried out by relatively small groups rather than entire peoples. The Greuthungi ,

20925-478: The modern natural sciences and the related decline of religion raised a series of questions, which recur throughout German philosophy, concerning the relationships between knowledge and faith, reason and emotion, and scientific, ethical, and artistic ways of seeing the world. German philosophers have helped shape western philosophy from as early as the Middle Ages ( Albertus Magnus ). Later, Leibniz (17th century) and most importantly Kant played central roles in

21080-454: The neologization, listed in decreasing order of phonetic resemblance to the original lexical item (in the source language): The following are examples of simultaneous external and internal lexical expansion using target language lexical items as the basic material for the neologization but still resembling the sound of the lexical item in the source language: Another mechanism involves generative devices that combine morphemes according to

21235-432: The period being Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach . The Nibelungenlied , whose author remains unknown, is also an important work of the epoch, as is the Thidrekssaga . The fairy tales collections collected and published by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 19th century became famous throughout the world. Theologian Luther , who translated the Bible into German, is widely credited for having set

21390-553: The pioneers of synth-pop , electro , techno , and house music . Tangerine Dream 's " Love on a Real Train " was a major influence on the development of synthwave . German popular music of the 20th and 21st centuries includes the movements of Neue Deutsche Welle ( Nena , Alphaville ), Ostrock ( City , Keimzeit ), metal / rock , punk ( Nina Hagen , Böhse Onkelz , Die Ärzte , Die Toten Hosen ), pop rock ( Beatsteaks ), indie ( Tocotronic , Blumfeld ) and hip hop ( Die Fantastischen Vier , Deichkind ). A global trendsetter

21545-453: The possibility of fully integrating this region into the empire. Rome launched successful campaigns across the Rhine between 14 and 16 CE under Tiberius and Germanicus, but the effort of integrating Germania now seemed to outweigh its benefits. In the reign of Augustus's successor, Tiberius, it became state policy to expand the empire no further than the frontier based roughly upon the Rhine and Danube, recommendations that were specified in

21700-401: The province. Despite the peace, the Suevi expanded their territory by conquering Mérida in 439 and Seville in 441. By 440, Attila and the Huns had come to rule a multi-ethnic empire north of the Danube; two of the most important peoples within this empire were the Gepids and the Goths. The Gepid king Ardaric came to power around 440 and participated in various Hunnic campaigns. In 450,

21855-444: The term Germanic due to its broad recognizability. Archaeologist Heiko Steuer defines his own work on the Germani in geographical terms (covering Germania ), rather than in ethnic terms. He nevertheless argues for some sense of shared identity between the Germani , noting the use of a common language, a common runic script , various common objects of material culture such as bracteates and gullgubber (small gold objects) and

22010-421: The territory of the Western Roman empire itself. Over time, the Franks became the most powerful of them, conquering many of the others. Eventually, the Frankish king Charlemagne claimed the title of Holy Roman Emperor for himself in 800. Archaeological finds suggest that Roman-era sources portrayed the Germanic way of life as more primitive than it actually was. Instead, archaeologists have unveiled evidence of

22165-514: The transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music. Also, Germans developed many Lutheran chorales and hymns . Other composers of the Austro -German tradition who achieved international fame include Brahms , Wagner , Haydn , Johann Pachelbel , Schubert , Händel , Schumann , Mendelssohn Bartholdy , Johann Strauss II , Bruckner , Mahler , Telemann , Richard Strauss , Schoenberg , Orff , and most recently, Henze , Lachenmann , and Stockhausen . Germany

22320-410: The tribal names in Tacitus's account and the name of Mannus himself suggest that the descent from Mannus was an authentic Germanic tradition. All Germanic languages derive from the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE), which is generally thought to have been spoken between 4500 and 2500 BCE. The ancestor of Germanic languages is referred to as Proto- or Common Germanic , and likely represented

22475-595: The upper Rhine and are mentioned in Roman sources from the third century onward. The Goths begin to be mentioned along the lower Danube, where they attacked the city of Histria in 238. The Franks are first mentioned occupying territory between the Rhine and Weser. The Lombards seem to have moved their center of power to the central Elbe. Groups such as the Alamanni, Goths, and Franks were not unified polities; they formed multiple, loosely associated groups, who often fought each other and some of whom sought Roman friendship. The Romans also begin to mention seaborne attacks by

22630-463: The very early years of the medium with the work of Max Skladanowsky . It was particularly influential during the years of the Weimar Republic with German expressionists such as Robert Wiene and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau . Austrian-based director Fritz Lang , who became a German citizen in 1926 and whose career flourished in the pre-war German film industry, is said to have been a major influence on Hollywood cinema. His silent movie Metropolis (1927)

22785-400: The war by 180, through a combination of Roman military victories, the resettling of some peoples on Roman territory, and by making alliances with others. Marcus Aurelius's successor Commodus chose not to permanently occupy any territory conquered north of the Danube, and the following decades saw an increase in the defenses at the limes . The Romans renewed their right to choose the kings of

22940-423: The will of Augustus and read aloud by Tiberius himself. Roman intervention in Germania led to a shifting and unstable political situation, in which pro- and anti-Roman parties vied for power. Arminius was murdered in 21 CE by his fellow Germanic tribesmen, due in part to these tensions and for his attempt to claim supreme kingly power for himself. In the wake of Arminius's death, Roman diplomats sought to keep

23095-462: The word sapo ('hair dye') is certainly borrowed from Proto-Germanic * saipwōn- (English soap ) , as evidenced by the parallel Finnish loanword saipio . The name of the framea , described by Tacitus as a short spear carried by Germanic warriors, most likely derives from the compound * fram-ij-an- ('forward-going one'), as suggested by comparable semantical structures found in early runes (e.g., raun-ij-az 'tester', on

23250-443: The work of the "Toronto School" around Walter Goffart , various scholars have denied that anything such as a common Germanic ethnic identity ever existed. Such scholars argue that most ideas about Germanic culture are taken from far later epochs and projected backwards to antiquity. Historians of the Vienna School, such as Walter Pohl , have also called for the term to be avoided or used with careful explanation, and argued that there

23405-506: The world and a centre for international film production. Germany's television market is the largest in Europe, with 34,000,000 TV households. The many regional and national public broadcasters are organised in line with the federal political structure. Around 90% of German households have cable or satellite TV, and viewers can choose from a variety of free-to-view public and commercial channels. Pay-TV services have not become popular or successful while public TV broadcasters ZDF and ARD offer

23560-423: The years after 270, after a Roman victory in which the Gothic king Cannabaudes was killed. The Roman limes largely collapsed in 259/260, during the Crisis of the Third Century (235–284), and Germanic raids penetrated as far as northern Italy. The limes on the Rhine and upper Danube was brought under control again in 270s, and by 300 the Romans had reestablished control over areas they had abandoned during

23715-423: Was a characteristic, but not defining feature of the Germanic peoples. Many of the ascribed ethnic characteristics of the Germani represented them as typically "barbarian", including the possession of stereotypical vices such as "wildness" and of virtues such as chastity. Tacitus was at times unsure whether a people were Germanic or not. He expressed uncertainty about the Peucini , who he says spoke and lived like

23870-462: Was able to show strength by having a Roman fleet enter the Elbe and meet the legions in the heart of Germania . Once Tiberius subdued the Germanic people between the Rhine and the Elbe, the region at least up to Weser —and possibly up to the Elbe —was made the Roman province Germania and provided soldiers to the Roman army. However, within this period two Germanic kings formed larger alliances. Both of them had spent some of their youth in Rome;

24025-615: Was also the origin of many mystics , including Meister Eckhart , Rudolf Steiner , and Jakob Boehme ; and of Pope Benedict XVI . Germany has been the home of many famous inventors and engineers , such as Johannes Gutenberg , who is credited with the invention of movable type printing in Europe; Hans Geiger , the creator of the Geiger counter ; and Konrad Zuse , who built the first computer. German inventors, engineers and industrialists such as Zeppelin , Daimler , Diesel , Otto , Wankel , von Braun and Benz helped shape modern automotive and air transportation technology including

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