Something you might look into if you’re wanting to make a “language explain” series: I once read about a man who was commissioned by the king of England to make a proper speech and writing guide to standardize English; the problem was that he thought Latin was the best language and English should just be Latin but with English vocabulary... and apparently thanks to him we got things like “Him and I” instead of “Me and him” even though either should technically be correct in English, but because that’s how Latin did, that’s how he said we should... (Also, sorry that this was kind long and rambling, if I can find the book I read or other info, I’ll post it as a reply)
Non German speakers are always amazed, when I tell them, that nobody speaks [Standard] German naturally. It is a language we all have to learn in school.
Edward J. Cunningham “Although it is possible something happened in 1871” *Wilhelm I was crowned Kaiser of a newly united Germany in the Hall of Mirrors*
There is actually a movement quite similar to what Luther did called "Interslavic", which aims to make a language based on the slavic languages than all slavic speakers can understand. There is also a similar movement with all the germanic languages (not just german, but english, dutch, swedish and so on too) called "Folkspraak". It's some really interesting stuff if you're into linguistics and I highly recommend looking into it.
I've heard of a similar concept for the native South African languages brought up before. Very interesting concept. I think Interslavic would be a great thing for the former-Yugoslav area
Joshua Rafaeil Yugoslavia had already a united language. Serbian bosnian croatian and montenegrin are the same languages called serbo-croatian. Only macedonian and slovenian weren’t in this group and even they were very close to SC
The th in Martin Luther is not pronounced like an English th but like a t. I just wanted to explain his name since the channel is called Name Explained. Okaybye.
Well, yes, in German it is pronounced Luter, great. But famous names often have alternate forms in other languages; from ancient Greeks to Genghis Khan. It's not wrong to call Ghengis Khan 'Gengis Kaan' in English because that's how we have called them. Likewise, Luther is pronounced "Luther" in english when in regard to this specific person.
More like he translated the bible into his own dialect of German(Upper Saxony dialect) which popularized the dialect as there was no other German translation of the bible. Knowledge of that dialect grew and people started using it to communicate with Germans from other parts of Central Europe until it became the lingua franca of the region.
German was a language back then, but there was no standard version of it. The language was made up of several dialects, that can be categorised into higher and lower German. It was hard to understand each other, but it still was one language. The thing Luther did was inventing a language for all germans most people could understand
Just to clear up the confusion Patrick obviously had in the video: High and Low German aren't really dialects of German like Saxon, Bavarian and so on, but rather the two big families of German languages. In Northwestern Germany (and the Netherlands for that matter), Low German (Plattdeutsch or Niederdeutsch) dialects and languages are more common, while in southeastern Germany, the High German (Hochdeutsch) dialects are more common. But nevertheless, a very interesting video. I never knew Martin Luther "created" the unified German language.
Technically, that specific German dialect Martin Luther spoke informed how he eventually wrote down his bible. German spelling was not generally standardized back then but there were different regional standards (in the mentioned upper and lower German). His bible spread so much though, the way he spelled words had an impact on what would later become standard in all of Germany. Although, it is worth noting that German still changed a lot after Luther's death. It's like modern English is not what Shakespeare wrote down.
@@nninjastrike2127 Altitude of the regions. In Germany you have flat lands, fields, swamps in the North, and hills and mountains in the South. That's also why Lower Saxony is more to the North than Saxony.
Not even 'kinda'... Luther put a lot more effort into creating a widely understood, idiomatic translation of the bible than probably anyone before him, and he deserves credit for that, but he in no way 'invented' the (modern) German language. Regional written standards (distinct from dialects) existed before Luther, and his translation is mostly based on the one used in east central Germany at the time. I am not saying his work wasn't influential for standardization, without it modern German would certainly look different (more western or southern dialect features probably), but it is hardly the one main source.
I agree. Yet his version of the bible became and remained the most common book in Germany by a very far margin for a long time and led that specific dialect to become the de facto Standard for the German language. Also judging by his own words he translated the bible from a very old (and therefor more original) greek version and not the latin one, which most priests used, but he did also use a latin version to teach himself Greek. There's also a quite intriguing story behind how he came to do all that.
No. Luther did not unify Germany and we would have found another book or something else to unify our language with. For comparison: Way less than 50% of USA-inhabitants actually stem from an English speaking country, yet they managed to pretty much all learn English. Edit: Oh wait, are you being sarcastic? Then nevermind.
@@onurbschrednei4569 Lower German is still a completely different language with different grammar and vocabulary. What Luther actually combined were high and middle German. While those two dialects gradually became more similar and merged as a result, lower German largely stayed alive and separate. For northern Germans, especially in rural regions, Standard German remained a second language that people learned to converse with outsiders (or perhaps to read the bible). My father can actually claim to have grown up bilingual as a result. Meanwhile I, who has little to no problem understanding the Bavarian dialect, can only decifer about 70% of what my father's talking about when conversing with my grandfather.
I normally wouldn't toss in my two cents like this, but as this is name explain, and I took Latin in highschool and never get a chance to use it, agricola is the Latin for farmer. It was also used as a Roman cognomen, the third name tacked on the end, e.g. Africanus, Germanicus, Felix, etc.
@@termeownator And not only in Latin, but also in Spanish "agricola" means farming or agriculture, so for me is kinda surprising finding that in a Finnish name.
@@sualtam9509 He could have been finsvensk, and not suomi (finnish as swedes call it), but he wanted the majority people of the land to get read the Bibel, like in Germania. He did invent the name Agricola, because he was farmer.
Basically Jesus said something metaphorically, some people wrote it down years after his death and translated it in a bunch of different languages. And today some people take every word absolutely literally, although the meaning could have changed dramatically. Life of Brian is a must watch movie when talking about this ;)
The different German "languages" were extremely similar and had very few differences so it wasn't as hard as combining 2 random languages he really invented standard German which combined dialectical differences
Come on, you're acting as if they're all just different dialects, when it is actually completely correct to refer to them as different languages. If they were just different dialects I, as a native German speaker, should at least be able to understand most of what is being said when my grandfather, my father and my uncles converse in Lower German. Yet, even though this has been a common occurrence over the course of my childhood, I'm still only able to decifer about 70% of what is being said at any given time. I understand Bavarian better than the language of my ancestors and it's all because of this high-and-middle-german mix we call Standard German. Lower German has different grammar and a largely different vocabulary. If this isn't a different language, we might as well refer to Spanish as an Italian dialect.
@@gutsjoestar7450 The German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) was created in 1815 and was not a nation state but rather an alliance of states without a central government. Both you and the creator of this video are mistaken.
Someone also made the Korean language. Basically the ruler realized that the language, especially wrighting, was way to complicated, especially to the poor, do he made it REALLY easy to learn, to the point were the wealthy at the time got mad because pretty much all of the poor could read and wright
Martin Luther did not invent the German language. In fact, he was proud that the language of his translation was close to the way people actually talked. (There were other German bible translations before him.) He merely played an important role in the development of a unified written German language because his writings and his Bible were so widely read.
In South Africa we have the languages Afrikaans, an Africanised Dutch including English, Malay and German influences and Fanigalo which used to be spoken in the mines, a mix of Afrikaans English and the Bantu languages to facilitate easy communication between the mine owners and managers and the miners, often migrant work from the homelands.
@@karl-oppa5261 It's most prominent in the cape but the most commonly used malay-derived word is baie, meaning 'very', derived from the malay word banyak.
There is an interesting coincidence in the fact that Michael King Sr. changed his name and his son’s to Martin Luther King. Their initials became MLK, the Roman equivalent of the spelling (consonants only) of “Melekh,” the Hebrew word for ... KING!
I love this nice change of pace. As a language nerd, I can't help but smile when I see something like this on one of my favourite channels. Keep it going.
Hochdeutsch ('Higher German') = a) "Standard German" as well as b) "'Upper German' PLUS 'Central/Middle German'" -- 'Central/Middle German' consists dialects like 'Hessian', 'Franconian', 'Upper Saxon'/'Thuringian', still being closer to 'Upper German', but showing traces of 'Low German' -- und Oberdeutsch ('Upper German') = 'Alemanic' and 'Bavarian'/'Austro-Bavarian German'.
"Some of the priests were corrupt. Their priorities were making money to build huge churches." To be friar, that's far from the worst thing a priest could spend money on.
Martin Luther did not have the Didache because the written copy of this book of Christian Tradition, which has always been honored by the Catholic Church, but was lost for hundreds of years. Consequently, Luther didn’t understand that teachings of the Church that are not found in the Bible are authentic practices of the early church.
Interestingly the Italian language was also invented in modern times to be the common language of a unified Italy. Previously it was just the Florentine dialect.
well, it was adopted as a national language in modern times but the story is similar, Dante Alighieri basically invented Italian between the 13th and 14th century
A more realistic estimate of total Esperanto speakers is around 300,000, perhaps 25,000 with a high level of proficiency, and only about 9000 who speak it completely fluently.
This pretty much highlights the fact that European nations were a collection of various minor ethnicities that happened to dwell at a place were a nation-state was born. It's not the neat little blocks that each national myth dictates they are, and that had been historically revisioned to appear. Diversity as well as minorities have been smashed by the behemoth of the nation-state.
German as a self identifying people existed before the nation state (deutsch - belonging to the people). Also germany is still exactly for that reason a federation based primarily on tribal states (though some got mixed up after ww2). In places like britain or france, which have a historical and ongoing centralization on their capital i can see your point to some degree, however germany is in my opinion, as a german who identifies first as a ripuarian, the exact counter example of your thesis. The drive for an united germany came from the people, not the governments of the time and our parliament is not for no reason called the federation's Thing.
Two people who are very alike can live on each side of a border and be forced into thinking they're wildly different because of their nationality. Also, borders are a rather arbitrary product of centuries of wars. To me, this ongoing project of de-emphasising borders within the European Union is a great accomplishment.
Actually, esperanto was meant to be a lingua franca in Europe across various language borders, it did succeed for a while until English became more popular and esperanto's purpose had been fulfilled by the English language
As a Jews, I want to hate Luther for possibly inventing modern anti-Semitism, but I DEEPLY respect his extraordinary bravery and intellectual brilliance.
He was antijudaic as everyone back then. Modern Antisemitism originates from the emancipation of Jews since the French Revolution and the reaction. The opponents of emancipation in the French National Assembly argued that Judaism were no religion but a nation. Add (then) modern (scientific) racism and modern Antisemitism was born. That was way after Luther. But I don't see any reason to make a big difference between Antijudaism and Antisemitism concerning who supported it. Who supported religious Antijudaism in the first half of the 19th c. also supported modern Antisemitism in the second half of the 19th c.. Because religion got antiquated patriotic motives became predominant. But the Antisemitic party was notoriously ineffective before WW1. After that many conservative but liberal minded people got distrustful. Many business men and people of the learned professions became extremely hostile against Jews. But Jewish physicians, lawyers and professionals didn't lose their clients and customers. Even SA men threatening customers didn't accomplish liquidation of Jewish businesses. The Nazi boycott was no success. The Police, SD and similar reports of the 30s were almost defeatist about the lack of hostility of the majority of Germans against Jews. That's often not correctly represented by historians despite clear evidence. My late father owes his life to a Jewish physician. He survived pneumonia when he was a toddler. Thank god the physician seems to have emigrated at the end of the 30s.
First was Indo-Germanic. Proto-Germanic evolved from that which ultimately developed into West and North Germanic dialects. The continental West Germanic dialects formed a continuum as the modern Dutch and German dialects also constitute. But mutual intelligibility was lost at the end of the Early Medieval Period. All these continental West Germanic dialects and their speakers acquired a name, derived from Theodisk (theod =people, theodisk = by the (Germanic) people). English "Dutch" and German "Deutsch" evolved from Theodisk. Dutch, German and Almain (from French Allemand = German) meant the same before the 19th c.. Out of the many dialects a number of chancery languages evolved. But written communication required much improvisation, like applying the High German Consonant Shift in case people in the Netherlands, Rhineland or North Germany wanted to send a letter to a High German addressee but didn't master the right High German chancery language. Luther tried to invent a chancery language which was intelligible to the largest number of people. He based it on the most prestigious 15th c. High German chancery language, "Gemain Teutsch" (Common German), used by the Imperial Chancery in Vienna. But he modified its Austro-Bavarian by East Franconian and by East Central German (Upper Saxon) vernacular and minor additions from other High and Low German/Dutch varieties. Luther applied the new compound "High German" (Hochdeutsch) for translating the Bible which promoted it greatly. But only in the middle of the 18th c. Hochdeutsch got established as the sole literate language everywhere except in the Low Countries (Netherlands and Flemish Belgium) where Nederduits (Low German)/Nederlands Duits (Lowland's German) got the literate language. From original Hochdeutsch modern Standard German (Standard-, Hoch-, Schriftdeutsch) evolved. People learned writing in Hochdeutsch in school but spoke their respective High or Low German dialect for communicating with each other until the middle of the 20th c..
Brilliant stuff! Also as a quick tip for a video, there was a finnish guy named Mikael Agricola, who was basically the same as Luther, but for finnish ;)
I think many European languages went through such a proces. My native language Dutch was also standardized by a Bible translation (though this was done by a state appointed committee) called the Statenvertaling (the States translation). It was also based on the different (Frankish) languages, mostly on the dialect which was spoken in Antwerp at the time. This standardized Dutch became so important that it influenced the Low Saxon dialects of the east in such a way that they have changed into Dutch dialects, rather than Low Saxon ones. Only Frisian survived as a non-Dutch language in the Netherlands, though Low Saxon is gaining some recognition now.
Things you learn in 7th or 8th grade protestant religion class in Germany. Some things also earlier or later and also in history or german class Fun Fact: there's a Playmobil Luther figurine and every protestant teacher or pastor I know owns one. Also I know three different guys whose fathers are pastors. And I've also heard the question "catholic or protestant?" after the revalaton of this information. Admittedly there was alcohol involved but still kinda funny imo
I guess everyone who's standardized a language's various dialects into one unified 'standard language', can be considered an inventor of a language. it's happened in almost every country and their major languages i guess.
@@arcni1213 Yes I know, and I also know that at the time of French Revolution, the language we call French wasn't widespread across South of France (Occitania, Acquitaine) too. Is that correct?
@@arcni1213 yes, i understand. it is similar to the Punjabi language in Pakistan, which contains "dialects" that are actually their own languages with their own histories, with similarities with bordering tongues as well.
Wait... Metaxas? Didn't he write a biography of Maximilian Kolbe so flawed and ahistorical that it's impossible to finish a page without hitting an error? His name sounds so familiar.
I’m pretty sure the indulgences weren’t meant to just get paid to go to heaven. They were honors given to people who donated huge sums to charity because they were deemed to be acts God would be pleased with. I don’t think they straight out said “give me money and go to heaven”
I mean, that would be cool if they only gave the sales pitch to rich people, but they definitely gave the sales pitch to poor people too, and those poor people paid out what was literally like 3 YEARS' wages for them.
Something you might look into if you’re wanting to make a “language explain” series: I once read about a man who was commissioned by the king of England to make a proper speech and writing guide to standardize English; the problem was that he thought Latin was the best language and English should just be Latin but with English vocabulary... and apparently thanks to him we got things like “Him and I” instead of “Me and him” even though either should technically be correct in English, but because that’s how Latin did, that’s how he said we should... (Also, sorry that this was kind long and rambling, if I can find the book I read or other info, I’ll post it as a reply)
That's also why it's "bad grammar" to end a sentence with a preposition, which (to paraphrase Winston Churchill) is an absurdity up with which I will not put!
if this becomes a series, could you do Italian the story is pretty similar, but Dante made it because he wanted to be respected by the intellectuals of the time even if he wrote in a common language (well, not really common, more like language of the educated people that didn't speak Latin) my native language was basically made to write poems and this one book
Awesome video! I feel the need to point out, though, that Luther did not teach that God should not be feared, and that although Sola Fide does mean "faith alone," it is a statement that needs to be made in the context of salvation. That said, great job on this video, mate! I definitely learned a thing or two.
Upper and lower german are not languages per se, but more like dialect families. Upper German is being spoken in the Upper (higher regions) of Germany so, the south of germany austrai and switzerland, while lower German is (though in much reduced number nowadays) spoken in the northern parts. Lower German is actually closer related to Dutch than to upper or standard German.
The roots of German were already there. I used German as my language for my Ph. D. in English, and then I took Old English (West Saxon dialect) for a linguistic course. If I didn't know what a word was, I guessed it's German meaning, and I was right 95 percent of the time. My prof also took me to task for pronouncing Old English with a German accent, to which I replied, "So how does anyone know what Old English sounded like?"
7:50 No, in 1817 Germany just started to be like that, Germany as a State didn't exist until 1871 with the German Empire, before 1815 Germany was part of the Holy Roman Empire!
The Germans and everyone else knew that the Germans (actually the warrior aristocracy) were the masters of the Holy Roman Empire. It's true that the centralized nation state (in Germany not much centralized) came late to Germany. Mostly because of the rivalries of the medieval warrior aristocracy, especially the princes, the territorial lords.
An indulgence is not actually the remission of sins, but the remission of temporal punishment due to sins. And they can only be granted after the sins have already forgiven.
as i understand it, he did not make some sort of amalgamation of german dialects for his translation. rather, he translated the bible into the saxon dialect, with the addition of glosses for various german dialects. in his own words, albeit translated to english: "i use the common german tongue in order that both north germans and south germans may understand me. i speak according to the saxon chancery which is followed by all princes and kings in germany." in this way, he did not invent the standard german that you reference, but he certainly popularized it beyond courts and legal documents. my source: archive.org/details/historyofgermanl00supeiala/page/78. please cite your sources.
Modern Hebrew has a similar origin story - it was pieces together by Yehuda Ben Eliezer from ancient Hebrew and made accessible to the early Jewish settlers of Palestine.
Perhaps as one of the most famous examples of modern languages being created, I’d be interested in your analysis of both modern Hebrew (and if you have the time, also MSA (Modern Standard Arabic))
you totaly overrate luther and his influence on the german language... What you mean with german is just early new high german, which is little more then a dialect, and is 100 years older then luther. Luther just spread it, he invented nothing and german still isn't a single language, there are still tons of dialects, like bavarian or saxon or high german
One other thing about Martin Luther is that his Bible, is that although the German he used wasn't exactly the same German spoken by the parts of Switzerland that speak dialects of German, it became the basis for the written language that they use. This is why Swiss films are shown with German subtitles in Germany, even if they're filmed in the German-speaking areas of Switzerland, because the spoken dialect is actually quite different from standard German. I've seen something similar in some British films like "Trainspotting" set in Scotland where at times the Scottish accent is so thick you really do need to read English subtitles to figure out what's going on.
Originally the German literate language/German dialect diglossia was everywhere, not just in Switzerland. But the diglossia speaking vs writing remained there to date but underwent a shift to Standard German as written and spoken language expecially in North Germany, but also in South Germany and Austria.
This is totally cool! Now do a video about how what we think of as Italian is basically just the dialect of Florentine that Dante spoke/wrote The Divine Comedy in!
Here's Three examples of Purgatory in the Bible: And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come (Matthew 12:32). Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison; truly I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny (Matthew 5:25-26). I Corinthians 3:11-15 may well be the most straightforward text in all of Sacred Scripture when it comes to Purgatory: For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble-each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
He didn't really used parts of every language in Germany he used simply his spoken language in Saxony for us Bavarians and the Northgermans it was difficult to understand because of the extrem differences at pronunciation and grammar the most people been forced to learn Saxon to understand the meaning in his translation and translate it to the comun toung in the areas
I have to correct two misconceptions: 1) The German states fully united in 1871, but that doesn’t mean they were fully independent before that. The truth was more complicated. 2) Don’t use Germanic and German as synonyms. One could argue that German wasn’t one language before Martin Luther, but his undertaking would have been hopeless, had the German languages not been more closely related with each other than e.g. with English or Swedish.
Great insight into Martin Luther's pivotal role in shaping the German language and his profound impact on Christianity. The link between language, religion, and historical context was brilliantly explored. Kudos!
A couple of corrections is that Martin Luther didn’t think that faith was the only thing that mattered, but only that justification was through faith alone. Obviously there were commandments given by Jesus that mattered a whole lot to Martin Luther, but he just didn’t think that you were justified in the eyes of God through anything but faith. Another thing is that he didn’t believe that Church teachings were only valid if they are found in the Bible, only that the Bible is the final authority when it comes to disputes concerning doctrine.
Seems the author has never heard about the German realms preceding the unified German state called German Reich (Deutsches Reich): East Frankish Kingdom (Regnum Francorum Orientalium), German Kingdom (Regnum Teutonicum), Holy Roman Empire (Sacrum Imperium Romanum) and German Confederation (Deutscher Bund). The continental West Germanic varieties were already called "Diutisk" since the late early medieval period. From that comes "Deutsch". That should not be confused with Standard German (Hochdeutsch) that made it as the literate language of the countries nowadays called German speaking. The other literate language is Dutch. The first is based on High German or the "German of the Up/Highlands", the second on the "German of the Lowlands", but on West Low Franconian, Dutch varieties (Netherlandish), but not on East Low Franconian and Low Saxon.
Basically, Martin Luther just translated the Bible into German without all the different dialects of German at the time. It's like not using dialects today in an English translation of the Bible. Everyone understands it.
Luther is an old norse slave name. You can find it in the icelandic poem: Rigs maal, spelled Lutr. There are many funny things in that poem. The name is also part of place names like Luton in England (I guess), and Lyderslev in Denmark.
@@waltergro9102 Yes, I know that. The name was originally Luder, but it is still the same. In Denmark we have a town called Lyderslev, and it comes from the name Liuthar, which I think is the same as Lutr.
These videos always collect the general knowledge on a subject without examining it critically and therefor perpetuate misonceptions. For example there had been already 14 printed translations of the bible into German before Martin Luther's. The first hand-written translations date back to the 9th century that makes 70 translations total.
8:52 Slight mistake: Germanic ≠ German Germanic is the language familiy German, English and some other languages belong to while German (as a group) is the umbrella for German dialects like the dialects spoken in Switzerland, in Austria and Germany and of course Standard German as itself.
When I first read about Martin Luther in English, I was so confused. I had never noticed Martin Luther and Martin Luther King had the same name, because in Portuguese we call the German Martin Luther "Martinho Lutero".
Klingon was actually crated by several fans who got together and sat down one day and thought about what all the crazy gibber gabber gibberish in star trek that was supposedly, "klingon" actually meant. Sorry to say the writers of star trek didn't actually know what anything they said would mean. They only have generic ideas, or vague impressions of what the things said in the language meant. It was the fans who fully fleshed out the language. Just thought i should mention that. :)
Love your content. Just popping in to say that there were in fact many versions of the Bible in German languages published before Luther. If you google that," German Bibles before Luther" you can find examples going back to the 1400s (the earliest I saw printed 1466) and obviously some before that which were hand copied as texts were in Europe before the printing press was popularized. For example, Charlemagne popularized translating the Bible into local languages in his kingdom, and even before that their was a Gothic translation in the 4th century. The idea that the Bible should be in languages other than Latin was certainly not new. What was new was the idea that the Bible needed to be the sole authority in the life of the Christian.
Some French monks when they decided to standardise and modify (Sometimes erroneously) the spellings of words to better reflect their etymology. It's also what made French so unphonetic
Great video, it's always interesting to know just how many modern things have come to exist because of religion. I mean, it's hard to be critical of ML and the movement he inspired, since there was an obvious moral corruption on the part of the institutions at the time (probably still remain to the present). About other thing, it was curious to me just how relevant it was to adhere to the holy writings for ML, according to the video. Yet, it seemed necessary/useful for him to simplify it and make use of common sayings, etc. Which helped the regular folk come closer not only to religious teaching, but to literacy and together among themselves, as a nation.
William Morgan did a similar thing for the Welsh language. His translation of the Bible into Welsh is the basis for the modern Literary register of Welsh. The problem, however, is that Literary Welsh is not (and has never been) anyone's first-language nor does it represent any version of spoken Welsh. A very simple example: Yr ydwyf yn myned i Gymru. A wyt yn dyfod? (Literary) Dw i'n mynd i Gymru. Ti'n dod? (Spoken) I'm going to Wales. Are you coming? This has led to there being two Welsh languages and a state of affairs where a first-language Welsh speaker may not actually be able to understand Welsh books, poetry, etc. due to being written in what is essentially a conlang.
Nobody knows, the word "German" comes from Latin "Germania", which was the name of the region the old Germanic tribes lived. It's possible that the word has celtic origins. The germans themselves don't call their land germany, rather they call it Deutschland, which means land of the people. This word has the same origin of the word "dutch" and old english used to have a cognate with this word "þeodisc"
IrgendWer actually it comes from the Romans, Ancient Rome to be exact, who called the place Germania (the G sounding as a normal G, not a J sound). And, it meant "foreigner." It referred to the people of "that" area and not just "Germany" itself. The good news here is that we both are right. We should get some prize money from this.
"If that's okay with everyone." It doesn't matter if it's okay. You don't need our permission to do what you want with your channel. It is your channel. You make great, interesting content. I. for one, will watch whatever you do, so long as your content remains ethical and legal.
Another nitpick: The map at 5:45 showing Germany and Italy as separate countries isn't correct, at Luther's lifetime Northern Italy (and Switzerland, and Austria, and the Netherlands and Belgium, and Bohemia etc), was part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation
Go to www.audible.com/nameexplain or text nameexplain to 500500 to get a free Audiobook, 2 free Audible Originals, and a 30-day free trial.
I dunno why you keep referencing esperanto when interslavic is a far better analogy.
You should read some of Martin's letters. The boy had a mouth on him.
Nice video, very interesting concept, it's kind of similar to what happened to italian whit dante alighieri
Something you might look into if you’re wanting to make a “language explain” series:
I once read about a man who was commissioned by the king of England to make a proper speech and writing guide to standardize English; the problem was that he thought Latin was the best language and English should just be Latin but with English vocabulary... and apparently thanks to him we got things like “Him and I” instead of “Me and him” even though either should technically be correct in English, but because that’s how Latin did, that’s how he said we should...
(Also, sorry that this was kind long and rambling, if I can find the book I read or other info, I’ll post it as a reply)
The Slovak language was invented similarly to German.
"The Man Who Invented [Standard] German"
Everyone Knows John H. German invented Germany and it language. If you clicked on this it was your fault
@@AWormsPurpose Exactly!
Lol
Non German speakers are always amazed, when I tell them, that nobody speaks [Standard] German naturally. It is a language we all have to learn in school.
@@zlate42 Actually people from Hannover more or less do
1871, not 1817, in 1817, Germany was still very much divided
Thanks Napoleon
Maybe he's talking about the German Confederation/Deutscher Bund. That was pretty much the start (mostly) voluntary German unification.
@@erraticonteuse It was created in 1815 and didn't really work like a nationstate
Although it's possible something happened in 1871, it's more likely he got the numbers switched. Thanks!
Edward J. Cunningham “Although it is possible something happened in 1871” *Wilhelm I was crowned Kaiser of a newly united Germany in the Hall of Mirrors*
I invented the Korean language among with other things
Not really. You are not born 1000 years ago
@@iamgone8479
r/woosh
@@averyuncreativeperson1573 i am tired of people wooshing, but what does this mean? And Kim has not invented Korean. He is born late
@@iamgone8479
I... I genuinely can't tell if this is a joke or you're being serious
A Very Uncreative Person oh boy we got an uncultured swine on our hands
There is actually a movement quite similar to what Luther did called "Interslavic", which aims to make a language based on the slavic languages than all slavic speakers can understand. There is also a similar movement with all the germanic languages (not just german, but english, dutch, swedish and so on too) called "Folkspraak". It's some really interesting stuff if you're into linguistics and I highly recommend looking into it.
I've heard of a similar concept for the native South African languages brought up before. Very interesting concept. I think Interslavic would be a great thing for the former-Yugoslav area
Joshua Rafaeil Yugoslavia had already a united language. Serbian bosnian croatian and montenegrin are the same languages called serbo-croatian. Only macedonian and slovenian weren’t in this group and even they were very close to SC
Google Esperanto
@King of Kings & Ruler of Rulers yeah but two of the yugo-states didn't speak it as a native language
Yeah interslavic is great. As someone that speaks one of the more divergentish Slavic tongues I can say it's almost completely understandable.
The th in Martin Luther is not pronounced like an English th but like a t. I just wanted to explain his name since the channel is called Name Explained. Okaybye.
That actually makes a lot of sense. German lost the dental fricative.
Well, yes, in German it is pronounced Luter, great.
But famous names often have alternate forms in other languages; from ancient Greeks to Genghis Khan. It's not wrong to call Ghengis Khan 'Gengis Kaan' in English because that's how we have called them.
Likewise, Luther is pronounced "Luther" in english when in regard to this specific person.
In English it’s pronounced as in “thumb”.
kokofan50 so it just kinda morphed into the dental plosive?
Calum Champion : I am german and i speak the name Lutter.
He didn’t „invented“ german, he standardized it.
He created the standard german language
No he invented the language in the 16 century
More like he translated the bible into his own dialect of German(Upper Saxony dialect) which popularized the dialect as there was no other German translation of the bible. Knowledge of that dialect grew and people started using it to communicate with Germans from other parts of Central Europe until it became the lingua franca of the region.
“Invent” 😛
The Grimm brothers also helped in unifying the language with their collection of old folk tales
Also they started to write the first dictonary.
„Wenn der Groschen im Kasten klingt, die Seele aus dem Fegefeuer springt“ Indulgence trade in a nutshell 😉
Cheers from Germany 👍🇩🇪
Cheers my German friend
Bist du Protestant?
German was a language back then, but there was no standard version of it. The language was made up of several dialects, that can be categorised into higher and lower German. It was hard to understand each other, but it still was one language. The thing Luther did was inventing a language for all germans most people could understand
Most of those dialects, with some changes of course, still exist.
There are, however, fewer speakers all the time.
I think it was for the best, honestly.
What about Finnish? It is basically the same thing as German and was "created" by Mikael Agricola (who actually was Luther's student).
@@jorgen1990
How so?
@@jorgen1990 Ei, sinä
Is It Basically The Same Thing As German Though?
@@rateeightx I meant that literal Finnish was created the same way basically.
@@rateeightx No. Not at all. Finnish is not even similar to the norse languages because Finnish is not a Germanic language.
Just to clear up the confusion Patrick obviously had in the video: High and Low German aren't really dialects of German like Saxon, Bavarian and so on, but rather the two big families of German languages. In Northwestern Germany (and the Netherlands for that matter), Low German (Plattdeutsch or Niederdeutsch) dialects and languages are more common, while in southeastern Germany, the High German (Hochdeutsch) dialects are more common.
But nevertheless, a very interesting video. I never knew Martin Luther "created" the unified German language.
He didn´t. He did play a very important role in shaping and unifying it, but Patrick exaggerated it a lot.
Technically, that specific German dialect Martin Luther spoke informed how he eventually wrote down his bible. German spelling was not generally standardized back then but there were different regional standards (in the mentioned upper and lower German). His bible spread so much though, the way he spelled words had an impact on what would later become standard in all of Germany. Although, it is worth noting that German still changed a lot after Luther's death. It's like modern English is not what Shakespeare wrote down.
@@elonmush4793 I like that comparison. Martin Luther is to German as Shakespeare is to English.
Why is it called high/low German?
@@nninjastrike2127 Altitude of the regions. In Germany you have flat lands, fields, swamps in the North, and hills and mountains in the South. That's also why Lower Saxony is more to the North than Saxony.
"Martin Luther hate grammar rhetoric and logic..." It's like finding out Tiger Woods hated golfing.
Catholic church: *exists
Martin Luther: I'm about to end this man's whole career
While 80 million Lutherans is impressive, 1200 million Roman Catholics doesn't look like he ended anything.
@@johnkilmartin5101 It was a joke
@@scrambled5948 Better Joke:
Lutherans: "Faith alone."
St. James the Lesser: I'm about to end this man's whole career.
@@johnkilmartin5101 yeah luckily
@@KIJIKLIPS Well it did spawn the Jesuits in response.
Not even 'kinda'...
Luther put a lot more effort into creating a widely understood, idiomatic translation of the bible than probably anyone before him, and he deserves credit for that, but he in no way 'invented' the (modern) German language.
Regional written standards (distinct from dialects) existed before Luther, and his translation is mostly based on the one used in east central Germany at the time. I am not saying his work wasn't influential for standardization, without it modern German would certainly look different (more western or southern dialect features probably), but it is hardly the one main source.
I totally agree. It's like saying Shakespeare invented English...
I agree. Yet his version of the bible became and remained the most common book in Germany by a very far margin for a long time and led that specific dialect to become the de facto Standard for the German language.
Also judging by his own words he translated the bible from a very old (and therefor more original) greek version and not the latin one, which most priests used, but he did also use a latin version to teach himself Greek.
There's also a quite intriguing story behind how he came to do all that.
I can imagine that if it werent for Luther, Low German and High German would be two different languages (and two different countries?) nowadays.
No. Luther did not unify Germany and we would have found another book or something else to unify our language with. For comparison: Way less than 50% of USA-inhabitants actually stem from an English speaking country, yet they managed to pretty much all learn English.
Edit: Oh wait, are you being sarcastic? Then nevermind.
@@onurbschrednei4569 Lower German is still a completely different language with different grammar and vocabulary. What Luther actually combined were high and middle German.
While those two dialects gradually became more similar and merged as a result, lower German largely stayed alive and separate. For northern Germans, especially in rural regions, Standard German remained a second language that people learned to converse with outsiders (or perhaps to read the bible).
My father can actually claim to have grown up bilingual as a result.
Meanwhile I, who has little to no problem understanding the Bavarian dialect, can only decifer about 70% of what my father's talking about when conversing with my grandfather.
Mikael Agricola translated the Bible into Finnish and he played a big part in creating the written language for Finnish
I normally wouldn't toss in my two cents like this, but as this is name explain, and I took Latin in highschool and never get a chance to use it, agricola is the Latin for farmer. It was also used as a Roman cognomen, the third name tacked on the end, e.g. Africanus, Germanicus, Felix, etc.
@@termeownator And not only in Latin, but also in Spanish "agricola" means farming or agriculture, so for me is kinda surprising finding that in a Finnish name.
@@EduardoEscarez In that time people would translate their names to Latin. His real name would be farmer in Finnish or something.
@@sualtam9509 He could have been finsvensk, and not suomi (finnish as swedes call it), but he wanted the majority people of the land to get read the Bibel, like in Germania. He did invent the name Agricola, because he was farmer.
Agricola is Latin for farmer. The German equivalent is Bauer. Which was Agricola’s real name.
"the only words from God are the ones in the bible"... "this isn't a word-for-word translation of the bible"
Luther wasn't the most coherent lad ever
Your move Protestants.
Basically Jesus said something metaphorically, some people wrote it down years after his death and translated it in a bunch of different languages. And today some people take every word absolutely literally, although the meaning could have changed dramatically. Life of Brian is a must watch movie when talking about this ;)
@@elonmush4793 And this is why Catholics just have the Latin Gospel translated for us by St. Jerome. Prevents mis-translations.
Umm, didn't they write everything in Old Greek and Aramaic and then translate it to Latin? This doesn't prevent mis-translations at all.
The different German "languages" were extremely similar and had very few differences so it wasn't as hard as combining 2 random languages he really invented standard German which combined dialectical differences
Come on, you're acting as if they're all just different dialects, when it is actually completely correct to refer to them as different languages.
If they were just different dialects I, as a native German speaker, should at least be able to understand most of what is being said when my grandfather, my father and my uncles converse in Lower German.
Yet, even though this has been a common occurrence over the course of my childhood, I'm still only able to decifer about 70% of what is being said at any given time.
I understand Bavarian better than the language of my ancestors and it's all because of this high-and-middle-german mix we call Standard German.
Lower German has different grammar and a largely different vocabulary.
If this isn't a different language, we might as well refer to Spanish as an Italian dialect.
@@lube6966 yeah I agree idk what 1 year ago me was on
Not to be a jerk but I think you meant 1871 Germany became a nation
no, he mean 1817
go learn history
german confederation was created i 1817
@@gutsjoestar7450 The German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) was created in 1815 and was not a nation state but rather an alliance of states without a central government. Both you and the creator of this video are mistaken.
"apple"
"pomme"
*800 years of war. Humans are great
Reddit joke
"persil"
"perejil"
Haiti vs. Dominican Republic
Arian extra white!
No grandpa it's Ariel! XD
wow, such an original and informative comment. Humans are great
As a Protestant, honestly so much more respect for him now than I had before, and there was plenty before. Ugh such an inspiration.
I'm also proud of the what the white race accomplished.
Someone also made the Korean language.
Basically the ruler realized that the language, especially wrighting, was way to complicated, especially to the poor, do he made it REALLY easy to learn, to the point were the wealthy at the time got mad because pretty much all of the poor could read and wright
Martin Luther did not invent the German language. In fact, he was proud that the language of his translation was close to the way people actually talked. (There were other German bible translations before him.) He merely played an important role in the development of a unified written German language because his writings and his Bible were so widely read.
In South Africa we have the languages Afrikaans, an Africanised Dutch including English, Malay and German influences and Fanigalo which used to be spoken in the mines, a mix of Afrikaans English and the Bantu languages to facilitate easy communication between the mine owners and managers and the miners, often migrant work from the homelands.
Michael Meyer-Palmer
woahh malay??? now i'm intrigued!!! tell me more hahahahaha
@@karl-oppa5261 It's most prominent in the cape but the most commonly used malay-derived word is baie, meaning 'very', derived from the malay word banyak.
Michael Meyer-Palmer
hahahaha thanks !!!
There is an interesting coincidence in the fact that Michael King Sr. changed his name and his son’s to Martin Luther King. Their initials became MLK, the Roman equivalent of the spelling (consonants only) of “Melekh,” the Hebrew word for ...
KING!
aha I'd never thought about that, even if it's not a perfect equivalent of מלך, what a cool coincidence!
Its also "Malik" in Arabic means king
brrr uuuh Yes, Hebrew and Arabic are related members of the Semitic family, like English and German!
Shalom and Salaam!
I love this nice change of pace. As a language nerd, I can't help but smile when I see something like this on one of my favourite channels. Keep it going.
9:33 Um. Higher German and Upper German? 🤔🤔
Hochdeutsch ('Higher German')
= a) "Standard German" as well as
b) "'Upper German' PLUS 'Central/Middle German'"
-- 'Central/Middle German' consists dialects like 'Hessian', 'Franconian', 'Upper Saxon'/'Thuringian', still being closer to 'Upper German', but showing traces of 'Low German' --
und
Oberdeutsch ('Upper German')
= 'Alemanic' and 'Bavarian'/'Austro-Bavarian German'.
@@patrickpleil223 High German, yes. Higher German? No.
@@patrickpleil223 upper Saxon have no relation to lower Saxons. The upper Saxons got their name from a dynastic shift.
@@SeBi-lv3de ?
Which of these would fit better to the name "High German", a Dutchman or an Austrian?
"Some of the priests were corrupt. Their priorities were making money to build huge churches."
To be friar, that's far from the worst thing a priest could spend money on.
Name Explain: "Hey, sorry, I am not gonna talk about names, but German in this vid. Anyway, lemme explain where this name came from." 😂😂
Martin Luther did not have the Didache because the written copy of this book of Christian Tradition, which has always been honored by the Catholic Church, but was lost for hundreds of years. Consequently, Luther didn’t understand that teachings of the Church that are not found in the Bible are authentic practices of the early church.
Interestingly the Italian language was also invented in modern times to be the common language of a unified Italy. Previously it was just the Florentine dialect.
well, it was adopted as a national language in modern times
but the story is similar, Dante Alighieri basically invented Italian between the 13th and 14th century
I thought he used his own Tuscan dialect.
A more realistic estimate of total Esperanto speakers is around 300,000, perhaps 25,000 with a high level of proficiency, and only about 9000 who speak it completely fluently.
This pretty much highlights the fact that European nations were a collection of various minor ethnicities that happened to dwell at a place were a nation-state was born.
It's not the neat little blocks that each national myth dictates they are, and that had been historically revisioned to appear.
Diversity as well as minorities have been smashed by the behemoth of the nation-state.
German as a self identifying people existed before the nation state (deutsch - belonging to the people). Also germany is still exactly for that reason a federation based primarily on tribal states (though some got mixed up after ww2). In places like britain or france, which have a historical and ongoing centralization on their capital i can see your point to some degree, however germany is in my opinion, as a german who identifies first as a ripuarian, the exact counter example of your thesis. The drive for an united germany came from the people, not the governments of the time and our parliament is not for no reason called the federation's Thing.
Two people who are very alike can live on each side of a border and be forced into thinking they're wildly different because of their nationality. Also, borders are a rather arbitrary product of centuries of wars. To me, this ongoing project of de-emphasising borders within the European Union is a great accomplishment.
@King of Kings & Ruler of Rulers For example Frisians, Low Saxons and Sorbs.
@@boahkeinbockmehr Et givt us minnerheiden noch vandage, wy sint ni alle gån.
He standardized German he didn't invent it, German existed before Martin Luther standardized it, everyone just spoke different Dialects
Have you watched the video?
@@abrakadabra2192 Yeah! Its funny, but not that much close to the truth.
Actually, esperanto was meant to be a lingua franca in Europe across various language borders, it did succeed for a while until English became more popular and esperanto's purpose had been fulfilled by the English language
As a Jews, I want to hate Luther for possibly inventing modern anti-Semitism, but I DEEPLY respect his extraordinary bravery and intellectual brilliance.
He was antijudaic as everyone back then. Modern Antisemitism originates from the emancipation of Jews since the French Revolution and the reaction. The opponents of emancipation in the French National Assembly argued that Judaism were no religion but a nation. Add (then) modern (scientific) racism and modern Antisemitism was born. That was way after Luther. But I don't see any reason to make a big difference between Antijudaism and Antisemitism concerning who supported it. Who supported religious Antijudaism in the first half of the 19th c. also supported modern Antisemitism in the second half of the 19th c.. Because religion got antiquated patriotic motives became predominant. But the Antisemitic party was notoriously ineffective before WW1. After that many conservative but liberal minded people got distrustful. Many business men and people of the learned professions became extremely hostile against Jews. But Jewish physicians, lawyers and professionals didn't lose their clients and customers. Even SA men threatening customers didn't accomplish liquidation of Jewish businesses. The Nazi boycott was no success. The Police, SD and similar reports of the 30s were almost defeatist about the lack of hostility of the majority of Germans against Jews. That's often not correctly represented by historians despite clear evidence. My late father owes his life to a Jewish physician. He survived pneumonia when he was a toddler. Thank god the physician seems to have emigrated at the end of the 30s.
First was Indo-Germanic. Proto-Germanic evolved from that which ultimately developed into West and North Germanic dialects. The continental West Germanic dialects formed a continuum as the modern Dutch and German dialects also constitute. But mutual intelligibility was lost at the end of the Early Medieval Period. All these continental West Germanic dialects and their speakers acquired a name, derived from Theodisk (theod =people, theodisk = by the (Germanic) people). English "Dutch" and German "Deutsch" evolved from Theodisk. Dutch, German and Almain (from French Allemand = German) meant the same before the 19th c.. Out of the many dialects a number of chancery languages evolved. But written communication required much improvisation, like applying the High German Consonant Shift in case people in the Netherlands, Rhineland or North Germany wanted to send a letter to a High German addressee but didn't master the right High German chancery language. Luther tried to invent a chancery language which was intelligible to the largest number of people. He based it on the most prestigious 15th c. High German chancery language, "Gemain Teutsch" (Common German), used by the Imperial Chancery in Vienna. But he modified its Austro-Bavarian by East Franconian and by East Central German (Upper Saxon) vernacular and minor additions from other High and Low German/Dutch varieties. Luther applied the new compound "High German" (Hochdeutsch) for translating the Bible which promoted it greatly. But only in the middle of the 18th c. Hochdeutsch got established as the sole literate language everywhere except in the Low Countries (Netherlands and Flemish Belgium) where Nederduits (Low German)/Nederlands Duits (Lowland's German) got the literate language. From original Hochdeutsch modern Standard German (Standard-, Hoch-, Schriftdeutsch) evolved. People learned writing in Hochdeutsch in school but spoke their respective High or Low German dialect for communicating with each other until the middle of the 20th c..
Martin Luther did not invent the German language he standardized it
.... as was mentioned many, many times in the video
Looks like Gabriel Neves doesnt finish videos
and even the claim "he standardized it" is an exaggeration
Martin Luther known for his book: On The RUclipsrs And Their Lies
I invented my own language. Oya lun ona vie ertien yiet ona ux, it means I love you. Only me and my boyfriend speak and write it 😂
I want to get into conlanging myself. Very cool!
Brilliant stuff! Also as a quick tip for a video, there was a finnish guy named Mikael Agricola, who was basically the same as Luther, but for finnish ;)
I thought Agricola was German.
I think many European languages went through such a proces. My native language Dutch was also standardized by a Bible translation (though this was done by a state appointed committee) called the Statenvertaling (the States translation). It was also based on the different (Frankish) languages, mostly on the dialect which was spoken in Antwerp at the time. This standardized Dutch became so important that it influenced the Low Saxon dialects of the east in such a way that they have changed into Dutch dialects, rather than Low Saxon ones. Only Frisian survived as a non-Dutch language in the Netherlands, though Low Saxon is gaining some recognition now.
Called Nederduits or Nederlands Duits.
Things you learn in 7th or 8th grade protestant religion class in Germany. Some things also earlier or later and also in history or german class
Fun Fact: there's a Playmobil Luther figurine and every protestant teacher or pastor I know owns one. Also I know three different guys whose fathers are pastors. And I've also heard the question "catholic or protestant?" after the revalaton of this information. Admittedly there was alcohol involved but still kinda funny imo
I guess everyone who's standardized a language's various dialects into one unified 'standard language', can be considered an inventor of a language. it's happened in almost every country and their major languages i guess.
@@arcni1213 Yes I know, and I also know that at the time of French Revolution, the language we call French wasn't widespread across South of France (Occitania, Acquitaine) too. Is that correct?
@@arcni1213 yes, i understand. it is similar to the Punjabi language in Pakistan, which contains "dialects" that are actually their own languages with their own histories, with similarities with bordering tongues as well.
@@arcni1213 standardizations of languages is a fucked up ordeal in any case
@@arcni1213 I guess even in Germany, the Low German languages of North Germany had been compromised by this standardization as well.
I'm always fascinated by how noises became words
Wait... Metaxas? Didn't he write a biography of Maximilian Kolbe so flawed and ahistorical that it's impossible to finish a page without hitting an error? His name sounds so familiar.
I’m pretty sure the indulgences weren’t meant to just get paid to go to heaven. They were honors given to people who donated huge sums to charity because they were deemed to be acts God would be pleased with. I don’t think they straight out said “give me money and go to heaven”
I mean, that would be cool if they only gave the sales pitch to rich people, but they definitely gave the sales pitch to poor people too, and those poor people paid out what was literally like 3 YEARS' wages for them.
Something you might look into if you’re wanting to make a “language explain” series:
I once read about a man who was commissioned by the king of England to make a proper speech and writing guide to standardize English; the problem was that he thought Latin was the best language and English should just be Latin but with English vocabulary... and apparently thanks to him we got things like “Him and I” instead of “Me and him” even though either should technically be correct in English, but because that’s how Latin did, that’s how he said we should...
(Also, sorry that this was kind long and rambling, if I can find the book I read or other info, I’ll post it as a reply)
Sounds like a great story, leaving a comment to keep tabs
That's also why it's "bad grammar" to end a sentence with a preposition, which (to paraphrase Winston Churchill) is an absurdity up with which I will not put!
if this becomes a series, could you do Italian
the story is pretty similar, but Dante made it because he wanted to be respected by the intellectuals of the time even if he wrote in a common language (well, not really common, more like language of the educated people that didn't speak Latin)
my native language was basically made to write poems and this one book
1:18 Haha. Your Klingon drawing is so cute ☺️
Awesome video! I feel the need to point out, though, that Luther did not teach that God should not be feared, and that although Sola Fide does mean "faith alone," it is a statement that needs to be made in the context of salvation. That said, great job on this video, mate! I definitely learned a thing or two.
Upper and lower german are not languages per se, but more like dialect families. Upper German is being spoken in the Upper (higher regions) of Germany so, the south of germany austrai and switzerland, while lower German is (though in much reduced number nowadays) spoken in the northern parts. Lower German is actually closer related to Dutch than to upper or standard German.
You forgot to mention that Martin Luther even invented new words
like Lutheran
The roots of German were already there. I used German as my language for my Ph. D. in English, and then I took Old English (West Saxon dialect) for a linguistic course. If I didn't know what a word was, I guessed it's German meaning, and I was right 95 percent of the time. My prof also took me to task for pronouncing Old English with a German accent, to which I replied, "So how does anyone know what Old English sounded like?"
7:50 No, in 1817 Germany just started to be like that, Germany as a State didn't exist until 1871 with the German Empire, before 1815 Germany was part of the Holy Roman Empire!
The Germans and everyone else knew that the Germans (actually the warrior aristocracy) were the masters of the Holy Roman Empire. It's true that the centralized nation state (in Germany not much centralized) came late to Germany. Mostly because of the rivalries of the medieval warrior aristocracy, especially the princes, the territorial lords.
I like this! I want to see more like this
An indulgence is not actually the remission of sins, but the remission of temporal punishment due to sins. And they can only be granted after the sins have already forgiven.
Who is Loofa? Or did you mean "Luther" with a "TH" sound?
as i understand it, he did not make some sort of amalgamation of german dialects for his translation. rather, he translated the bible into the saxon dialect, with the addition of glosses for various german dialects. in his own words, albeit translated to english: "i use the common german tongue in order that both north germans and south germans may understand me. i speak according to the saxon chancery which is followed by all princes and kings in germany." in this way, he did not invent the standard german that you reference, but he certainly popularized it beyond courts and legal documents. my source: archive.org/details/historyofgermanl00supeiala/page/78. please cite your sources.
10:13 Die Kalligraphie ist wunderschön!
Aber der Protestantismus ist hässlich.
Ist das nicht eher Typographie?
This story is such common sense to a german like me. But of course: it's just as foreign to english people.
Modern Hebrew has a similar origin story - it was pieces together by Yehuda Ben Eliezer from ancient Hebrew and made accessible to the early Jewish settlers of Palestine.
Perhaps as one of the most famous examples of modern languages being created, I’d be interested in your analysis of both modern Hebrew (and if you have the time, also MSA (Modern Standard Arabic))
9:22
He lived between Higher and Upper German areas?
He obviously liked the thin line...
"Martin loofah"
I DEFINATLY THINK it would be a nice idea to do language stuff too as many names of things are a result of the language the name came from.
you totaly overrate luther and his influence on the german language...
What you mean with german is just early new high german, which is little more then a dialect, and is 100 years older then luther. Luther just spread it, he invented nothing
and german still isn't a single language, there are still tons of dialects, like bavarian or saxon or high german
This is an extraordinary episode!! Amazing job!! 👏
I really enjoyed that Patrick. I think you should do more videos like this
One other thing about Martin Luther is that his Bible, is that although the German he used wasn't exactly the same German spoken by the parts of Switzerland that speak dialects of German, it became the basis for the written language that they use. This is why Swiss films are shown with German subtitles in Germany, even if they're filmed in the German-speaking areas of Switzerland, because the spoken dialect is actually quite different from standard German. I've seen something similar in some British films like "Trainspotting" set in Scotland where at times the Scottish accent is so thick you really do need to read English subtitles to figure out what's going on.
Originally the German literate language/German dialect diglossia was everywhere, not just in Switzerland. But the diglossia speaking vs writing remained there to date but underwent a shift to Standard German as written and spoken language expecially in North Germany, but also in South Germany and Austria.
This is totally cool! Now do a video about how what we think of as Italian is basically just the dialect of Florentine that Dante spoke/wrote The Divine Comedy in!
Here's Three examples of Purgatory in the Bible:
And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come (Matthew 12:32).
Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison; truly I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny (Matthew 5:25-26).
I Corinthians 3:11-15 may well be the most straightforward text in all of Sacred Scripture when it comes to Purgatory:
For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble-each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
He didn't really used parts of every language in Germany he used simply his spoken language in Saxony for us Bavarians and the Northgermans it was difficult to understand because of the extrem differences at pronunciation and grammar the most people been forced to learn Saxon to understand the meaning in his translation and translate it to the comun toung in the areas
I have to correct two misconceptions:
1) The German states fully united in 1871, but that doesn’t mean they were fully independent before that. The truth was more complicated.
2) Don’t use Germanic and German as synonyms. One could argue that German wasn’t one language before Martin Luther, but his undertaking would have been hopeless, had the German languages not been more closely related with each other than e.g. with English or Swedish.
Great insight into Martin Luther's pivotal role in shaping the German language and his profound impact on Christianity. The link between language, religion, and historical context was brilliantly explored. Kudos!
3:55 Holy shit, that's the town my family's from. Never thought I'd see that on RUclips.
7:53 Didn't Germany become unified in 1871?
Maybe you're talking about the German Confederation of 1815...
Yes, was in 1871. He probably made a mistake
Greetings from a guy speaking Standard German with a few Swabian and Bavarian elements here and there (or generally Southern German elements)
A couple of corrections is that Martin Luther didn’t think that faith was the only thing that mattered, but only that justification was through faith alone. Obviously there were commandments given by Jesus that mattered a whole lot to Martin Luther, but he just didn’t think that you were justified in the eyes of God through anything but faith. Another thing is that he didn’t believe that Church teachings were only valid if they are found in the Bible, only that the Bible is the final authority when it comes to disputes concerning doctrine.
Alexander Pushkin has done the same to Russian language through his influence as a prominent poet and writer.
Seems the author has never heard about the German realms preceding the unified German state called German Reich (Deutsches Reich): East Frankish Kingdom (Regnum Francorum Orientalium), German Kingdom (Regnum Teutonicum), Holy Roman Empire (Sacrum Imperium Romanum) and German Confederation (Deutscher Bund).
The continental West Germanic varieties were already called "Diutisk" since the late early medieval period. From that comes "Deutsch". That should not be confused with Standard German (Hochdeutsch) that made it as the literate language of the countries nowadays called German speaking. The other literate language is Dutch. The first is based on High German or the "German of the Up/Highlands", the second on the "German of the Lowlands", but on West Low Franconian, Dutch varieties (Netherlandish), but not on East Low Franconian and Low Saxon.
Basically, Martin Luther just translated the Bible into German without all the different dialects of German at the time. It's like not using dialects today in an English translation of the Bible. Everyone understands it.
Luther is an old norse slave name. You can find it in the icelandic poem: Rigs maal, spelled Lutr. There are many funny things in that poem. The name is also part of place names like Luton in England (I guess), and Lyderslev in Denmark.
His name was originally Low German (Low Saxon) "Luder".
@@waltergro9102 Yes, I know that. The name was originally Luder, but it is still the same. In Denmark we have a town called Lyderslev, and it comes from the name Liuthar, which I think is the same as Lutr.
These videos always collect the general knowledge on a subject without examining it critically and therefor perpetuate misonceptions.
For example there had been already 14 printed translations of the bible into German before Martin Luther's. The first hand-written translations date back to the 9th century that makes 70 translations total.
[ˈlʊtɐ] is how you pronounce Luther which is spoken more like Lutter (litter but with a short u)
8:52 Slight mistake: Germanic ≠ German Germanic is the language familiy German, English and some other languages belong to while German (as a group) is the umbrella for German dialects like the dialects spoken in Switzerland, in Austria and Germany and of course Standard German as itself.
Could've removed the gender system when he had the choice
david david Bruh no 😂
I got the notification for this while learning about Luther in class. Both summaries of his life were good!
When I first read about Martin Luther in English, I was so confused. I had never noticed Martin Luther and Martin Luther King had the same name, because in Portuguese we call the German Martin Luther "Martinho Lutero".
Klingon was actually crated by several fans who got together and sat down one day and thought about what all the crazy gibber gabber gibberish in star trek that was supposedly, "klingon" actually meant.
Sorry to say the writers of star trek didn't actually know what anything they said would mean.
They only have generic ideas, or vague impressions of what the things said in the language meant.
It was the fans who fully fleshed out the language. Just thought i should mention that. :)
This is really fascinating, I didn't know that he combined German languages, I learned in school that he used his own dialect.
Love your content. Just popping in to say that there were in fact many versions of the Bible in German languages published before Luther. If you google that," German Bibles before Luther" you can find examples going back to the 1400s (the earliest I saw printed 1466) and obviously some before that which were hand copied as texts were in Europe before the printing press was popularized. For example, Charlemagne popularized translating the Bible into local languages in his kingdom, and even before that their was a Gothic translation in the 4th century. The idea that the Bible should be in languages other than Latin was certainly not new. What was new was the idea that the Bible needed to be the sole authority in the life of the Christian.
Remember, indulgences were never “sold,”. People submitted donations after receiving them.
Luther "created" German like Shakespeare "created" English and Dante "created" Italian.
Who "created" French? Pierre de Ronsard? Someone else?
Some French monks when they decided to standardise and modify (Sometimes erroneously) the spellings of words to better reflect their etymology. It's also what made French so unphonetic
My city has a street called Martin Luther Ring, it's kinda an hommage too both as Ring rhymes with King and can be misread from a distance
Great video, it's always interesting to know just how many modern things have come to exist because of religion. I mean, it's hard to be critical of ML and the movement he inspired, since there was an obvious moral corruption on the part of the institutions at the time (probably still remain to the present). About other thing, it was curious to me just how relevant it was to adhere to the holy writings for ML, according to the video. Yet, it seemed necessary/useful for him to simplify it and make use of common sayings, etc. Which helped the regular folk come closer not only to religious teaching, but to literacy and together among themselves, as a nation.
William Morgan did a similar thing for the Welsh language. His translation of the Bible into Welsh is the basis for the modern Literary register of Welsh. The problem, however, is that Literary Welsh is not (and has never been) anyone's first-language nor does it represent any version of spoken Welsh. A very simple example:
Yr ydwyf yn myned i Gymru. A wyt yn dyfod? (Literary)
Dw i'n mynd i Gymru. Ti'n dod? (Spoken)
I'm going to Wales. Are you coming?
This has led to there being two Welsh languages and a state of affairs where a first-language Welsh speaker may not actually be able to understand Welsh books, poetry, etc. due to being written in what is essentially a conlang.
We definitely should get a Language Explain
If Martin Luther created German then, what does "German" mean?
Nobody knows, the word "German" comes from Latin "Germania", which was the name of the region the old Germanic tribes lived. It's possible that the word has celtic origins. The germans themselves don't call their land germany, rather they call it Deutschland, which means land of the people. This word has the same origin of the word "dutch" and old english used to have a cognate with this word "þeodisc"
IrgendWer actually it comes from the Romans, Ancient Rome to be exact, who called the place Germania (the G sounding as a normal G, not a J sound). And, it meant "foreigner." It referred to the people of "that" area and not just "Germany" itself. The good news here is that we both are right. We should get some prize money from this.
He didn't "create" German. He popularized and thus standardized some phrases and words.
"If that's okay with everyone."
It doesn't matter if it's okay. You don't need our permission to do what you want with your channel. It is your channel.
You make great, interesting content. I. for one, will watch whatever you do, so long as your content remains ethical and legal.
Another nitpick: The map at 5:45 showing Germany and Italy as separate countries isn't correct, at Luther's lifetime Northern Italy (and Switzerland, and Austria, and the Netherlands and Belgium, and Bohemia etc), was part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation