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German language   /dʒˈərmən lˈæŋgwədʒ/   Listen
German language

noun
1.
The standard German language; developed historically from West Germanic.  Synonyms: German, High German.






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"German language" Quotes from Famous Books



... a child of seven my uncle placed me in a private school in which one of the so-called redeemed sub-sailors was a teacher of the German language. As I look back now, in the light of my present knowledge, I better comprehend the docile humility and carefully nurtured ignorance of this man. In his class rooms he used as a text a description of German life, taken from the captured submarine. From this book he had secured ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... Prussia has employed every means but kindness to Germanise the conquered territory. But though she has hushed every syllable of French in the elementary schools and forced the children to learn the German language and history only; though freedom of speech, liberty of the Press, rights of public meeting, have been things unknown; though even the little children playing at sand castles have been arrested and fined if in their enthusiasm they raised a tiny French flag, or in the excitement of their ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... with some food, he recommended him to solicit the assistance of a benevolent lady whom he named, as she was known far and near for her readiness to help foreigners in distress; besides, she spoke the German language fluently, the only one the worn-out traveller understood. Acting upon this advice, he repaired to the generous Comtesse de R.'s residence, at No. 16 Rue Richer. She was a lady well stricken in years, and preserved an enthusiastic veneration for the Bourbon branch of the royal family, having been ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... at school, should learn by heart the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments; that they should pray, and sing psalms and Christian hymns. Printed books, containing them, were already in existence. Among the old Christian hymns in the German language, of which a surprisingly rich collection has been formed, a certain number, at least, were in common use in the churches, especially for festivals. 'Fine songs' Luther called them, and he took care that they should live on in the Evangelical communities. Those old ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... know, and that therefore you can't be allowed to get angry about a mere trifle. Besides, our predecessor, the GREAT FREDERICK, always spoke in French and wrote his poetry in French—very poor stuff it was too—and had a violent contempt for the German language, which he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various

... he had learned from it "more of what God and Christ and man and all things are" than from any other book except the Bible and St. Augustine. John Tauler, the great Dominican preacher of Strasbourg, impressed him no less profoundly. "Neither in the Latin nor the German language," he {7} wrote to Spalatin in 1516, "have I ever found purer or more wholesome teaching, nor any that so agrees with the Gospel." Both these great teachers of spiritual religion helped him to see that complete confidence in and surrender to the will of God is salvation—"Put ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... Rhine, long years ago fortified by Vauban as "the strongest barrier of France," [Footnote: Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV., Ch. XIV: OEuvres, (edit. 1784-89,) Tom. XX. p. 403.] are to be severed, and with them a large and industrious population, which, while preserving the German language, have so far blended with France as to become Frenchmen. This is the German proposition, which I call the Guaranty ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner

... and resolute patriotism of the Germans, found interpreters of genius in the persons of Arndt and Koerner, the latter of whom laid down his life for the people whom he loved so well. During the Napoleonic period all their compositions, many of which will live so long as the German language lasts, strike the same note—the determination of ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... books. They were seven, and how they got there nobody knows. The most important in the collection was, in Mrs. Brackett's estimation, an odd volume of an encyclopedia, bound in tree-calf and labeled, "Safety-lamps to Stranglers." Next were four fat tomes in the German language on scientific subjects; these, provided that anybody had ever wanted to read them, had never succeeded in getting themselves read, but they had cuts and cuts which were fascinating to surmise about. The sixth ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris

... enraged this morning when I crossed the bridge and saw the soldiers changing the street signs into the German language. Now it is "nach Brussels" and ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow

... Prussian leaders, and "led" instead of "drove" them. Commands for the whole army were given in German, but otherwise the language varied according to the composition of the various regiments as regarded races. The use of the German language for commands undoubtedly aided in unifying ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... short of what people might reasonably look for in a self-constituted reformer, yet in many respects he had exceptional qualifications for the part that he was called upon to play. Endowed with great physical strength, gifted with a marvellous memory and a complete mastery of the German language, as inspiring in the pulpit or on the platform as he was with his pen, regardless of nice limitations or even of truth when he wished to strike down an opponent or to arouse the enthusiasm of a mob, ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... The abandonment of the German language is also a remarkable phenomenon. The common will is to abandon it. Unfortunately, the Czech language is of limited use, but there is now a remarkable passion for learning English, and there are thousands of students at the University classes. This boom is due to President ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... on the superiour power which the German language possessed of concentrating meaning. He said, he had often translated parts of Homer and Virgil, line by line, and a German line proved always sufficient for a Greek or Latin one. In English you cannot do this. I answered, that in English we could commonly render one Greek heroic ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... nor the enthusiasm with which Germany welcomed his earliest printed work, if we do not see how it was connected with the hatred of conventionalism and of mere authority, which in the German language was called Sturm und Drang.[11] In after life Goethe had none too much of enthusiasm for radical reformers. But as a young man, he breathed the atmosphere of his time. In the same way, in the year 1773, Schiller, a boy ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... centralization was then the Liberal German party, supported by a few Italians and the Ruthenes, and as years went by it was to become the National German party. They hoped by a common parliament to create the feeling of a common Austrian nationality, by German schools to spread the use of the German language. Every grant of self-government to the territories must diminish the influence of the Germans, and bring about a restriction in the use of the German language; moreover, in countries such as Bohemia, full self-government ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... peddled in the market-places and from house to house. While there had been imperfect translations of the Bible in German before Luther's, his translation (New Testament, 1522) was direct from the original Greek and so carefully done that it virtually fixed the character of the German language. [4] Calvin's Institutes of Christianity (French edition, 1541) in a similar manner fixed the character of the French language, [5] and Tyndale's translation of the New Testament (1526) was into such simple and ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... about to leave he once more impressed on Louie the nature of his call. "Now, Mr. Seigerman," said Baughman, using the German language during the parting conversation, "let me have your answer at the earliest possible moment, for we want to begin an active canvass at once. This is a large county, and to enlist our friends in your behalf no time should be lost." With a profusion ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... his argument. Nevertheless, the circumstance that his prose translation of Faust has received so much acceptance proves those qualities of the original work which cannot be destroyed by a test so violent. From the cold bare outline thus produced, the reader unacquainted with the German language would scarcely guess what glow of color, what richness of changeful life, what fluent grace and energy of movement have been lost in the process. We must, of course, gratefully receive such an outline, where a nearer approach ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... were practically no newspapers in China except those published by foreigners in the ports, all of which were in English save one which was in the German language. The only periodicals in Chinese were a few issued by the missionaries with, of course, a very limited circulation, chiefly among the Christians. There was no such thing as a Chinese press in the proper sense of the term. Now, besides a French, a Russian and a second German paper, ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... were easily transported. Operations of a difficult and laborious character, such as carrying horses on shipboard, are fully demonstrated with diagrams. Marches, manoeuvres, detachments, battles, are fully disclosed. Such investigations, when the French, Italian, or German language was the medium, were comparatively easy; but in order to give a proper comparative view, he was obliged also to study Russian, which he did successfully; by this means he has given us a masterly summary of the Russian system, with its immense battalions, its thousands of military schools, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... her thought, for the import of her news had sent her patient into one of his deep spells of concentration. No Englishman that she had ever met had spoken the German language so fluently. But concealing her interest and curiosity when he turned toward her again, she ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... Hanoverian Constitution was next called in question, and the restoration of the less liberal constitution of 1819 was ordained. The first to protest against this royal breach of faith were seven professors of the University of Goettingen. Among them were the two brothers Grimm, to whom the German language and literature are so deeply indebted, and Gervinus, the great historian of modern Europe. The professors were instantly dismissed. This high-handed act provoked an insurrection among the students, which had to be quelled ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... We have marked the German language to have many words common wt our oune, as bread, drink, land, Goet for our God; rauber; feeds,[186] inimiticiae; march, limites; fich; flech; heer, sir; our ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... Cacciatori. The eternal woman as usual, when she is young, pretty, and engaging, had her way, and the barricade offered no resistance. In fifteen minutes the carriage was rolling down to Mals, swarming with German soldiers and German fleas, worse than the Italian; and German language, thought, and atmosphere, of which young Adams, thanks to his glimpse of Italy, never again felt quite ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... definite career before him," was Lewes himself, in all probability. His eager desire for knowledge took him to Germany in 1838, where he remained for two years in the same desultory study of many subjects. He became thoroughly acquainted with the German language and life, and gave much attention to German literature and philosophy. On his return to England, Lewes entered upon his literary career, which was remarkable for its versatility and productiveness. In 1841 he wrote "The Noble ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... oppressive deeds of the Government, and create, among populations joined with France as the Welsh and Irish are joined with England, a sense of liking and attachment towards the French people. The French Government may discourage the German language in Alsace and prohibit Eisteddfods in Brittany; but the Journal des Debats never treats German music and poetry as mischievous lumber, nor tells the Bretons that the sooner all Breton specialities disappear from the face of the earth the better. ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold

... monuments, that a standard of the form of the Labarum was used by various barbarous nations long before it was adopted by their Roman conquerors, and he is of opinion that its name also was borrowed from either Teutonic Germany, or Celtic Gaul, or Sclavonic Illyria. It is certain that either the German language or the Welsh may afford at this day a perfectly satisfactory etymon: Lap-heer in the former and Lab-hair in the latter, having precisely the same meaning— the cloth of ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott



Words linked to "German language" :   Old High German, West Germanic, Fraulein, Yiddish, West Germanic language, Deutschland, German, Pennsylvania Dutch, Frau, Herr, Germany, Federal Republic of Germany, Middle High German, FRG



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