German is the standard language that is used above all in Germany, Austria and parts of Switzerland. But how did German come to be the standard language? And how has the perception of standard German ...

The letter ß (eszett) is an integral part of the German language, but continues to leave non-native speakers bewildered. Although the eszett may look like the letter ‘B’, it is actually shorthand for ...

“IN GERMAN, A young lady has no sex, while a turnip has,” grumbled Mark Twain in his essay “The Awful German Language”. The rules governing gender in German are indeed baffling: why die Rübe (feminine ...

The wrangling about the German spelling reform in the 1990s could hardly have been more acrimonious. What caused this heated row in the German press and public administration, in schools and even in ...

BERLIN -- Some German words, as Mark Twain observed in despair, seem not to be words at all but “alphabetical processions.” He would have been delighted to hear that Germany’s longest official word ...

Medium Ævum, which first appeared in 1932, is one of the leading international academic periodicals in medieval studies. It is published twice yearly and its present editors are Professors Nigel F.

In French, to show that someone possesses something, you use their word for “of,” which is “de”: La plume de ma tante. Spanish works the same way: La venganza de Moctezuma. Italian, too: Buca di Beppo ...