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"The Man Who Invented [Standard] German"

I invented the Korean language among with other things

1871, not 1817, in 1817, Germany was still very much divided

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.

„Wenn der Groschen im Kasten klingt, die Seele aus dem Fegefeuer springt“ Indulgence trade in a nutshell 😉 Cheers from Germany 👍🇩🇪

He didn’t „invented“ german, he standardized it.

The Grimm brothers also helped in unifying the language with their collection of old folk tales

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.

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.

What about Finnish? It is basically the same thing as German and was "created" by Mikael Agricola (who actually was Luther's student).

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.

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

Mikael Agricola translated the Bible into Finnish and he played a big part in creating the written language for Finnish

"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

"the only words from God are the ones in the bible"... "this isn't a word-for-word translation of the bible"

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.

1:18 Haha. Your Klingon drawing is so cute ☺️

"apple" "pomme" *800 years of war. Humans are great

Not to be a jerk but I think you meant 1871 Germany became a nation

This is an extraordinary episode!! Amazing job!! 👏

I really enjoyed that Patrick. I think you should do more videos like this

9:33 Um. Higher German and Upper German? 🤔🤔

Nice video dude. Keep up the good work!

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

I like this! I want to see more like this

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 ;)

Totally cool!!!! I am here for it!

As a Protestant, honestly so much more respect for him now than I had before, and there was plenty before. Ugh such an inspiration.

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!

I got the notification for this while learning about Luther in class. Both summaries of his life were good!

Name Explain: "Hey, sorry, I am not gonna talk about names, but German in this vid. Anyway, lemme explain where this name came from." 😂😂

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))

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

10:13 Die Kalligraphie ist wunderschön!

I'm always fascinated by how noises became words

I'd love to see you talk about languages as well

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.

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!

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.

[ˈlʊtɐ] is how you pronounce Luther which is spoken more like Lutter (litter but with a short u)

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.

Do another video like this!

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.

Martin Luther did not invent the German language he standardized it

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

Greetings from a guy speaking Standard German with a few Swabian and Bavarian elements here and there (or generally Southern German elements)

"Martin loofah"

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

3:55 Holy shit, that's the town my family's from. Never thought I'd see that on KZfaq.

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.

Thanks

Martin Luther known for his book: On The KZfaqrs And Their Lies

We definitely should get a Language Explain

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.

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.

Please go ahead with more language explains 👀

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

Please do a video about Ferdowsi and Persian language.

If you want to do another video about a person who "invented" (or re-invented) a language, I reccomend looking into Eliezer Ben-Yehuda.

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.

Fascinating video! I’d love to see more videos on how languages change over time, as well as how Christianity and the Bible has helped transform languages (such as the King James Bible for English)

9:22 He lived between Higher and Upper German areas?

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.

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

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)

He standardized German he didn't invent it, German existed before Martin Luther standardized it, everyone just spoke different Dialects

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!

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.

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.

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..

Remember, indulgences were never “sold,”. People submitted donations after receiving them.

You are such a cool guy and ur videos are fucking good!!! I’m German and I love ur perspectives and obviously ur jokes eg about the clickbait 🤣🤣. Smoking a fat saruch n listening ze the best rn!!!

I just realized you uploaded this video during Reformation month. Was that intentional?

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.

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.

As a member of the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) Thank you for such a wonderful video on a man so important to my religious beliefs.

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.

This story is such common sense to a german like me. But of course: it's just as foreign to english people.

I was just reading about this in German class

Im interested why the Der, Die, Das Artikel Came from and why he created them :D

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.

You should start a second channel named "Lang Explain"

hey dude can you link the chart of Languages u have at 0:58? much apreciated.

You forgot to mention that Martin Luther even invented new 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.

my reformed butt got way too excited seeing Luther on your channel

Me :(who is interested in geography, history, linguistics and name history) This video is like a rar occasion treat thing

Huh... Interesting! How may this be related to the separation of the Netherlands (and the rest of the germanic-speaking 17 provinces) from German, with Dutch, Flemish and the seemingly separate dialect spoken in Groeningen)? I wonder about this since it seems Martin Luther primarily was concerned with connecting "upper German" and "lower German", and not the western dialects (within the Holy Roman Empire). Furthermore, to what extent is the development of the separate reformed religious churches related to this and relatively direct rule, over the Habsburgian part of the Burgundian inheritance, related to the development of this linguistic split?

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

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.

There's a lot of parallels with Dante, the church, and Italian here!

Ackchyually! Luther's influence on the German Language is often highly overstated.

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.

4:35 Are you telling us that modern lawyers don't need metalogic?!

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.

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 😂

This is really fascinating, I didn't know that he combined German languages, I learned in school that he used his own dialect.

4:08 ‘e melted ‘orses? On a serious note: are there things today with names derived from invented languages? Or things with named that originate in nonsense words created by authors but have since taken on linguistic meaning?