History.

Exploratory trading adventures, raids, and piracy occurred early throughout the Baltic region; the sailors of Gotland sailed up rivers as far away as Novgorod. Scandinavians led international trade in the Baltic area before the Hanseatic League, establishing major trading hubs at Birka, Haithabu, and Schleswig by the 9th century CE. The later Hanseatic ports between Mecklenburg and Königsberg, (present-day Kaliningrad) originally formed part of the Scandinavian-led Baltic trade-system.  Historians generally trace the origins of the Hanseatic League to the rebuilding of the north German town of Lübeck in 1159 by the powerful Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, after he had captured the area from Adolf II, Count of Schauenburg and Holstein. More recent scholarship has deemphasized the focus on Lübeck due to it having been designed as one of several regional trading centers.  German cities achieved domination of trade in the Baltic with striking speed during the 13th century, and Lübeck became a central node in the seaborne trade that linked the areas around the North and Baltic seas. The hegemony of Lübeck peaked during the 15th century.

Foundation and formation.

Lübeck became a base for merchants from Saxony and Westphalia trading eastward and northward. Well before the term "Hanse" appeared in a document in 1267, merchants in different cities began to form guilds, or "Hansa", with the intention of trading with towns overseas, especially in the economically less-developed eastern Baltic. This area could supply timber, wax, amber, resins, and furs, along with rye and wheat brought down on barges from the hinterland to port markets. The towns raised their own armies, with each guild required to provide levies when needed. The Hanseatic cities came to the aid of one another, and commercial ships often had to be used to carry soldiers and their arms.  Visby (on the island of Gotland) functioned as the leading centre in the Baltic before the Hansa. Sailing east, Visby merchants established a trading post at Novgorod called "Gutagard" (also known as "Gotenhof") in 1080. Merchants from northern Germany also stayed there in the early period of the Gotlander settlement. Later they established their own trading station in Novgorod, known as, which was further up-river, in the first half of the 13th century. In 1229 German merchants at Novgorod were granted certain privileges that made their positions more secure.  Hansa societies worked to remove restrictions on trade for their members. The earliest extant documentary mention, although without a name, of a specific German commercial federation dates from 1157 in London. That year, the merchants of the Hansa in Cologne convinced King Henry II of England to exempt them from all tolls in London and allow them to trade at fairs throughout England. The "Queen of the Hansa", Lübeck, where traders were required to trans-ship goods between the North Sea and the Baltic, gained imperial privileges to become a free imperial city in 1226, as had Hamburg in 1189.  In 1241 Lübeck, which had access to the Baltic and North seas' fishing grounds, formed an alliance—a precursor to the League—with Hamburg, another trading city, which controlled access to salt-trade routes from Lüneburg. The allied cities gained control over most of the salt-fish trade, especially the Scania Market; Cologne joined them in the Diet of 1260. In 1266 King Henry III of England granted the Lübeck and Hamburg Hansa a charter for operations in England, and the Cologne Hansa joined them in 1282 to form the most powerful Hanseatic colony in London. Much of the drive for this co-operation came from the fragmented nature of existing territorial governments, which failed to provide security for trade. Over the next 50 years, the Hansa solidified with formal agreements for confederation and co-operation covering the west and east trade routes. The principal city and linchpin remained Lübeck; with the first general diet of the Hansa held there in 1356, the Hanseatic League acquired an official structure.

Commercial expansion.

Lübeck's location on the Baltic provided access for trade with Scandinavia and Kievan Rus' (with its sea-trade center, Veliky Novgorod), putting it in direct competition with the Scandinavians who had previously controlled most of the Baltic trade-routes. A treaty with the Visby Hansa put an end to this competition: through this treaty the Lübeck merchants gained access to the inland Russian port of Novgorod, where they built a trading post or "Kontor" (literally: "office"). Although such alliances formed throughout the Holy Roman Empire, the league never became a closely-managed formal organisation. Assemblies of the Hanseatic towns met irregularly in Lübeck for a "Hansetag" (Hanseatic day) from 1356 onwards, but many towns chose not to attend nor to send representatives, and decisions were not binding on individual cities. Over the period, a network of alliances grew to include a flexible roster of 70 to 170 cities.  The league succeeded in establishing additional "Kontors" in Bruges (Flanders), Bergen (Norway), and London (England). These trading posts became significant enclaves. The London "Kontor", established in 1320, stood west of London Bridge near Upper Thames Street, on the site now occupied by Cannon Street station. It grew into a significant walled community with its own warehouses, weighhouse, church, offices and houses, reflecting the importance and scale of trading activity on the premises. The first reference to it as the Steelyard ("der Stahlhof") occurs in 1422.  Starting with trade in coarse woollen fabrics, the Hanseatic League had the effect of bringing both commerce and industry to northern Germany. As trade increased, newer and finer woollen and linen fabrics, and even silks, were manufactured in northern Germany. The same refinement of products out of cottage industry occurred in other fields, e.g. etching, wood carving, armour production, engraving of metals, and wood-turning. The century-long monopolization of sea navigation and trade by the Hanseatic League ensured that the Renaissance arrived in northern Germany long before it did in the rest of Europe.  In addition to the major "Kontors", individual Hanseatic ports had a representative merchant and warehouse. In England this happened in Boston, Bristol, Bishop's Lynn (now King's Lynn, which features the sole remaining Hanseatic warehouse in England), Hull, Ipswich, Norwich, Yarmouth (now Great Yarmouth), and York.  The league primarily traded timber, furs, resin (or tar), flax, honey, wheat, and rye from the east to Flanders and England with cloth (and, increasingly, manufactured goods) going in the other direction. Metal ore (principally copper and iron) and herring came southwards from Sweden.  German colonists in the 12th and 13th centuries settled in numerous cities on and near the east Baltic coast, such as Elbing (Elbląg), Thorn (Toruń), Reval (Tallinn), Riga, and Dorpat (Tartu), which became members of the Hanseatic League, and some of which still retain many Hansa buildings and bear the style of their Hanseatic days. Most were granted Lübeck law ("Lübisches Recht"), after the league's most prominent town. The law provided that they had to appeal in all legal matters to Lübeck's city council. The Livonian Confederation of 1435 to incorporated modern-day Estonia and parts of Latvia and had its own Hanseatic parliament (diet); all of its major towns became members of the Hanseatic League. The dominant language of trade was Middle Low German, a dialect with significant impact for countries involved in the trade, particularly the larger Scandinavian languages, Estonian, and Latvian.

Zenith.

The league had a fluid structure, but its members shared some characteristics; most of the Hansa cities either started as independent cities or gained independence through the collective bargaining power of the league, though such independence remained limited. The Hanseatic free cities owed allegiance directly to the Holy Roman Emperor, without any intermediate family tie of obligation to the local nobility.  Another similarity involved the cities' strategic locations along trade routes. At the height of their power in the late-14th century, the merchants of the Hanseatic League succeeded in using their economic power and, sometimes, their military might—trade routes required protection and the league's ships sailed well-armed—to influence imperial policy.  The league also wielded power abroad. Between 1361 and 1370 it waged war against Denmark. Initially unsuccessful, Hanseatic towns in 1368 allied in the Confederation of Cologne, sacked Copenhagen and Helsingborg, and forced Valdemar IV, King of Denmark, and his son-in-law Haakon VI, King of Norway, to grant the league 15% of the profits from Danish trade in the subsequent peace treaty of Stralsund in 1370, thus gaining an effective trade and economic monopoly in Scandinavia. This favourable treaty marked the height of Hanseatic power. After the Danish-Hanseatic War (1426–1435) and the Bombardment of Copenhagen (1428), the Treaty of Vordingborg renewed the commercial privileges in 1435.  The Hansa also waged a vigorous campaign against pirates. Between 1392 and 1440 maritime trade of the league faced danger from raids of the Victual Brothers and their descendants, privateers hired in 1392 by Albert of Mecklenburg, King of Sweden, against Margaret I, Queen of Denmark. In the Dutch–Hanseatic War (1438–1441), the merchants of Amsterdam sought and eventually won free access to the Baltic and broke the Hanseatic monopoly. As an essential part of protecting their investment in ships and their cargoes, the League trained pilots and erected lighthouses.  Most foreign cities confined the Hanseatic traders to certain trading areas and to their own trading posts. They seldom interacted with the local inhabitants, except when doing business. Many locals, merchant and noble alike, envied the power of the League and tried to diminish it. For example, in London, the local merchants exerted continuing pressure for the revocation of privileges. The refusal of the Hansa to offer reciprocal arrangements to their English counterparts exacerbated the tension. King Edward IV of England reconfirmed the league's privileges in the Treaty of Utrecht (1474) despite the latent hostility, in part thanks to the significant financial contribution the League made to the Yorkist side during the Wars of the Roses of 1455–1487. In 1597 Queen Elizabeth of England expelled the League from London, and the Steelyard closed the following year. Tsar Ivan III of Russia closed the Hanseatic "Kontor" at Novgorod in 1494. The very existence of the League and its privileges and monopolies created economic and social tensions that often crept over into rivalries between League members.

Rise of rival powers.

The economic crises of the late 15th century did not spare the Hansa. Nevertheless, its eventual rivals emerged in the form of the territorial states, whether new or revived, and not just in the west: Ivan III, Grand Prince of Moscow, ended the entrepreneurial independence of Hansa's Novgorod "Kontor" in 1478—it closed completely and finally in 1494. New vehicles of credit were imported from Italy, where double-entry book-keeping was invented in 1492, and outpaced the Hansa economy, in which silver coins changed hands rather than bills of exchange.  In the 15th century, tensions between the Prussian region and the "Wendish" cities (Lübeck and its eastern neighbours) increased. Lübeck was dependent on its role as centre of the Hansa, being on the shore of the sea without a major river. It was on the entrance of the land route to Hamburg, but this land route could be bypassed by sea travel around Denmark and through the Kattegat. Prussia's main interest, on the other hand, was the export of bulk products like grain and timber, which were very important for England, the Low Countries, and, later on, also for Spain and Italy.  In 1454, the year of the marriage of Elisabeth of Austria to the Jagiellonian king, the towns of the Prussian Confederation rose up against the dominance of the Teutonic Order and asked Casimir IV, King of Poland, for help. Gdańsk (Danzig), Thorn and Elbing became part of the Kingdom of Poland, (from 1466–1569 referred to as Royal Prussia, region of Poland) by the Second Peace of Thorn (1466). Poland in turn was heavily supported by the Holy Roman Empire through family connections and by military assistance under the Habsburgs. Kraków, then the capital of Poland, had a loose association with the Hansa. The lack of customs borders on the River Vistula after 1466 helped to gradually increase Polish grain exports, transported to the sea down the Vistula, from per year, in the late 15th century, to over in the 17th century. The Hansa-dominated maritime grain trade made Poland one of the main areas of its activity, helping Danzig to become the Hansa's largest city.  The member cities took responsibility for their own protection. In 1567, a Hanseatic League agreement reconfirmed previous obligations and rights of league members, such as common protection and defense against enemies. The Prussian Quartier cities of Thorn, Elbing, Königsberg and Riga and Dorpat also signed. When pressed by the King of Poland–Lithuania, Danzig remained neutral and would not allow ships running for Poland into its territory. They had to anchor somewhere else, such as at Pautzke (Puck).  A major economic advantage for the Hansa was its control of the shipbuilding market, mainly in Lübeck and in Danzig. The Hansa sold ships everywhere in Europe, including Italy. They drove out the Dutch, because Holland wanted to favour Bruges as a huge staple market at the end of a trade route. When the Dutch started to become competitors of the Hansa in shipbuilding, the Hansa tried to stop the flow of shipbuilding technology from Hanseatic towns to Holland. Danzig, a trading partner of Amsterdam, attempted to forestall the decision. Dutch ships sailed to Danzig to take grain from the city directly, to the dismay of Lübeck. Hollanders also circumvented the Hanseatic towns by trading directly with north German princes in non-Hanseatic towns. Dutch freight costs were much lower than those of the Hansa, and the Hansa were excluded as middlemen.  When Bruges, Antwerp and Holland all became part of the Duchy of Burgundy they actively tried to take over the monopoly of trade from the Hansa, and the staples market from Bruges was transferred to Amsterdam. The Dutch merchants aggressively challenged the Hansa and met with much success. Hanseatic cities in Prussia, Livonia, supported the Dutch against the core cities of the Hansa in northern Germany. After several naval wars between Burgundy and the Hanseatic fleets, Amsterdam gained the position of leading port for Polish and Baltic grain from the late 15th century onwards. The Dutch regarded Amsterdam's grain trade as the mother of all trades ("Moedernegotie").  Nuremberg in Franconia developed an overland route to sell formerly Hansa-monopolised products from Frankfurt via Nuremberg and Leipzig to Poland and Russia, trading Flemish cloth and French wine in exchange for grain and furs from the east. The Hansa profited from the Nuremberg trade by allowing Nurembergers to settle in Hanseatic towns, which the Franconians exploited by taking over trade with Sweden as well. The Nuremberger merchant Albrecht Moldenhauer was influential in developing the trade with Sweden and Norway, and his sons Wolf Moldenhauer and Burghard Moldenhauer established themselves in Bergen and Stockholm, becoming leaders of the local Hanseatic activities.

End of the Hansa.

At the start of the 16th century, the league found itself in a weaker position than it had known for many years. The rising Swedish Empire had taken control of much of the Baltic Sea. Denmark had regained control over its own trade, the "Kontor" in Novgorod had closed, and the "Kontor" in Bruges had become effectively moribund. The individual cities making up the league had also started to put self-interest before their common Hanseatic interests. Finally, the political authority of the German princes had started to grow, constraining the independence of the merchants and Hanseatic towns.  The league attempted to deal with some of these issues: it created the post of Syndic in 1556 and elected Heinrich Sudermann as a permanent official with legal training, who worked to protect and extend the diplomatic agreements of the member towns. In 1557 and 1579 revised agreements spelled out the duties of towns and some progress was made. The Bruges "Kontor" moved to Antwerp and the Hansa attempted to pioneer new routes. However the league proved unable to prevent the growing mercantile competition, and so a long decline commenced. The Antwerp "Kontor" closed in 1593, followed by the London "Kontor" in 1598. The Bergen "Kontor" continued until 1754; of all the "Kontore", only its buildings, the "Bryggen", survive.  The gigantic warship "Adler von Lübeck" was constructed for military use against Sweden during the Northern Seven Years' War (1563–70) but was never put to military use, epitomizing the vain attempts of Lübeck to uphold its long-privileged commercial position in a changing economic and political climate.  By the late 17th century, the league had imploded and could no longer deal with its own internal struggles. The social and political changes that accompanied the Protestant Reformation included the rise of Dutch and English merchants and the pressure of the Ottoman Empire upon the Holy Roman Empire and its trade routes. Only nine members attended the last formal meeting in 1669 and only three (Lübeck, Hamburg and Bremen) remained as members until its demise in 1862, in the wake of the creation of the German Empire under Kaiser Wilhelm I. Hence, only Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen retain the words "Hanseatic City" in their official German titles.

Organization.

The members of the Hanseatic League were Low German merchants, whose towns were, with the exception of Dinant, where these merchants held citizenship. Not all towns with Low German merchant communities were members of the league (e.g., Emden, Memel (today Klaipėda), Viborg (today Vyborg) and Narva never joined). However, Hanseatic merchants could also come from settlements without German town law—the premise for league membership was birth to German parents, subjection to German law, and a commercial education. The league served to advance and defend the common interests of its heterogeneous members: commercial ambitions such as enhancement of trade, and political ambitions such as ensuring maximum independence from the noble territorial rulers.  Decisions and actions of the Hanseatic League were the consequence of a consensus-based procedure. If an issue arose, the league's members were invited to participate in a central meeting, the "Tagfahrt" ("meeting ride", sometimes also referred to as "Hansetag", since 1358). The member communities then chose envoys ("Ratssendeboten") to represent their local consensus on the issue at the "Tagfahrt". Not every community sent an envoy; delegates were often entitled to represent a set of communities. Consensus-building on local and "Tagfahrt" levels followed the Low Saxon tradition of "Einung", where consensus was defined as absence of protest: after a discussion, the proposals which gained sufficient support were dictated aloud to the scribe and passed as binding "Rezess" if the attendees did not object; those favouring alternative proposals unlikely to get sufficient support were obliged to remain silent during this procedure. If consensus could not be established on a certain issue, it was found instead in the appointment of a number of league members who were then empowered to work out a compromise.  The Hanseatic "Kontore", which operated like an early stock exchange, each had their own treasury, court and seal. Like the guilds, the "Kontore" were led by "Ältermänner" ("eldermen", or English aldermen). The Stalhof "Kontor", as a special case, had a Hanseatic and an English "Ältermann". In 1347 the "Kontor" of Brussels modified its statute to ensure an equal representation of the league's members. To that end, member communities from different regions were pooled into three circles ("Drittel" ("third [part]"): the Wendish and Saxon Drittel, the Westphalian and Prussian Drittel as well as the Gothlandian, Livonian and Swedish Drittel. The merchants from their respective "Drittel" would then each choose two "Ältermänner" and six members of the Eighteen Men's Council ("Achtzehnmännerrat") to administer the "Kontor" for a set period of time. In 1356, during a Hanseatic meeting in preparation of the first "Tagfahrt", the league confirmed this statute. The league in general gradually adopted and institutionalized the division into "Drittel" (see table).  The "Tagfahrt" or "Hansetag" was the only central institution of the Hanseatic League. However, with the division into "Drittel", the members of the respective subdivisions frequently held a "Dritteltage" (""Drittel" meeting") to work out common positions which could then be presented at a "Tagfahrt". On a more local level, league members also met, and while such regional meetings were never formalized into a Hanseatic institution, they gradually gained importance in the process of preparing and implementing "Tagfahrt" decisions.

Quarters.

From 1554, the division into "Drittel" was modified to reduce the circles' heterogeneity, to enhance the collaboration of the members on a local level and thus to make the league's decision-making process more efficient. The number of circles rose to four, so they were called "Quartiere" (quarters):  This division was however not adopted by the "Kontore", who, for their purposes (like "Ältermänner" elections), grouped the league members in different ways (e.g., the division adopted by the Stahlhof in London in 1554 grouped the league members into "Dritteln", whereby Lübeck merchants represented the Wendish, Pomeranian Saxon and several Westphalian towns, Cologne merchants represented the Cleves, Mark, Berg and Dutch towns, while Danzig merchants represented the Prussian and Livonian towns).

Lists of former Hansa cities.

The names of the Quarters have been abbreviated in the following table:  Kontor: The Kontore were foreign trading posts of the League, not cities that were Hanseatic members, and are set apart in a separate table below.  The remaining column headings are as follows:

Hansa Proper.

Kontore.

Legacy Hanseatic connections.

Despite its collapse, several cities still maintained the link to the Hanseatic League. Dutch cities including Groningen, Deventer, Kampen, Zutphen and Zwolle, and a number of German cities including Bremen, Demmin, Greifswald, Hamburg, Lübeck, Lüneburg, Rostock, Stade, Stralsund and Wismar still call themselves "Hanse" cities (their car license plates are prefixed "H", e.g. –"HB"– for "Hansestadt Bremen"). Hamburg and Bremen continue to style themselves officially as "free Hanseatic cities", with Lübeck named "Hanseatic City" (Rostock's football team is named F.C. Hansa Rostock in memory of the city's trading past). For Lübeck in particular, this anachronistic tie to a glorious past remained especially important in the 20th century. In 1937, the Nazi Party removed this privilege through the Greater Hamburg Act possibly because the "Senat" of Lübeck did not permit Adolf Hitler to speak in Lübeck during his 1932 election campaign. He held the speech in Bad Schwartau, a small village on the outskirts of Lübeck. Subsequently, he referred to Lübeck as "the small city close to Bad Schwartau."  After the EU enlargement to the East in May 2004 there were some experts who wrote about the resurrection of the Baltic Hansa.  The legacy of the Hansa is remembered today in several names: the German airline Lufthansa (i.e., "Air Hansa"); F.C. Hansa Rostock; Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, Netherlands; Hanze oil production platform, Netherlands; the Hansa Brewery in Bergen and the Hanse Sail in Rostock. DDG Hansa was a major German shipping company from 1881 until its bankruptcy in 1980. Hansabank in the Baltic states, which has been rebranded into Swedbank. Hansa-Park, one of the biggest theme parks in Germany.  There are two museums in Europe dedicated specifically to the history of the Hanseatic League: the European Hansemuseum in Lübeck and the Hanseatic Museum and Schøtstuene in Bergen.

Modern versions of the Hanseatic League.

"City League The Hanse".

In 1980, former Hanseatic League members established a "new Hanse" in Zwolle. This league is open to all former Hanseatic League members and cities that share a Hanseatic Heritage. In 2012 the New Hanseatic league had 187 members. This includes twelve Russian cities, most notably Novgorod, which was a major Russian trade partner of the Hansa in the Middle Ages. The "new Hanse" fosters and develops business links, tourism and cultural exchange.  The headquarters of the New Hansa is in Lübeck, Germany. The current President of the Hanseatic League of New Time is Bernd Saxe, Mayor of Lübeck.  Each year one of the member cities of the New Hansa hosts the Hanseatic Days of New Time international festival.  In 2006 King's Lynn became the first English member of the newly formed new Hanseatic League. It was joined by Hull in 2012 and Boston in 2016.

New Hanseatic League.

The "New Hanseatic League" was established in February 2018 by finance ministers from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Sweden through the signing of a two-page foundational document which set out the countries' "shared views and values in the discussion on the architecture of the EMU."

The Hanseatic League (;,, ; ; ; ) was a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Northwestern and Central Europe. Growing from a few North German towns in the late 1100s, the league came to dominate Baltic maritime trade for three centuries along the coasts of Northern Europe. Hansa territories stretched from the Baltic to the North Sea and inland during the Late Middle Ages, and diminished slowly after 1450.

Hanza (též hansa, střední dolnoněmčinou "Hanse", "Düdesche Hanse", "Hansa", odtud přešlo do češtiny – skupina, spolek, houf, německy: "Deutsche Hanse") znamenala svazek převážně německých obchodních měst, která provozovala dálkový obchod. Založena byla v polovině 12. století, fungovala půl tisíciletí, až do poloviny 17. století. Z původního spolku německých obchodníků se původní Hanza rozrostla ve svaz hanzovních měst, který prosazoval své zájmy v cizích zemích i vůči vlastnímu panovníkovi.


General characteristics.

The English word ""saint" comes from the Latin ""sanctus"". The word translated in Greek is "ἅγιος" ("hagios"), which means "holy". The word ἅγιος appears 229 times in the Greek New Testament, and its English translation 60 times in the corresponding text of the King James Version of the Bible.  The word "sanctus" was originally a technical one in ancient Roman religion, but due to its "globalized" use in Christianity the modern word "saint" in English and its equivalent in Romance languages is now also used as a translation of comparable terms for persons "worthy of veneration for their holiness or sanctity" in other religions.  Many religions also use similar concepts (but different terminology) to venerate persons worthy of some honor. Author John A. Coleman, SJ, of the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California, wrote that saints across various cultures and religions have the following family resemblances:  The anthropologist Lawrence Babb in an article about Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba asks the question "Who is a saint?", and responds by saying that in the symbolic infrastructure of some religions, there is the image of a certain extraordinary spiritual king's "miraculous powers", to whom frequently a certain moral presence is attributed. These saintly figures, he asserts, are "the focal points of spiritual force-fields". They exert "powerful attractive influence on followers but touch the inner lives of others in transforming ways as well".

Christianity.

Catholic Church.

According to the Catholic Church, a "saint" is anyone in heaven, whether recognized on Earth or not, who form the "great cloud of witnesses" (Hebrews 12:1). These "may include our own mothers, grandmothers or other loved ones (cf. 2 Tim 1:5)" who may have not always lived perfect lives but "amid their faults and failings they kept moving forward and proved pleasing to the Lord". The title "Saint" denotes a person who has been formally canonized, that is, officially and authoritatively declared a saint, by the Church as holder of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and is therefore believed to be in Heaven by the grace of God. There are many persons that the Church believes to be in Heaven who have not been formally canonized and who are otherwise titled "saints" because of the fame of their holiness. Sometimes the word "saint" also denotes living Christians.  According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church Chapter 2, Article 1, 61, "The patriarchs, prophets, and certain other Old Testament figures have been and always will be honored as saints in all the church's liturgical traditions."  In his book "Saint of the Day", editor Leonard Foley, OFM, says this: the "[Saints'] surrender to God's love was so generous an approach to the total surrender of Jesus that the Church recognizes them as heroes and heroines worthy to be held up for our inspiration. They remind us that the Church is holy, can never stop being holy and is called to show the holiness of God by living the life of Christ."  The Catholic Church teaches that it does not "make" or "create" saints, but rather recognizes them. Proofs of heroic virtue required in the process of beatification will serve to illustrate in detail the general principles exposed above upon proof of their "holiness" or likeness to God.  On 3 January 993, Pope John XV became the first pope to proclaim a person a "saint" from outside the diocese of Rome: on the petition of the German ruler, he had canonized Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg. Before that time, the popular "cults", or venerations, of saints had been local and spontaneous and were confirmed by the local bishop. Pope John XVIII subsequently permitted a cult of five Polish martyrs. Pope Benedict VIII later declared the Armenian hermit Symeon to be a saint, but it was not until the pontificate of Pope Innocent III that the Popes reserved to themselves the exclusive authority to canonize saints, so that local bishops needed the confirmation of the Pope. Walter of Pontoise was the last person in Western Europe to be canonized by an authority other than the Pope: Hugh de Boves, the Archbishop of Rouen, canonized him in 1153. Thenceforth a decree of Pope Alexander III in 1170 reserved the prerogative of canonization to the Pope, insofar as the Latin Church was concerned.  One source claims that "there are over 10,000 named saints and beatified people from history, the Roman Martyrology and Orthodox sources, but no definitive head count".  Alban Butler published "Lives of the Saints" in 1756, including a total of 1,486 saints. The latest revision of this book, edited by Herbert Thurston and Donald Attwater, contains the lives of 2,565 saints. Monsignor Robert Sarno, an official of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints of the Holy See, expressed that it is impossible to give an exact number of saints.  The veneration of saints, in Latin "cultus", or the "cult of the Saints", describes a particular popular devotion or entrustment of one's self to a particular saint or group of saints. Although the term "worship" is sometimes used, it is only used with the older English connotation of honoring or respecting ("dulia") a person. According to the Church, Divine worship is in the strict sense reserved only to God ("latria") and never to the saints. One is permitted to ask the saints to intercede or pray to God for persons still on Earth, just as one can ask someone on Earth to pray for him.  A saint may be designated as a patron saint of a particular cause, profession, or locale, or invoked as a protector against specific illnesses or disasters, sometimes by popular custom and sometimes by official declarations of the Church. Saints are not believed to have power of their own, but only that granted by God. Relics of saints are respected, or "venerated", similar to the veneration of holy images and icons. The practice in past centuries of venerating relics of saints with the intention of obtaining healing from God through their intercession is taken from the early Church. For example, an American deacon claimed in 2000 that St John Henry Cardinal Newman (then blessed) interceded with God to cure him of a physical illness. The deacon, Jack Sullivan, asserted that after addressing Newman he was cured of spinal stenosis in a matter of hours. In 2009, a panel of theologians concluded that Sullivan's recovery was the result of his prayer to Newman. According to the Church, to be deemed a miracle, "a medical recovery must be instantaneous, not attributable to treatment, disappear for good."  Once a person has been canonized, the deceased body of the saint is considered holy as a relic. The remains of saints are called holy relics and are usually used in churches. Saints' personal belongings may also be used as relics. Some of the saints have a special symbol by tradition, e.g., Saint Lawrence, deacon and martyr, is identified by a gridiron because he is believed to have been burned to death on one. This symbol is found, for instance, in the Canadian heraldry of the office responsible for the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Stages of canonization.

Formal canonization is a lengthy process, often of many years or even centuries. There are four major steps to become a saint. The first stage in this process is an investigation of the candidate's life by an expert. After this, the official report on the candidate is submitted to the bishop of the pertinent diocese and more study is undertaken. The information is then sent to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints of the Holy See for evaluation at the universal level of the Church. If the application is approved the candidate may be granted the title "Venerable" (stage 2). Further investigation, step 3, may lead to the candidate's beatification with the title "Blessed", which is elevation to the class of the "Beati". Next, and at a minimum, proof of two important miracles obtained from God through the intercession of the candidate are required for formal canonization as a saint. These miracles must be posthumous. Finally, in the last stage, after all of these procedures are complete, the Pope may canonize the candidate as a saint for veneration by the universal Church.

Eastern Orthodoxy.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church a saint is defined as anyone who is in heaven, whether recognized here on earth, or not. By this definition, Adam and Eve, Moses, the various prophets, except for the angels and archangels are all given the title of "Saint". Sainthood in the Orthodox Church does not necessarily reflect a moral model, but the communion with God: there are countless examples of people who lived in great sin and became saints by humility and repentance, such as Mary of Egypt, Moses the Ethiopian, and Dysmas, the repentant thief who was crucified. Therefore, a more complete Eastern Orthodox definition of what a saint is, has to do with the way that saints, through their humility and their love of humankind, saved inside them the entire Church, and loved all people.  Orthodox belief considers that God reveals saints through answered prayers and other miracles. Saints are usually recognized by a local community, often by people who directly knew them. As their popularity grows they are often then recognized by the entire church. The word "canonization" means that a Christian has been found worthy to have his name placed in the canon (official list) of saints of the Church. The formal process of recognition involves deliberation by a synod of bishops. The Orthodox Church does not require the manifestation of miracles; what is required is evidence of a virtuous life.  If the ecclesiastical review is successful, this is followed by a service of Glorification in which the Saint is given a day on the church calendar to be celebrated by the entire church. This does not, however, make the person a saint; the person already was a saint and the Church ultimately recognized it.  As a general rule only clergy will touch relics in order to move them or carry them in procession, however, in veneration the faithful will kiss the relic to show love and respect toward the saint. The altar in an Orthodox church usually contains relics of saints, often of martyrs. Church interiors are covered with the Icons of saints. When an Orthodox Christian venerates icons of a saint he is venerating the image of God which he sees in the saint.  Because the Church shows no true distinction between the living and the dead (the saints are considered to be alive in Heaven), saints are referred to as if they were still alive. Saints are venerated but not worshiped. They are believed to be able to intercede for salvation and help mankind either through direct communion with God or by personal intervention.  In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the title Ὅσιος, "Hosios" (f. Ὁσία "Hosia") is also used. This is a title attributed to saints who had lived a monastic or eremitic life, and it is equal to the more usual title of "Saint".

Oriental Orthodoxy.

The Oriental Orthodox churches ‒ the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, the Tewahedo Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, and the Syriac Orthodox Church ‒ follow a canonization process unique to each church. The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, for example, has the requirement that at least 50 years must pass following a prospective saint's death before the Coptic Orthodox Church's pope can canonize the saint.

Anglicanism.

In the Anglican Communion and the Continuing Anglican movement, the title of Saint refers to a person who has been elevated by popular opinion as a pious and holy person. The saints are seen as models of holiness to be imitated, and as a 'cloud of witnesses' that strengthen and encourage the believer during his or her spiritual journey (). The saints are seen as elder brothers and sisters in Christ. Official Anglican creeds recognise the existence of the saints in heaven.  In high-church contexts, such as Anglo-Catholicism, a saint is generally one to whom has been attributed (and who has generally demonstrated) a high level of holiness and sanctity. In this use, a saint is therefore not merely a believer, but one who has been transformed by virtue. In Catholicism, a saint is a special sign of God's activity. The veneration of saints is sometimes misunderstood to be worship, in which case it is derisively termed "hagiolatry".  So far as invocation of the saints is concerned, one of the Church of England's Articles of Religion "Of Purgatory" condemns "the Romish Doctrine concerning...(the) Invocation of Saints" as "a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God". Anglo-Catholics in Anglican provinces using the Articles often make a distinction between a "Romish" and a "Patristic" doctrine concerning the invocation of saints, permitting the latter in accordance with Article XXII. Indeed, the theologian E.J. Bicknell stated that the Anglican view acknowledges that the term "invocation may mean either of two things: the simple request to a saint for his prayers (intercession), 'ora pro nobis,' or a request for some particular benefit. In medieval times the saints had come to be regarded as themselves the authors of blessings. Such a view was condemned but the former was affirmed."  Some Anglicans and Anglican churches, particularly Anglo-Catholics, personally ask prayers of the saints. However, such a practice is seldom found in any official Anglican liturgy. Unusual examples of it are found in The Korean Liturgy 1938, the liturgy of the Diocese of Guiana 1959 and The Melanesian English Prayer Book.  Anglicans believe that the only effective Mediator between the believer and God the Father, in terms of redemption and salvation, is God the Son, Jesus Christ. Historical Anglicanism has drawn a distinction between the intercession of the saints and the invocation of the saints. The former was generally accepted in Anglican doctrine, while the latter was generally rejected. There are some, however, in Anglicanism, who do beseech the saints' intercession. Those who beseech the saints to intercede on their behalf make a distinction between "mediator" and "intercessor", and claim that asking for the prayers of the saints is no different in kind than asking for the prayers of living Christians. Anglican Catholics understand sainthood in a more Catholic or Orthodox way, often praying for intercessions from the saints and celebrating their feast days.  According to the Church of England, a saint is one who is sanctified, as it translates in the Authorised King James Version (1611) 2 Chronicles 6:41: Now therefore arise, O God, into thy resting place, thou, and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O God, be clothed with salvation, and let thy saints rejoice in goodness.

Lutheranism.

In the Lutheran Church, all Christians, whether in heaven or on earth, are regarded as saints. However, the church still recognizes and honors specific saints, including some of those recognized by the Catholic Church, but in a qualified way: according to the Augsburg Confession, the term "saint" is used in the manner of the Catholic Church only insofar as to denote a person who received exceptional grace, was sustained by faith, and whose good works are to be an example to any Christian. Traditional Lutheran belief accounts that prayers "to" the saints are prohibited, as they are not mediators of redemption. But, Lutherans do believe that saints pray for the Christian Church in general. Philip Melanchthon, the author of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, approved honoring the saints by saying they are honored in three ways:  The Lutheran Churches also have liturgical calendars in which they honor individuals as saints.  The intercession of saints was criticized in the "". This criticism was rebutted by the Catholic side in the "Confutatio Augustana", which in turn was rebutted by the Lutheran side in the "Apology to the Augsburg Confession".

Methodism.

While Methodists as a whole do not venerate saints, they do honor and admire them. Methodists believe that all Christians are "saints", but mainly use the term to refer to biblical figures, Christian leaders, and martyrs of the faith. Many Methodist churches are named after saints—such as the Twelve Apostles, John Wesley, etc.—although most are named after geographical locations associated with an early circuit or prominent location. Methodist congregations observe All Saints' Day. Many encourage the study of saints, that is, the biographies of holy people.  The 14th Article of Religion in the United Methodist "Book of Discipline" states: The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardon, worshiping, and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but repugnant to the Word of God.

Other Protestantism.

In many Protestant churches, the word "saint" is used more generally to refer to anyone who is a Christian. This is similar in usage to Paul's numerous references in the New Testament of the Bible. In this sense, anyone who is within the Body of Christ (i.e., a professing Christian) is a "saint" because of their relationship with Christ Jesus. Many Protestants consider intercessory prayers to the saints to be idolatry, since an application of divine worship that should be given only to God himself is being given to other believers, dead or alive.  Within some Protestant traditions, "saint" is also used to refer to any born-again Christian. Many emphasize the traditional New Testament meaning of the word, preferring to write "saint" to refer to any believer, in continuity with the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The beliefs within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) with regard to saints are similar but not quite the same as the Protestant tradition. In the New Testament, saints are all those who have entered into the Christian covenant of baptism. The qualification "latter-day" refers to the doctrine that members are living in the "latter days", before the Second Coming of Christ, and is used to distinguish the members of the church, which considers itself the restoration of the ancient Christian church. Members are therefore often referred to as "Latter-day Saints" or "LDS", and among themselves as "saints".

Other religions.

The use of the term "saint" is not exclusive to Christianity. In many religions, there are people who have been recognized within their tradition as having fulfilled the highest aspirations of religious teaching. In English, the term saint is often used to translate this idea from many world religions. The Jewish "hasid" or "tsaddiq", the Islamic "qidees", the Zoroastrian "fravashi", the Hindu "rsi" or "guru," the Buddhist "arahant" or "bodhisattva," the Daoist "shengren," the Shinto "kami," and others have all been referred to as saints."

African diaspora.

Cuban Santería, Haitian Vodou, Trinidad Orisha-Shango, Brazilian Umbanda, Candomblé, and other similar syncretist religions adopted the Catholic saints, or at least the images of the saints, and applied their own spirits/deities to them. They are worshiped in churches (where they appear as saints) and in religious festivals, where they appear as the deities. The name "santería" was originally a pejorative term for those whose worship of saints deviated from Catholic norms.

Buddhism.

Buddhists in both the Theravada and Mahayana traditions hold the "Arhats" in special esteem, as well as highly developed Bodhisattvas.  Tibetan Buddhists hold the "tulkus" (reincarnates of deceased eminent practitioners) as living saints on earth.

Hinduism.

Hindu saints are those recognized by Hindus as showing a great degree of holiness and sanctity. Hinduism has a long tradition of stories and poetry about saints. There is no formal canonization process in Hinduism, but over time, many men and women have reached the status of saints among their followers and among Hindus in general. Unlike in Christianity, Hinduism does not canonize people as saints after death, but they can be accepted as saints during their lifetime. Hindu saints have often renounced the world, and are variously called gurus, sadhus, rishis, devarishis, rajarshis, saptarishis, brahmarshis, swamis, pundits, purohits, pujaris, acharyas, pravaras, yogis, yoginis, and other names.  Some Hindu saints are given god-like status, being seen as incarnations of Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, and other aspects of the Divine—this can happen during their lifetimes, or sometimes many years after their deaths. This explains another common name for Hindu saints: godmen.

Islam.

Islam has had a rich history of veneration of saints (often called "wali", which literally means "Friend [of God]"), which has declined in some parts of the Islamic world in the twentieth century due to the influence of the various streams of Salafism. In Sunni Islam, the veneration of saints became a very common form of devotion early on, and saints came to be defined in the eighth-century as a group of "special people chosen by God and endowed with exceptional gifts, such as the ability to work miracles." The classical Sunni scholars came to recognize and honor these individuals as venerable people who were both "loved by God and developed a close relationship of love to Him." "Belief in the miracles of saints ("karāmāt al-awliyāʾ")... [became a] requirement in Sunni Islam [during the classical period]," with even medieval critics of the ubiquitous practice of grave visitation like Ibn Taymiyyah emphatically declaring: "The miracles of saints are absolutely true and correct, and acknowledged by all Muslim scholars. The Quran has pointed to it in different places, and the sayings of the Prophet have mentioned it, and whoever denies the miraculous power of saints are innovators or following innovators." The vast majority of saints venerated in the classical Sunni world were the Sufis, who were all Sunni mystics who belonged to one of the four orthodox legal schools of Sunni law.  Veneration of saints eventually became one of the most widespread Sunni practices for more than a millennium, before it was opposed in the twentieth century by the Salafi movement, whose various streams regard it as "being both un-Islamic and backwards... rather than the integral part of Islam which they were for over a millennium." In a manner similar to the Protestant Reformation, the specific traditional practices which Salafism has tried to curtail in both Sunni and Shia contexts include those of the veneration of saints, visiting their graves, seeking their intercession, and honoring their relics. As Christopher Taylor has remarked: "[Throughout Islamic history] a vital dimension of Islamic piety was the veneration of Muslim saints.... [Due, however to] certain strains of thought within the Islamic tradition itself, particularly pronounced in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries... [some modern day] Muslims have either resisted acknowledging the existence of Muslim saints altogether or have viewed their presence and veneration as unacceptable deviations."

Judaism.

The term "Tzadik" ("righteous"), and its associated meanings, developed in rabbinic thought from its Talmudic contrast with "Hasid" ("pious"), to its exploration in ethical literature, and its esoteric spiritualisation in Kabbalah. In Hasidic Judaism, the institution of the Tzadik assumed central importance, combining former elite mysticism with social movement for the first time.

Sikhism.

The concept of "sant" or "bhagat" is found in North Indian religious thought including Sikhism, most notably in the Guru Granth Sahib. Figures such as Kabir, Ravidas, Namdev, and others are known as "Sants" or "Bhagats". The term "Sant" is applied in the Sikh and related communities to beings that have attained enlightenment through God realization and spiritual union with God via repeatedly reciting the name of God (Naam Japo). Countless names of God exist. In Sikhism, "Naam" (spiritual internalization of God's name) is commonly attained through the name of Waheguru, which translates to "Wondrous Guru".  Sikhs are encouraged to follow the congregation of a Sant (Sadh Sangat) or "The Company of the Holy". "Sants" grace the Sadh Sangat with knowledge of the Divine God, and how to take greater steps towards obtaining spiritual enlightenment through "Naam". "Sants" are to be distinguished from "Guru" (such as Guru Nanak) who have compiled the path to God enlightenment in the Sri Guru Granth Sahib. Gurus are the physical incarnation of God upon Earth. Sikhism states however, that any beings that have become one with God are considered synonymous with God. As such, the fully realized Sant, Guru, and God are considered one.

A saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness or likeness or closeness to God. However, the use of the term "saint" depends on the context and denomination. In Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Oriental Orthodox, and Lutheran doctrine, all of their faithful deceased in Heaven are considered to be saints, but some are considered worthy of greater honor or emulation; official ecclesiastical recognition, and consequently veneration, is given to some saints through the process of canonization in the Catholic Church or glorification in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Užití slova světec či svatý (z praslov. "*svętъ" mocný, silný) v náboženství pro člověka nebo věc (mše svatá, svatý kříž, nejsvětější trojice) se v různých náboženstvích a náboženských společnostech liší. Obecně je ale chápáno jako označení někoho, kdo se blíží ideálu příslušníka daného náboženství, je v rámci něho následování a uctívání hodný a určitým způsobem výjimečný či blízký Bohu. Na křesťanských zobrazeních jsou svatí často zpodobněni se svatozáří, což se shoduje s etymologií českého slova blízkou světlu, tj. záři.


Standard Slovene.

Standard Slovene is the national standard language that was formed in the 18th and 19th century, based on Upper and Lower Carniolan dialect groups, more specifically on language of Ljubljana and its adjacent areas. The Lower Carniolan dialect group was the dialect used by Primož Trubar while he also used the Slovene language as spoken in Ljubljana, since he lived in the city for more than 20 years. It was the speech of Ljubljana that Trubar took as a foundation of what later became standard Slovene, with small addition of his native speech, that is Lower Carniolan dialect Trubar's choice was later adopted also by other Protestant writers in the 16th century, and ultimately led to a formation of more standard language. The Upper dialect was also used by most authors during the language revival of the 18th and early 19th century, and was also the language spoken by France Prešeren, the latter, as was the case with most of Slovene writers and poets, lived and worked in Ljubljana, which speech ultimately grew closer to the Upper Carniolan dialect group. Unstandardized dialects are more preserved in regions of the Slovene Lands where compulsory schooling was in languages other than Standard Slovene, as was the case with the Carinthian Slovenes in Austria, and the Slovene minority in Italy. For example, the Resian and Torre (Ter) dialects in the Italian Province of Udine differ most from other Slovene dialects.  The distinctive characteristics of Slovene are dual grammatical number, two accentual norms (one characterized by pitch accent), and abundant inflection (a trait shared with many Slavic languages). Although Slovene is basically an SVO language, word order is very flexible, often adjusted for emphasis or stylistic reasons. Slovene has a T–V distinction: second-person plural forms are used for individuals as a sign of respect.

Classification.

Slovene is an Indo-European language belonging to the Western subgroup of the South Slavic branch of the Slavic languages, together with Serbo-Croatian. It is close to the Chakavian and especially Kajkavian dialects of Serbo-Croatian, but further from the Shtokavian dialect, the basis for the Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian standard languages. Furthermore, Slovene shares certain linguistic characteristics with all South Slavic languages, including those of the Eastern subgroup, such as Bulgarian.  Mutual intelligibility with varieties of Serbo-Croatian is hindered by differences in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, Kajkavian being the most mutually intelligible. The Slovene language has many commonalities with the West Slavic languages.

History.

Early history.

Like all Slavic languages, Slovene traces its roots to the same proto-Slavic group of languages that produced Old Church Slavonic. The earliest known examples of a distinct, written dialect possibly connected to Slovene are from the "Freising manuscripts," known in Slovene as "Brižinski spomeniki". The consensus estimate of their date of origin is between 972 and 1039 (most likely before 1000). These religious writings are among the oldest surviving manuscripts in any Slavic language.  The "Freising manuscripts" are a record of a proto-Slovene language that was spoken in a more scattered territory than modern Slovene, which included most of the present-day Austrian states of Carinthia and Styria, as well as East Tyrol, the Val Pusteria in South Tyrol, and some areas of Upper and Lower Austria.  By the 15th century, most of the northern areas were gradually Germanized: the northern border of the Slovene-speaking territory stabilized on the line going from north of Klagenfurt to south of Villach and east of Hermagor in Carinthia, while in Styria it was pretty much identical with the current Austrian-Slovenian border.  This linguistic border remained almost unchanged until the late 19th century, when a second process of Germanization took place, mostly in Carinthia. Between the 9th and 12th century, proto-Slovene spread into northern Istria and in the areas around Trieste.  During most of the Middle Ages, Slovene was a vernacular language of the peasantry, although it was also spoken in most of the towns on Slovenian territory, together with German or Italian. Although during this time, German emerged as the spoken language of the nobility, Slovene had some role in the courtly life of the Carinthian, Carniolan and Styrian nobility, as well. This is proved by the survival of certain ritual formulas in Slovene (such as the ritual installation of the Dukes of Carinthia). The words "Buge waz primi, gralva Venus!" ("God be With You, Queen Venus!"), with which Bernhard von Spanheim greeted the poet Ulrich von Liechtenstein, who was travelling around Europe in guise of Venus, upon his arrival in Carinthia in 1227 (or 1238), is another example of some level of Slovene knowledge among high nobility in the region.  The first printed Slovene words, "stara pravda" (meaning 'old justice' or 'old laws'), appeared in 1515 in Vienna in a poem of the German mercenaries who suppressed the Slovene peasant revolt: the term was presented as the peasants' motto and battle cry. Standard Slovene emerged in the second half of the 16th century, thanks to the works of Slovene Lutheran authors, who were active during the Protestant Reformation. The most prominent authors from this period are Primož Trubar, who wrote the first books in Slovene; Adam Bohorič, the author of the first Slovene grammar; and Jurij Dalmatin, who translated the entire Bible into Slovene.  From the high Middle Ages up to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, in the territory of present-day Slovenia, German was the language of the elite, and Slovene was the language of the common people. During this period, German had a strong influence on Slovene, and many Germanisms are preserved in contemporary colloquial Slovene. Many Slovene scientists before the 1920s also wrote in foreign languages, mostly German, which was the "lingua franca" of science throughout Central Europe at the time.

Recent history.

During the rise of Romantic nationalism in the 19th century, the cultural movements of Illyrism and Pan-Slavism brought words from Serbo-Croatian, specifically Croatian dialects, and Czech into standard Slovene, mostly to replace words previously borrowed from German. Most of these innovations have remained, although some were dropped in later development. In the second half of the 19th century, many nationalist authors made an abundant use of Serbo-Croatian words: among them were Fran Levstik and Josip Jurčič, who wrote the first novel in Slovene in 1866. This tendency was reversed in the Fin de siècle period by the first generation of modernist Slovene authors (most notably the writer Ivan Cankar), who resorted to a more "pure" and simple language without excessive Serbo-Croatian borrowings.  During the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the 1920s and 1930s, the influence of Serbo-Croatian increased again. This was opposed by the younger generations of Slovene authors and intellectuals; among the most fierce opponents of an excessive Serbo-Croatian influence on Slovene were the intellectuals associated with the leftist journal "Sodobnost", as well as some younger Catholic activists and authors. After 1945, numerous Serbo-Croatian words that had been used in the previous decades were dropped. The result was that a Slovene text from the 1910s is frequently closer to modern Slovene than a text from the 1920s and 1930s.  Between 1920 and 1941, the official language of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was defined as "Serbian-Croatian-Slovene". In practice, Slovene was used in Slovenia, both in education and administration. Many state institutions used only Serbo-Croatian, and a Slovene–Serbo-Croatian bilingualism was applied in many spheres of public life in Slovenia. For examples, at the post offices, railways and in administrative offices, Serbo-Croatian was used together with Slovene. However, state employees were expected to be able to speak Slovene in Slovenia.  During the same time, western Slovenia (the Slovenian Littoral and the western districts of Inner Carniola) was under Italian administration and submitted to a violent policy of Fascist Italianization; the same policy was applied to Slovene speakers in Venetian Slovenia, Gorizia and Trieste. Between 1923 and 1943, all public use of the Slovene language in these territories was strictly prohibited, and Slovene language activists were persecuted by the state.  After the Carinthian Plebiscite of 1920, a less severe policy of Germanization took place in the Slovene-speaking areas of southern Carinthia which remained under Austrian administration. After the Anschluss of 1938, the use of Slovene was strictly forbidden in Carinthia, as well. This accelerated a process of language shift in Carinthia, which continued throughout the second half of the 20th century: according to the Austro-Hungarian census of 1910, around 21% of inhabitants of Carinthia spoke Slovene in their daily communication; by 1951, this figure dropped to less than 10%, and by 2001 to a mere 2.8%.  During World War II, Slovenia was divided among the Axis Powers of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Hungary. Each of the occupying powers tried to either discourage or entirely suppress the Slovene language.  Following World War II, Slovenia became part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Slovene was one of the official languages of the federation. In the territory of Slovenia, it was commonly used in almost all areas of public life. One important exception was the Yugoslav army, where Serbo-Croatian was used exclusively, even in Slovenia.  National independence has revitalized the language: since 1991, when Slovenia gained independence, Slovene has been used as an official language in all areas of public life. In 2004 it became one of the official languages of the European Union upon Slovenia's admission.  Joža Mahnič, a literary historian and president of the publishing house "Slovenska matica", said in February 2008 that Slovene is a language rich enough to express everything, including the most sophisticated and specialised texts. In February 2010, Janez Dular, a prominent Slovenian linguist, commented that, although Slovene is not an endangered language, its scope has been shrinking, especially in science and higher education.

Geographic distribution.

The language is spoken by about 2.5 million people, mainly in Slovenia, but also by Slovene national minorities in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy (around 90,000 in Venetian Slovenia, Resia Valley, Canale Valley, Province of Trieste and in those municipalities of the Province of Gorizia bordering with Slovenia), in southern Carinthia and some parts of Styria in Austria (25,000). It is also spoken in Croatia, especially in Istria, Rijeka and Zagreb (11,800-13,100), in southwestern Hungary (3-5,000), in Serbia (5,000), and by the Slovene diaspora throughout Europe and the rest of the world (around 300,000), particularly in the United States (most notably Ohio, home to an estimated 3,400 speakers), Canada, Argentina, Australia and South Africa.

Dialects.

Slovene is sometimes characterized as the most diverse Slavic language in terms of dialects, with different degrees of mutual intelligibility. Accounts of the number of dialects range from as few as seven dialects, often considered dialect groups or dialect bases that are further subdivided into as many as 50 dialects. Other sources characterize the number of dialects as nine or eight. The Slovene proverb "Every village has its own voice" ("Vsaka vas ima svoj glas") depicts the differences in dialects. Although pronunciation differs greatly from area to area, those differences do not pose major obstacles to understanding. The standard language is mainly used in public presentations or on formal occasions.  The Prekmurje dialect used to have a written norm of its own at one point. The Resian dialects have an independent written norm that is used by their regional state institutions. Speakers of those two dialects have considerable difficulties with being understood by speakers of other varieties of Slovene, needing code-switching to Standard Slovene. Other dialects are mutually intelligible when speakers avoid the excessive usage of regionalisms.  Regionalisms are mostly limited to culinary and agricultural expressions, although there are many exceptions. Some loanwords have become so deeply rooted in the local language that people have considerable difficulties in finding a standard expression for the dialect term (for instance, "kovter" meaning blanket is "prešita odeja" in Standard Slovene, but the latter term is "never" used in speech). Southwestern dialects incorporate a great deal of calques and loanwords from Italian, whereas eastern and northwestern dialects are replete with lexemes of German origin. Usage of such words hinders intelligibility between dialects and is greatly discouraged in formal situations.

Phonology.

Slovene has a phoneme set consisting of 21 consonants and 8 vowels.

Consonants.

Slovene has 21 distinctive consonant phonemes.  All voiced obstruents are devoiced at the end of words unless immediately followed by a word beginning with a vowel or a voiced consonant. In consonant clusters, voicing distinction is neutralized and all consonants assimilate the voicing of the rightmost segment. In this context,, and may occur as voiced allophones of, and, respectively (e.g. "vŕh drevésa" ).  The sequences, and occur only before a vowel. Before a consonant or word-finally, they are reduced to, and respectively. This is reflected in the spelling in the case of, but not for and.  Under certain (somewhat unpredictable) circumstances, at the end of a syllable may become, merging with the allophone of in that position.

Vowels.

Slovene has an eight-vowel (or, according to Peter Jurgec, nine-vowel) system, in comparison to the five-vowel system of Serbo-Croatian.

Grammar.

Nouns.

Slovene nouns retain six of the seven Slavic noun cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative and instrumental. There is no distinct vocative; the nominative is used in that role. Nouns, adjectives and pronouns have three numbers: singular, dual and plural.  Nouns in Slovene are either masculine, feminine or neuter gender. In addition, there is a distinction between animate and inanimate nouns, although this is only relevant for masculine nouns and only in the singular. Animate nouns have an accusative singular form that is identical to the genitive, while for inanimate nouns the accusative singular is the same as the nominative. Animacy is based mostly on semantics and is less rigid than gender. Generally speaking a noun is animate if it refers to something that is generally thought to have free will or the ability to move of its own accord. This includes all nouns for people and animals. All other nouns are inanimate, including plants and other non-moving life forms, and also groups of people or animals. However, there are some nouns for inanimate objects that are generally animate, which mostly include inanimate objects that are named after people or animals. This includes:

Vocabulary.

T–V distinction.

Slovene, like most other European languages, has a T–V distinction, or two forms of 'you' for formal and informal situations, respectively. Although informal address using the 2nd person singular "ti" form (known as "tikanje") is officially limited to friends and family, talk among children, and addressing animals, it is increasingly used among the middle generation to signal a relaxed attitude or lifestyle instead of its polite or formal counterpart using the 2nd person plural "vi" form (known as "vikanje").  An additional nonstandard but widespread use of a singular participle combined with a plural auxiliary verb (known as "polvikanje") signals a somewhat more friendly and less formal attitude while maintaining politeness:  The use of nonstandard forms ("polvikanje") might be frowned upon by many people and would not likely be used in a formal setting.  The use of the 3rd person plural "oni" ('they') form (known as "onikanje" in both direct address and indirect reference; this is similar to using "Sie" in German) as an ultra-polite form is now archaic or dialectal. It is associated with servant-master relationships in older literature, the child-parent relationship in certain conservative rural communities, and parishioner-priest relationships.

Foreign words.

Foreign words used in Slovene are of various types depending on the assimilation they have undergone. The types are: The loanwords are mostly from German and Italian, while the more recently borrowed and less assimilated words are typically from English.

Articles.

There are no definite or indefinite articles as in English ("a", "an", "the") or German ("der", "die", "das", "ein", "eine"). A whole verb or a noun is described without articles and the grammatical gender is found from the word's termination. It is enough to say "barka" ("a" or "the barge"), "Noetova barka" ('Noah's ark'). The gender is known in this case to be feminine. In declensions, endings are normally changed; see below. If one should like to somehow distinguish between definiteness or indefiniteness of a noun, one would say "(prav/natanko/ravno) tista barka" ('that/precise/exact barge') for "the barge" and "neka/ena barka" ('some/a barge') for "a barge".  Definiteness of a noun phrase can also be discernible through the ending of the accompanying adjective. One should say "rdeči šotor" ([exactly that] red tent) or "rdeč šotor" ([a] red tent). This difference is observable only for masculine nouns in nominative or accusative case. Because of the lack of article in Slovene and audibly insignificant difference between the masculine adjective forms, most dialects do not distinguish between definite and indefinite variants of the adjective, leading to hypercorrection when speakers try to use Standard Slovenian.

Writing system.

This alphabet () was derived in the mid-1840s from the system created by Croatianist Ljudevit Gaj. Intended for the Serbo-Croatian language (in all its varieties), it was patterned on the Czech alphabet of the 1830s. Before that was, for example, written as, or ; as,, or ; sometimes as as a relic from the now modern Russian yery character, usually transliterated as "y"; as ; as ; as ; as, or.  The standard Slovenian orthography, used in almost all situations, uses only the letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet plus,, and :  The orthography thus underdifferentiates several phonemic distinctions:  In the tonemic varieties of Slovene, the ambiguity is even worse: "e" in a final syllable can stand for any of (although is rare).  The reader is expected to gather the interpretation of the word from the context, as in these examples:

Diacritics.

To compensate for the shortcomings of the standard orthography, Slovenian also uses standardized diacritics or accent marks to denote stress, vowel length and pitch accent, much like the closely related Serbo-Croatian. However, as in Serbo-Croatian, use of such accent marks is restricted to dictionaries, language textbooks and linguistic publications. In normal writing, the diacritics are almost never used, except in a few minimal pairs where real ambiguity could arise.  Two different and mutually incompatible systems of diacritics are used. The first is the simpler non-tonemic system, which can be applied to all Slovene dialects. It is more widely used and is the standard representation in dictionaries such as SSKJ. The tonemic system also includes tone as part of the representation. However, neither system reliably distinguishes schwa from the front mid-vowels, nor vocalised l from regular l. Some sources write these as "ə" and "ł", respectively, but this is not as common.

Non-tonemic diacritics.

In the non-tonemic system, the distinction between the two mid-vowels is indicated, as well as the placement of stress and length of vowels:

Tonemic diacritics.

The tonemic system uses the diacritics somewhat differently from the non-tonemic system. The high-mid vowels and are written "ẹ ọ" with a subscript dot, while the low-mid vowels and are written as plain "e o".  Pitch accent and length is indicated by four diacritical marks:  The schwa vowel is written ambiguously as "e", but its accentuation will sometimes distinguish it: a long vowel mark can never appear on a schwa, while a grave accent can appear only on a schwa. Thus, only "ȅ" and unstressed "e" are truly ambiguous.

Regulation.

Standard Slovene spelling and grammar are defined by the Orthographic Committee and the Fran Ramovš Institute of the Slovenian Language, which are both part of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts ("Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti", SAZU). The newest reference book of standard Slovene spelling (and to some extent also grammar) is the "Slovenski pravopis" ("SP2001"; Slovene Normative Guide). The latest printed edition was published in 2001 (reprinted in 2003 with some corrections) and contains more than 130,000 dictionary entries. In 2003, an electronic version was published.  The official dictionary of modern Slovene, which was also prepared by SAZU, is "Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika" ("SSKJ"; Standard Slovene Dictionary). It was published in five volumes by Državna Založba Slovenije between 1970 and 1991 and contains more than 100,000 entries and subentries with accentuation, part-of-speech labels, common collocations, and various qualifiers. In the 1990s, an electronic version of the dictionary was published and is available online.  The SAZU considers SP2001 to be the normative source on Slovenian language. When dictionary entries in SP2001 and SSKJ differ, the SP2001 entry takes precedence. SP2001 is called a Spelling Dictionary by the European Network of e-Lexicography.

Slovene ( or ), or alternatively Slovenian (; "slovenski jezik" or "slovenščina"), is a South Slavic language spoken by the Slovenes. It is spoken by about 2.5 million speakers worldwide, the majority of whom live in Slovenia, where it is one of the three official languages. As Slovenia is part of the European Union, Slovene is also one of its 24 official and working languages.

Slovinština ("slovenščina, slovenski jezik") je jihoslovanský jazyk. Je úředním jazykem ve Slovinsku, a tedy patří mezi úřední jazyky EU. Jako jeden z místních jazyků se užívá také v Itálii a v Rakousku.


History.

ANSI was originally formed in 1918, when five engineering societies and three government agencies founded the American Engineering Standards Committee (AESC). In 1928, the AESC became the American Standards Association (ASA). In 1966, the ASA was reorganized and became United States of America Standards Institute (USASI). The present name was adopted in 1969.  Prior to 1918, these five founding engineering societies: had been members of the United Engineering Society (UES). At the behest of the AIEE, they invited the U.S. government Departments of War, Navy (combined in 1947 to become the Department of Defense or DOD) and Commerce to join in founding a national standards organization.  According to Adam Stanton, the first permanent secretary and head of staff in 1919, AESC started as an ambitious program and little else. Staff for the first year consisted of one executive, Clifford B. LePage, who was on loan from a founding member, ASME. An annual budget of $7,500 was provided by the founding bodies.  In 1931, the organization (renamed ASA in 1928) became affiliated with the U.S. National Committee of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), which had been formed in 1904 to develop electrical and electronics standards.

Members.

ANSI's members are government agencies, organizations, academic and international bodies, and individuals. In total, the Institute represents the interests of more than 270,000 companies and organizations and 30 million professionals worldwide.

Process.

Although ANSI itself does not develop standards, the Institute oversees the development and use of standards by accrediting the procedures of standards developing organizations. ANSI accreditation signifies that the procedures used by standards developing organizations meet the Institute's requirements for openness, balance, consensus, and due process.  ANSI also designates specific standards as American National Standards, or ANS, when the Institute determines that the standards were developed in an environment that is equitable, accessible and responsive to the requirements of various stakeholders.  Voluntary consensus standards quicken the market acceptance of products while making clear how to improve the safety of those products for the protection of consumers. There are approximately 9,500 American National Standards that carry the ANSI designation.  The American National Standards process involves:

International activities.

In addition to facilitating the formation of standards in the United States, ANSI promotes the use of U.S. standards internationally, advocates U.S. policy and technical positions in international and regional standards organizations, and encourages the adoption of international standards as national standards where appropriate.  The Institute is the official U.S. representative to the two major international standards organizations, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), as a founding member, and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), via the U.S. National Committee (USNC). ANSI participates in almost the entire technical program of both the ISO and the IEC, and administers many key committees and subgroups. In many instances, U.S. standards are taken forward to ISO and IEC, through ANSI or the USNC, where they are adopted in whole or in part as international standards.  Adoption of ISO and IEC standards as American standards increased from 0.2% in 1986 to 15.5% in May 2012.

Standards panels.

The Institute administers nine standards panels:  Each of the panels works to identify, coordinate, and harmonize voluntary standards relevant to these areas.  In 2009, ANSI and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) formed the Nuclear Energy Standards Coordination Collaborative (NESCC). NESCC is a joint initiative to identify and respond to the current need for standards in the nuclear industry.

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organization also coordinates U.S. standards with international standards so that American products can be used worldwide.

ANSI je americká standardizační organizace, sídlící ve Washingtonu. Celým názvem se jmenuje, tedy "Americký národní standardizační institut". Je to nezisková organizace, která vytváří průmyslové standardy ve Spojených státech. Je členem organizace ISO a IEC.