Editing German language (section)

===Habsburg Empire===
[[File:HRR 1648.png|thumb|upright=1.4|Map of [[Central Europe]] in 1648:
{{legend|#DEB200|Territories under the [[Holy Roman Empire]], comprising the [[Alps|Alpine]] heartland (''[[Erblande]]'') of the [[Habsburg monarchy]].}}]]
[[File:Austria Hungary ethnic.svg|thumb|upright=1.4|Ethnolinguistic map comprising the territories of [[Austria-Hungary]] (1910), with German-speaking areas shown in red]]

German was the language of commerce and government in the [[Habsburg monarchy|Habsburg Empire]], which encompassed a large area of [[Central Europe|Central]] and [[Eastern Europe]]. Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality.

[[Prague]] ({{langx|de|Prag|links=no}}) and [[Budapest]] ([[Buda]], {{langx|de|Ofen|links=no}}), to name two examples, were gradually [[Germanization|Germanized]] in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain. However, Prague had a large German-speaking population since the Middle Ages, as had Pressburg (Pozsony, now Bratislava), which was settled by Germans in the 10th century. Significant portions of Bohemia and Moravia, now part of the [[Czech Republic]], had become German-speaking during [[Ostsiedlung]]. During the Habsburg time, Budapest and cities like [[Zagreb]] ({{langx|de|Agram|links=no}}) or [[Ljubljana]] ({{langx|de|Laibach|links=no}}), contained significant German minorities.

In the eastern provinces of [[Banat]], [[Bukovina]], and [[Transylvania]] ({{langx|de|Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen|links=no}}), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like {{lang|de|Temeschburg}} ([[Timișoara]]), {{lang|de|Hermannstadt}} ([[Sibiu]]), and {{lang|de|Kronstadt}} ([[Brașov]])—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas.{{sfn|Rothaug|1910|p=}}