King of German Mercenaries

Early the next morning, Marin woke up refreshed and went for a run alone. As for Angela, she didn't follow her because she was "unwell".

After breakfast, Marin came to the office area in front of the palace and began to deal with daily affairs. In fact, the main thing is to sign things. After all, Jeffrey is also a good hand in handling government affairs. In addition to the funding issue, Marin sent someone to supervise and prevent the corruption of the old bureaucrat Jeffrey.

In addition to signing and stamping, Marin has another job to do, and it's important. That is—he needs to write textbooks for the new school...

In terms of language, Marin does not need to spend too much time. These days, schools in Western Europe basically use the Bible as their language book. Even noble children read the Latin version of the Bible directly from childhood. Whether you understand it or not, just memorize it first. Then, the missionary in charge of teaching will explain it to you slowly.

As for some church schools for the common people, the Bible is taught to students in their own language. Generally speaking, only noble children learn Latin. Of course, children who were sent to monasteries from an early age were also taught Latin.

To this end, Marin decided to implement bilingual teaching in artisan schools in schools across the country. The so-called bilingual, naturally German and Frisian.

However, Frisian does not have its own script. For now, it's just a language spoken orally. In fact, Frisian used to use an ancient runic script. However, after being conquered by the Christians, the rune script was lost. Therefore, today's Frisians usually communicate in colloquial Frisian, while literate people learn German. Because German has a perfect script.

Marin thought for a while and felt that since the pronunciation of Frisian is similar to English, it is better to use English textbooks directly...

So he sent someone to England to buy the English version of the Bible as a textbook in Frisian. As for German, then don't worry, this German version of the "Bible" is everywhere in Germany.

Even, in order to facilitate education, Marin also sent people to England to hire a group of unwilling missionaries with high salaries. In the name of traveling the European continent, they came to the artisan school in East Frisian to teach Frisian, who is very close to English. language and place orders at the local church. After all, East Frisian has a severe shortage of literate missionaries. In the past, missionaries had to give priority to supplying the top 5 aristocratic schools. Therefore, the schools in the countryside are relatively short of teachers. In addition to those literate craftsmen, Marin added some poor missionaries in England, and most of them were missionaries in London, so that the students could learn a pure London accent...

Of course, as a traveler with modern thinking, Marin did not forget to label the words with phonetic symbols. Therefore, the International Phonetic Alphabet was simply "invented".

It took a long time for Marin to complete his exegesis of the English version of the Bible. In this way, as long as children can memorize the International Phonetic Alphabet and get the English version of the Bible with annotations, they can easily read it.

However, when it was his turn to annotate the German phonetic symbols, Marin was in trouble. Because, German has 30 letters, 4 letters more than English. Also, the International Phonetic Alphabet is not enough to annotate German words.

Marin had studied English in a previous life, but never German. In this life, although he can speak German, he has never seen German phonetic symbols in two lifetimes...

For this reason, Marin had to temporarily let everyone teach German casually. As for himself, he studied how to refer to the International Phonetic Alphabet and got a German phonetic symbol table.

In addition, there are many German dialects. For convenience, Marin naturally has to set a standard. Otherwise, the phonetic annotation will be troublesome. Originally, Marin intended to use the pronunciation of the later popular Highland Standard German. However, the high and low German Marin is also inaccurate in pronunciation. If you use your own inaccurate pronunciation to annotate,

Must be a joke.

In the end, Marin decided - to simply use the pronunciation of Low German, which is popular in the northwest coast of Germany, as the written standard pronunciation. Among them, Marin's hometown of the lower Rhine region, including the Friesland region, belongs to the Lower Saxony region, and the German used is also called Low Saxony. Because the Duchy of Saxony a long time ago once controlled the vast area of ​​northern Germany, which is completely different from the current territory of the Duchy of Saxony. Even the British are descendants of the Angles and Saxons who crossed the sea. Therefore, English is also called "Anglo-Saxon". The Saxons here refer to the Lower Saxons of the North Sea.

Once, the ancestors of the British and the ancestors of the Frisians lived on the North Sea of ​​Germany. Their languages ​​are also very close or the same. Although hundreds of thousands of years have passed, Frisian is still very close to English. Because the Frisians have been excluded from the main German nation for a long time, the language of the Frisians has not changed for thousands of years.

The Lower Saxon language in the Lower Saxony region is different. The Lower Saxons are integrated into the German main body, and are greatly influenced by the eastern and southern High German, and gradually become quite different from English.

In general, however, High German and English are very different; Frisian is close to English; and Low German, the Low Saxon language of the northwest, is between German and English.

Low Saxon, and High German, can still be communicated, just speak slowly. The Low Saxon languages, on the other hand, are a little more difficult to communicate with English and Frisian, but they have a lot in common. Many words are very similar, just pronounced differently. People who speak Low Saxon can also communicate with people who speak English or Frisian, if you add gestures.

Therefore, using the International Phonetic Alphabet to annotate the Low Saxon language is not a big change, and it is simpler. If you have an Austrian German accent, you won't be able to communicate with English...

Also, Low Saxon is widely spoken. Its scope of application includes the entire Lower Saxony region (later Lower Saxony), as well as the North Rhine-Western** region (including the Ruhr area where Marin's hometown is located), as well as Bremen and Hamburg in the east, Even the western half of the Schleswig-Holstein region under Danish control. In the eastern part of the Netherlands, the Low Saxon language is also popular, but the Franconian Dutch is also used.

That is to say, the scope of application of Low Saxon is still very wide, and it is closer to English, which is convenient for the modification and use of the International Phonetic Alphabet.

So Marin finally made up his mind - to use Low Saxon as the pronunciation standard for East Frisian German textbooks. After the phonetic transcription is added, it is difficult to pronounce the wrong pronunciation...

The importance of phonetic symbols is similar to that of Chinese Pinyin in later generations. In fact, Hanyu Pinyin is the Huaxia system created by imitating the International Phonetic Alphabet. Its main function is to facilitate students to recognize characters and stipulate standard pronunciation, which is very convenient.

However, modifying the International Phonetic Alphabet into the German version is not something Marin can do alone. In his previous life, he was just an ordinary undergraduate, not a language expert. Therefore, Marin intends to invite several scholars who are also applicable to the Low Saxon language to complete the work together. Even if you can't get a university student, the University of Cologne in Cologne, which also belongs to the low Saxon-speaking area, is also a good choice. After all, with the International Phonetic Alphabet as a reference, it is still possible to compile a set of German phonetic symbols.

If Marin does it himself, it's not that he can't do it, it just takes more time. After all, compiling a book requires consulting a large amount of data, repeated comparisons and textual research. As a prince, he has a bunch of things every day, where is he free to do it?

You know, Marin not only planned to write a set of German phonetic symbols suitable for German, but also planned to write a set of German dictionary similar to the later "Xinhua Dictionary", which is a huge project. Therefore, he can't do it alone, and he doesn't have that much time. However, as the editor-in-chief, he must have one. After all, this is a great deed that will endure forever. Marin won't give this kind of credit to others...

So, Marin temporarily put aside the German phonetic symbols and the German dictionary, and started writing elementary school math textbooks...

Mathematics in grades 1 to 3 of primary school is very simple, which is the most basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and then the four mixed operations are learned. Marin only needs to write some easy-to-understand exercises, such as counting ducks, counting eggs, pulling radishes and other childish problems...

In addition, in elementary school mathematics books, Marin fully used modern Arabic numerals (the Arabic numerals at this time were slightly different from modern ones), and completely eliminated Roman numerals and Greek letters. Of course, Roman numerals and Greek letters will appear in middle school math. It's just that it's still early in the middle school. After all, the first grade of primary school hasn't started yet, so Marin has time to write textbooks for middle school. For now, as long as Marin has finished writing the textbooks for grades one to three, it is enough...

Before the German phonetic symbols and the German dictionary were compiled, Marin directly asked the school to teach German in the original way. As for the Frisian language, it is natural to use the English version of the Bible with the International Phonetic Alphabet as the teaching material. In addition, Marin also plans to send someone to the UK to invite some scholars to write a small English-Frisian dictionary for students to learn Frisian...

Once the phonetic symbols and dictionaries are completed and put into use, language learning will be simplified many times, and it will also be convenient for teachers to teach students to write and pronounce, allowing the rapid spread of culture. As the "inventor" and initiator of modern phonetic symbols and new dictionaries, Marin's reputation is bound to be unparalleled...