{ "model": { "rank": 408, "code": "thing-q188", "model_id": "vr.tr.german", "name": "German", "purpose": "Let an agent handle German by varieties, standards, identifiers, learning and translation, respecting national standard varieties and dialects.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Information and virtual systems", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "INF", "domain": "INF.MED", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q188/", "tier": 2, "score": 356, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [ "German language in the United States", "German language in Australia", "German language in Cameroon", "German language in Togo", "German language in Namibia", "German language in Switzerland", "German language in Germany", "German language in the Netherlands", "German language in Brazil", "German language in Denmark", "German language in Chile", "German language in Austria", "German language in the Czech Republic", "German language in Paraguay", "German language in France", "German language in Russia", "German language in Romania", "dialects in Rhineland-Palatinate", "dialects in Saxony-Anhalt", "dialects in North Rhine-Westphalia", "dialects in Bavaria", "dialects in Austria", "Old High German", "German-based creole languages", "Legal German", "Silesian accents", "Belgian German", "South Tyrolean German", "Swiss Standard German", "Ruhrdeutsch", "Hamburger Dialect", "Baltic German", "Mannheim German", "Eupen dialect", "Prague German", "Rhinelandic", "dialect of German", "Transylvanian Saxon", "Austrian German", "Barossa German" ], "aliasCount": 51, "merged": 51, "knownIn": 356, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": null, "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q188", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q188", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-11T12:04:03Z", "providers": [ "Claude" ], "breadth": "written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify", "pass": 2, "wave": 1, "engine": "claude" }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q188", "registryId": "vr.tr.german", "name": "German", "version": "0.2.0-wave.1", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "INF.MED" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q188/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.german", "name": "German", "purpose": "Let an agent handle German by varieties, standards, identifiers, learning and translation, respecting national standard varieties and dialects.", "definition": "A West Germanic language spoken natively by roughly 95-100 million people, official in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Belgium, with Standard German varieties and many regional dialects; its speakers call it Deutsch.", "what_it_is_for": "Communication, culture, science, education and business.", "affordances": [ "identify national and regional varieties", "check spelling rules and dictionaries", "find learning resources and exams", "translate with regional sensitivity" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "West Germanic language", "Pluricentric standards", "Grammatical cases and genders", "Wide dialect variation" ], "appearance": "Latin script with umlauts and the letter eszett, and capitalised nouns.", "visual_identification": [ "Umlauts and eszett", "Capitalised nouns", "Dutch and Yiddish are related separate languages" ], "physical_properties": [], "families_and_kinds": [ "German Standard German", "Austrian Standard German", "Swiss Standard German", "Low German and other regional varieties", "German in diaspora communities" ], "related_models": [ { "relation": "is a kind of", "target": "West Germanic language", "why": "category" }, { "relation": "is regulated by", "target": "Council for German Orthography", "why": "body" }, { "relation": "is related to", "target": "Dutch", "why": "related language" }, { "relation": "is written in", "target": "Latin script", "why": "script" } ], "identifiers": [ { "scheme": "ISO 639-1", "value_or_pattern": "de", "note": "language code" }, { "scheme": "ISO 639-3", "value_or_pattern": "deu", "note": "language code" } ], "standards_and_regulation": [ "Council for German Orthography rules", "Goethe-Institut and TestDaF exams", "National language provisions" ], "failure_modes_and_hazards": [ "Treating German Standard German as the only norm", "Mixing formal and informal address", "Outdated spelling rules" ], "in_scope": [], "out_of_scope": [], "characteristics": [] }, "sources": [], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "varieties", "name": "Varieties", "description": "Regional forms.", "rationale": "German is pluricentric.", "layers": [ { "id": "variety", "name": "Variety", "description": "Which variety.", "findings": [ { "id": "variety-finding", "name": "Variety", "description": "National variety.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which national or regional variety is meant or appropriate?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "How does vocabulary differ, for example in Austria or Switzerland?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "dialect", "name": "Dialect", "description": "Dialects.", "findings": [ { "id": "dialect-finding", "name": "Dialect", "description": "Dialects.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which dialect is spoken here?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Is it mutually intelligible with Standard German?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "norms", "name": "Norms", "description": "Standards.", "rationale": "Norms guide writing.", "layers": [ { "id": "spelling", "name": "Spelling", "description": "Orthography.", "findings": [ { "id": "spelling-finding", "name": "Spelling", "description": "Spelling.", "questions": [ { "text": "What does current official spelling say about this word?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Is eszett used in Switzerland?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] }, { "id": "address", "name": "Address", "description": "Du and Sie.", "findings": [ { "id": "address-finding", "name": "Address", "description": "Forms of address.", "questions": [ { "text": "Should formal Sie or informal du be used in this context?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "How are gender-inclusive forms handled, according to style guides?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "learning", "name": "Learning", "description": "Studying German.", "rationale": "Learners need resources.", "layers": [ { "id": "resources", "name": "Resources", "description": "Courses.", "findings": [ { "id": "resources-finding", "name": "Resources", "description": "Learning resources.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which resources suit this learner level?", "kind": "action" }, { "text": "How are cases best practised?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] }, { "id": "exams", "name": "Exams", "description": "Certificates.", "findings": [ { "id": "exams-finding", "name": "Exams", "description": "Exams.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which certificates, such as Goethe-Zertifikat or TestDaF, fit this goal?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Where can they be taken?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "use", "name": "Use", "description": "Translation and data.", "rationale": "Use needs care.", "layers": [ { "id": "translation", "name": "Translation", "description": "Localisation.", "findings": [ { "id": "translation-finding", "name": "Translation", "description": "Translation.", "questions": [ { "text": "Should the translation target Germany, Austria or Switzerland?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "Which terms differ?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "speakers", "name": "Speakers", "description": "Statistics.", "findings": [ { "id": "speakers-finding", "name": "Speakers", "description": "Speaker numbers.", "questions": [ { "text": "How many speakers are there, according to recent sources?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Native or total?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Should varieties be separate entries?", "How should speaker statistics be sourced?", "How should German in specific countries be linked?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 4, "layers": 8, "findings": 8, "questions": 16 } }, "draft": { "generator": "vr.draft.v3", "status": "draft-generated", "researched": false, "archetype": "work, medium or creative form", "method": "Written from the archetype playbook - what this kind of thing needs beyond identity and provenance - and from the structure that recurred across 6,333 models already researched by two engines. Applied to this entry by rule. No source was read for this thing and no claim here is researched. This entry carries no facets of its own, so they were inferred from its domain - a guess about a whole domain applied to one thing.", "facetsInferred": true, "nextPass": "A researcher replaces this draft with a sourced specification. Treat every sentence below as a proposal to argue with.", "purpose": "Give an agent a durable, checkable way to recognise a German, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Let an agent handle German by varieties, standards, identifiers, learning and translation, respecting national standard varieties and dialects.", "characteristics": { "substance": "information", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "inert" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "read and interpreted", "observed and measured" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Names folded into this entry, which a task may need to split apart again: German language in the United States, German language in Australia, German language in Cameroon, German language in Togo, German language in Namibia, German language in Switzerland, German language in Germany, German language in the Netherlands, German language in Brazil, German language in Denmark, German language in Chile, German language in Austria.", "51 finer distinctions are held as aliases rather than separate entries, because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it.", "Described in 356 Wikipedia languages, which is a measure of how widely the thing is known, not of how important it is." ], "openQuestionsForResearch": [ "Which of the bundles below does a real task actually need, and which are ceremony?", "What does this thing have that the facets do not capture at all?", "Which neighbouring kind is most often confused with a German, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "content that has to be carried by something else", "physicalCharacter": [ "Does nothing on its own; everything it does, something else did to it.", "These come from the domain this entry sits in rather than from the entry itself, so treat them as a first guess about the whole domain applied to one thing." ], "whatCanBeDoneWithIt": [ "read it and act on what it says", "observe it, measure it, record its state" ], "howItIsRecognised": [ "What is seen is a copy or a performance, not the work. Recognising the work means recognising the content through whatever is carrying it." ], "relatedModels": [ { "relation": "covers", "note": "Finer kinds folded into this entry because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it. Each is a model waiting to be split out when one does.", "targets": [ "German language in the United States", "German language in Australia", "German language in Cameroon", "German language in Togo", "German language in Namibia", "German language in Switzerland", "German language in Germany", "German language in the Netherlands", "German language in Brazil", "German language in Denmark", "German language in Chile", "German language in Austria" ] } ], "standing": "Described in 356 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is. 51 finer distinctions are held inside this entry as names rather than as separate models.", "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "identity-and-classification", "name": "Identity, naming and classification", "description": "How an agent tells one German from another, and a German from things that resemble it.", "rationale": "Recognition comes before every other claim. Without stable identity nothing else in the model can be trusted to be about the same thing twice.", "layers": [ { "id": "naming-and-identifiers", "name": "Names and identifiers", "description": "The names this thing goes by and the identifiers that survive translation and time.", "findings": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases", "name": "Preferred name, aliases and local names", "description": "Which name to use, which names mean the same thing, and which merely sound similar.", "questions": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the name of a German, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the name of a German, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the name of a German is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers", "name": "Stable identifiers and external keys", "description": "Identifiers that keep pointing at this kind of thing across systems and languages.", "questions": [ { "id": "stable-identifiers-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an identifier for a German, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an identifier for a German, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an identifier for a German is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification-and-granularity", "name": "Classification and granularity", "description": "Where a German sits among kinds, and how finely a task needs to cut it.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents", "name": "Kind, parents and neighbouring kinds", "description": "The classes this thing belongs to and the ones it is next to.", "questions": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the kind of a German, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the kind of a German, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the kind of a German is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features", "name": "Distinguishing features", "description": "What separates a German from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a German, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about what distinguishes a German, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once what distinguishes a German is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "state-and-lifecycle", "name": "State and lifecycle", "description": "The states a German passes through and the events that move it between them.", "rationale": "Most decisions about a thing depend on what state it is in now, which is a claim with a time on it, not a property.", "layers": [ { "id": "lifecycle-stages", "name": "Lifecycle stages", "description": "From coming into existence to ceasing to be one of these.", "findings": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions", "name": "Stages and transitions", "description": "The stages worth naming and what moves a German between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a German, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the lifecycle of a German, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the lifecycle of a German is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "observations-and-status", "name": "Observations and current status", "description": "What is observed about a German, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a German is recorded so that it can be superseded rather than overwritten.", "questions": [ { "id": "observation-record-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an observation of a German, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an observation of a German, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an observation of a German is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "content-and-access", "name": "Content, encoding and access", "description": "What a German says, how it is encoded and who may read it.", "rationale": "An informational thing carries content that can be copied, versioned and withheld, none of which its physical carrier explains.", "layers": [ { "id": "content-and-encoding", "name": "Content and encoding", "description": "The content itself, its format and its language.", "findings": [ { "id": "content-and-format", "name": "Content, format and language", "description": "What a German contains and in what form it is held.", "questions": [ { "id": "content-and-format-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the content of a German, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "content-and-format-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the content of a German, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "content-and-format-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the content of a German is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "access-and-rights", "name": "Access, rights and retention", "description": "Who may read, copy or change it, and for how long it is kept.", "findings": [ { "id": "access-rules", "name": "Access rules and retention", "description": "The permissions attached to a German and the period it survives.", "questions": [ { "id": "access-rules-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes access to a German, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "access-rules-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about access to a German, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "access-rules-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once access to a German is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "work-and-manifestation", "name": "Work, version and copy", "description": "Which level of German a statement is about.", "rationale": "The work, the edition, the file and the copy in hand are four things; rights and content attach to different ones.", "layers": [ { "id": "levels", "name": "Levels of the thing", "description": "Work, expression, manifestation and item, in plain terms.", "findings": [ { "id": "level-rules", "name": "What belongs at each level", "description": "Which facts hold for the work and which only for one copy.", "questions": [ { "id": "level-rules-q01", "text": "For German, which facts belong to the work itself, which to a version, and which to a single copy?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "id": "level-rules-q02", "text": "What identifier exists at each level, and which one is being cited?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "versions", "name": "Versions, editions and variants", "description": "How versions differ and which is canonical to whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "version-record", "name": "Versions and canonicity", "description": "Differences that matter and who calls one authoritative.", "questions": [ { "id": "version-record-q01", "text": "Which versions or editions of German exist, and how do they differ substantively?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "version-record-q02", "text": "Who treats which version as authoritative, and for what purpose?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "authorship-and-rights", "name": "Authorship, rights and permitted use", "description": "Who made German and what may be done with it.", "rationale": "Rights are jurisdictional, time-limited and attached to a level, and an agent that ignores that will copy what it may not.", "layers": [ { "id": "authorship", "name": "Authorship and contribution", "description": "Who contributed what, and in what capacity.", "findings": [ { "id": "contribution-record", "name": "Contributors and roles", "description": "The people and bodies behind it, with their roles.", "questions": [ { "id": "contribution-record-q01", "text": "Who authored or contributed to German, in what roles, and how is that attested?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "id": "contribution-record-q02", "text": "Where authorship is disputed or anonymous, what is recorded instead?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "rights", "name": "Rights and permissions", "description": "Which rights subsist, where, until when, and what they permit.", "findings": [ { "id": "rights-record", "name": "Rights, term and permitted acts", "description": "The regime in force and what it allows.", "questions": [ { "id": "rights-record-q01", "text": "What rights subsist in German, in which jurisdictions, and until when?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "rights-record-q02", "text": "Which acts are permitted without further permission, and which must an agent refuse?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a German came from and when it held.", "rationale": "A claim without a source and a time cannot be superseded, only overwritten, and an agent that overwrites loses the ability to explain itself.", "layers": [ { "id": "source-and-authority", "name": "Source and authority", "description": "Who said it, on what evidence, and how strongly.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance and confidence", "description": "The authority behind each claim about a German and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a German, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a claim about a German, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a claim about a German is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "time-and-versions", "name": "Time, versions and supersession", "description": "When a claim was true, when it was learnt, and what replaced it.", "findings": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession", "name": "Validity period and supersession", "description": "How an old claim about a German is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a German, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the validity of a claim about a German, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the validity of a claim about a German is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "statistics": { "bundles": 6, "layers": 12, "findings": 14, "questions": 38 } } } }