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The city of Bern, English traditionally Berne [b3`n] ( Swiss German Bärn [bæ:rn], German Bern [ˈbɛrn], French Berne [bERn], ItalianBerna ['bErna], Romansh Berna ['bErn@]) is the "Bundesstadt" (capital) of Switzerland.
Inhabitants: 127,000 (2004) (fourth most populous Swiss city after Zürich, Geneva and Basel).
Language: German, or more specifically, Bernese German , which is a high-Alemannic dialect. The Canton of Bern has a French-speaking part. Very few people still speak the Matteänglisch, a secret language used in the former workers quarter Matte, but several words found their way in the Bernese German.
Bern also functions as the capital of the Canton of Bern, the second most populous of Switzerland's cantons.
Illustrious Bernese include the scientist Albrecht von Haller, the poet Albert Bitzius and the painters Ferdinand Hodler and Paul Klee. The German-born physicist Albert EinsteinAlbert Einstein ( March 14 1879 April 18 1955) was a theoretical physicist who is widely regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century. He proposed the theory of relativity and also made major contributions to the development of quantum mechanics worked out his theory of relativityAlbert Einstein's theory of relativity is a set of two theories in physics: special relativity and general relativity. The core idea of both theories is that two observers who move relative to each other will often measure different time and space interva while employed as a clerkA patent clerk or patent examiner is an employee, usually a civil servant, working within a patent office and whose work is to examine patent applications as to whether they deserve a patent. The work of patent clercks usually includes searching patent an at the Bern patent office.
The ZytgloggeThe Zytglogge tower in Bern, Switzerland is famous for its astronomical clock from the 15th century. The hand symbol displays the position of the sun (left is east, right is west), while a golden and black ball shows the position of the moon. The angle be tower in Berne
DukeThe term duke is a title of nobility which refers to the sovereign male ruler of a Continental European duchy, to a nobleman of the highest grade of the British peerage, or to the highest rank of nobility in various other European countries, including Spa Berthold V of ZähringenZahringen is the name of an old and influential German noble family, taken from the castle and village of that name. Zahringen today is part of the city of Freiburg, which the dukes founded in 1120). The earliest known member of the family was probably on founded the city on the River Aare in 1191 and allegedly named it after a bear (Bär in German) he had killed. It was made a free imperial city by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in 1218 after Berthold died without an heir. In 1353 Bern joined the young Swiss Confederation, becoming a leading member of the new state. It invaded and conquered Aargau in 1415 and Vaud in 1536, as well as other smaller territories, becoming the largest city-state the north of the Alps. It was occupied by French troops in 1798 during the French Revolutionary Wars, and was stripped of most of its territories. The city became the Swiss capital in 1848.The city grew out of the peninsula on the river Aare towards the west. The Zytglogge tower was on the western boundary of the city from 1191 until 1256, then the Käfigturm took this role until 1345 and was then succeeded by the Christoffelturm (close to today's train station) until 1622. During the time of the Thirty Years%27 War two new fortifications, the so-called big and small Schanze (entrenchment), were built that protected the whole area of the peninsula. The area protected by these edifices was sufficient for the growth of Bern up to the 19th century.