Markish

The Markish are the Low German-speaking people of Brandenburg's core Marches, whose dialect formed during the medieval Ostsiedlung. Henry the Fowler subdued the Wendish land in 928 and 929, and the rising of 983 threw off the Northern March.

Albert the Bear founded the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1157, after which Saxon and Flemish colonists drained marshes and planted towns, their speech becoming Marchian while native Slavs were absorbed. The Ascanians gained the Uckermark from Pomerania by the 1250 Treaty of Landin.

After the Ascanian line died out in 1320, the margraviate passed through Wittelsbach and Luxembourg hands before Frederick I of Hohenzollern took over in 1415 and made Berlin his capital in 1417. The Mark turned Protestant in 1539, was ravaged in the Thirty Years' War and resettled with Huguenots after the 1685 Edict of Potsdam, becoming the heartland of the Prussian kingdom from 1701.