Josua Maaler (also Maler, Mahler, Latinized Pictorius; 1529–1599)was a Swiss pastor and lexicographer. He was the author of the first dictionary which focused exclusively on the German language, published in Zürich as Die Teütsch Spraach in 1561.
Maaler followed the Dictionarium Latinogermanicum by Petrus Dasypodius (1536) in giving the German lemmas alphabetically, as opposed to the earlier Dictionarium Latino-Germanicum by Johannes Fries, which gave German glosses on Latin lemmas.
The Landsgemeinde ("cantonal assembly"; German: [ˈlantsɡəˌmaɪndə], plural Landsgemeinden) is a public, non-secret ballot voting system operating by majority rule. Still in use – in a few places – at the subnational political level in Switzerland, it was formerly practiced in eight cantons. For practical reasons , the Landsgemeinde has been abolished at the cantonal level in all but two cantons where it still holds the highest political authority: Appenzell Innerrhoden and Glarus. The Landsgemeinde is also convened in some districts of Appenzell Innerrhoden, Grisons and Schwyz to vote on local questions.
The German term Landsgemeinde itself is attested from at least the 16th century, in the 1561 dictionary of Pictorius.It is a compound from Land "land, canton; rural canton" and Gemeinde "community, commune".