Funeral

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A funeral (also funeral, burial or burial) is the movement of the body or ashes of a deceased person (possibly also an animal) to a fixed, definitive place (burial place) in the earth or the transfer of the ashes into nature. A funeral usually includes a religious (e.g. church) or secular funeral ceremony. Significant differences exist in particular between earth burial and cremation.

Definition

History of concepts and colloquial use

Burial and burial are often colloquially equated. The funeral in the proper sense is the placement of the urn, while the funeral and burial refer to the placement in the earth.

The term funeral has been used since the 15th century. It is much older than the term burial, because the basic meaning “to add something next to something” precedes the special meaning “buried, burial” by about 200 years. The current significance of the burial only arose in the 17th century and means “giving a place to the mortal remains”. The term buried was, however, in Middle High German already since 12. The century is known in the other sense as “putting into place”, “taking place” or “equipping”.

The somewhat colloquially profane name of the buried has not been able to prevail socially, was previously much more widespread and can be found, for example, in the Christian profession of faith (“died and buried”). The noun of buried, the funeral, still represents a popular language form.

The term funeral derives from the funeral form offered for thousands of years in Judaism, Christianity and Islam: The corpse is entrusted to the earth, “so that it may return to the earth, and be taken from it.” For this reason, the term funeral is mainly used for a religiously motivated earth burial, but is linguistically synonymous.

Regional expressions
In the Bavarian-Austrian and in the southern Franconian language area, in the Odenwald and in Meissene, "corpse(s)" is used for the ceremony of the funeral, including the after-celebration. This explains the term “corpse feast”. This celebration is in addition to the previous memory, with a speech about the dead. The subsequent contemplative togetherness serves the sociable memory of the life of the deceased and the mourning for the bereaved.

Preferably in the south of the German-speaking area, the term burial is customary in the way. In Lower Bavaria and parts of Upper Bavaria, funeral is used for the transfer of the coffin to the death chapel and funeral for the transport of the coffin to and into the grave, which usually takes place two days later.

Regionally, other names for the funeral are also common. So is obsolete and in Austria also