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Fräulein

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File:FräuleinvomAmt.jpg
File:Fraulein .jpg

In German, (German pronunciation) Fräulein (literally, "little woman" or "little Mrs.", pronounced /ˈfɹɔɪlaɪn/) is used as a title for young girls and unmarried women as opposed to Frau for married women. It is used with the first name or last name (Fräulein Anna or Fräulein Schmidt).

Although a significant number of women, regardless of marital status prefer to be addresses as Frau, educated speakers of the German language recognize that the proper way to refer to a young lady or an unmarried woman is Fräulein .

Fräulein can be translated as Miss in English; Signorina in Italian; Mademoiselle in French; Señorita in Spanish; Maighdeann-uasal in Scottish Gaelic; and Iníon or Ógbhean-uasal in Irish.

Literature and film have preserved the old usage very well, in some cases already in the title. Examples are E.T.A. Hoffmann's tale Das Fräulein von Scuderi (1819), Elizabeth von Arnim's epistolary novel Fräulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther (1907), and the comedy film Fräulein vom Amt (1954), whose title was a common phrase denoting a female operator at a telephone exchange. In an earlier comedy film, Unser Fräulein Doktor (1940), Jenny Jugo plays Dr. Elisabeth Hansen, a young attractive teacher at a gymnasium who has to fight to be taken seriously as an intellectual.

"Fräulein" is also the title of a 1960s song sung in German by Chris Howland [1].

See also