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In the sentence:

Die Room Tour ist das häufigst angefragte Video, das / was ich je gehabt habe.

what will be the correct pronoun to use? Or both are possible?

I found this rule but it's still not clear if I should use was because

Das Relativpronomen was steht in der Regel: nach einem sächlichen substantivierten Superlativ:
Das ist das Schönste, was ich je gesehen habe.

or das because

Nach sächlichen Nomen muss das stehen:
das Buch, das ich gelesen habe NICHT: das Buch, was ich gelesen habe

The latter seems more plausible to me because we have "das <...> Video, das..." and häufigst is not substantivated.

I have to tell you the secret: the speaker to whom belongs the original sentence, said "das häufigst angefragte Video, was...". So I'm confused.

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    Aside from the official rules regarding das/was (of which I am not entirely sure myself), I'd like to mention that using was is rather common in colloquial use, so the speaker you cite might just have used it in that way.
    – Nevik Rehnel
    Dec 8, 2013 at 7:56
  • @Vogel612 "das ich je hatte" is not Plusqamperfekt. It's Präteritum. Plusqamperfekt will be "das ich je gehabt hatte".
    – stillenat
    Dec 10, 2013 at 15:00
  • @stillenat shoops... dammit i hate tempora.
    – Vogel612
    Dec 10, 2013 at 15:01
  • You answered the question pretty much yourself. It's amazing how a mere native speakdr could not easily extract the rule, and thus understandable if not everyone renders it correctly. However, a quick comparison to English shows that what is not usually used as determiner (this is the most popular video, that ...).
    – vectory
    Aug 20, 2019 at 23:30
  • Also, this (the superlativ example) is a case where some speakers might use wo, just so you know.(crossref. "Im Moment, wo ...", not superlativ though). Not to mention embedded questions, in which case welches may replace das.
    – vectory
    Aug 20, 2019 at 23:33

1 Answer 1

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According to this page (scroll down to the end) you

  1. use the pronoun "was" if it refers to a neuter indefinite- or demonstrative-pronoun in the main clause,
  2. can use the pronoun "was" if it refers to a nominalized superlative in the main clause,
  3. and use the pronoun "was" if it refers to the whole main clause.

So in your case according to the grammatics it should be

Die Room-Tour ist das am häufigsten angefragte Video, das ich je hatte.

since the relative pronoun refers to "Video" which is no superlative. But maybe the superlative "am häufigsten" has in this case misguided the speaker to using "was" instead of "das".

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