German language

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German
Deutsch
Pronunciation[dɔʏtʃ]
Native to
SpeakersL1: 95 million[1]
L2: 80–85 million (2014)[2]
Indo-European
  • High German
    • German
Early forms
Standard forms
  • Austrian
    )
Signed German
Official status
Official language in
Recognised minority
language in
8 countries
Language codes
Yenish)
  • Totalling 285 varieties: 52-ACB-daa to 52-ACB-i
  •   Minority of German speakers in Central Europe
      Official language
      Co-official language
      National language
      Minority language
    This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
    Map of the German diaspora by population:
      Germany
      ≥10,000,000
      ≥1,000,000
      ≥100,000
      ≥10,000
    Man speaking German

    German (German: Deutsch, pronounced

    North Schleswig), Romania and Hungary (Sopron). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil (Blumenau and Pomerode), South Africa (Kroondal), Namibia, among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo
    , Peru).

    German is one of the major

    German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in the world being published in German.[15]

    German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely

    .

    German is an

    numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs. The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share is partly derived from Latin and Greek, along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English. English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords
    .

    German is a

    High German, which refers to its regional origin. German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments.[16]

    Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year,[17] and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography.

    Classification

    High):
      Upper
    ...... Yiddish
    Maurer's classification of German tribes (German)
    The Germanic languages in contemporary Europe

    German is an

    West Germanic group of the Germanic languages. The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic, East Germanic, and West Germanic. The first of these branches survives in modern Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Icelandic, all of which are descended from Old Norse. The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch, Yiddish, Afrikaans, and others.[18]

    Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the

    Ingvaeonic, and Istvaeonic, respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by the Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group).[18]

    German-speaking countries, such as Swiss German (Alemannic dialects) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est, such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian
    (Central Franconian).

    After these High German dialects, standard German is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are the Frisian languages—North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland)—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language.

    History

    Old High German

    The

    stop consonants
    (b, d, g, and p, t, k, respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below.

    • Voiceless stops became long (geminated) voiceless fricatives following a vowel;
    • Voiceless stops became affricates in word-initial position, or following certain consonants;
    • Voiced stops became voiceless in certain phonetic settings.[19]
    Voiceless stop
    following a vowel
    Word-initial
    voiceless stop
    Voiced stop
    /p/→/ff/ /p/→/pf/ /b/→/p/
    /t/→/ss/ /t/→/ts/ /d/→/t/
    /k/→/xx/ /k/→/kx/ /g/→/k/
    East Germanic
    )

    While there is written evidence of the

    Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment, and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from the pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied, a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from the Alamanni, Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group (Irminones), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration.[19]

    In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as a result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary.[19] At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing.

    Middle High German

    While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350.[21] This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as the Ostsiedlung). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature.[21] A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to a greater need for regularity in written conventions.

    While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g.

    schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→tage (MHG)).[22]

    A great wealth of texts survives from the MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied, an epic poem telling the story of the dragon-slayer Siegfried (c. thirteenth century), and the Iwein, an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue (c. 1203), lyric poems, and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan. Also noteworthy is the Sachsenspiegel, the first book of laws written in Middle Low German (c. 1220). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms.

    The Middle High German period is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population.[23]

    Early New High German

    German language area and major dialectal divisions around 1900[24]

    Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War.[23] This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in the German states. While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire, and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout the German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language.

    The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of

    Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg.[25]

    Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages (Druckersprachen) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible.[26] The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in the written form of German.

    Christian Bible by the Protestant reformer Martin Luther (1534).[27] The widespread popularity of the Bible translated into High German by Luther helped establish modern Standard German.[27]

    One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534).[27] Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony, spending much time among the population of Saxony researching the dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method:

    One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in the home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says 'ex abundantia cordis os loquitur,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund. But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No, the mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über.[28]

    Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German.[27] The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany,[27] and promoted the development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area.[29] With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy.[30] Nevertheless, even with the influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century.[31]

    Habsburg Empire

    Map of Central Europe in 1648:
      Territories under the Holy Roman Empire, comprising the Alpine heartland (Erblande) of the Habsburg monarchy.
    Ethnolinguistic map comprising the territories of Austria-Hungary (1910), with German-speaking areas shown in red

    German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality.

    Pressburg (Pozsony, now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram) or Ljubljana
    (German: Laibach), contained significant German minorities.

    In the eastern provinces of Banat, Bukovina, and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg (Timișoara), Hermannstadt (Sibiu), and Kronstadt (Brașov)—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas.[32]

    Standardization

    In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of the Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition.[33] Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process.

    Participants of Meetings of German-speaking countries (2004–present)

    The Deutsche Bühnensprache (lit.'German stage language') by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres,[34] three years earlier; however, this was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially the pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries.

    Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries.[35] Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which is understood in all areas where German is spoken.

    Geographical distribution

    Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide:

      Germany (78.3%)
      Austria (8.4%)
      Switzerland (5.6%)
      Brazil (3.2%)
      Italy (South Tyrol) (0.4%)
      Other (4.1%)

    As a result of the German diaspora, as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language,[36][37] the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents.

    However, an exact, global number of native German speakers is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German.[9] With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language,[38][page needed][39] 10–25 million speak it as a second language,[38][page needed] and 75–100 million as a foreign language.[2] This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide.[40]

    German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker.[41]

    Europe

    The German language in Europe:
      German Sprachraum: German is the official language (de jure or de facto) and first language of the majority of the population
      German is a co-official language but not the first language of the majority of the population
      German (or a German dialect) is a legally recognized minority language (squares: geographic distribution too dispersed/small for map scale)
      German (or a variety of German) is spoken by a sizeable minority but has no legal recognition
    Alemannic-speaking.
    Map shows Austria and South Tyrol
    , Italy.
      (Swiss) German is one of the four national languages of Switzerland.
    Moselle Franconian
    dialect area.
    German-speaking Community
    , in the very east of the country.

    As of 2012, about 90 million people, or 16% of the European Union's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language.[2]

    German Sprachraum

    The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language is called the "German

    Sprachraum
    ". German is the official language of the following countries:

    German is a co-official language of the following countries:

    Outside the German Sprachraum

    Although

    (forced) assimilation after the two World wars
    greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum.

    Within Europe, German is a recognized minority language in the following countries:[42]

    In France, the

    Moselle Franconian are identified as "regional languages", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government.[45]

    Africa

    Namibia

    Bilingual German-English sign at a bakery in Namibia, where German is a national language

    Namibia also was a

    colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as a native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers.[46] The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called "Namibian Black German", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it.[47]

    German remained a de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans, and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time.[46] German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country.

    Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of the Sprachraum in Europe.

    Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK)), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation). The Allgemeine Zeitung is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa.[46]

    Rest of Africa

    An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries.[48] One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch",[49] a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg. The South African constitution identifies German as a "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it.[50]

    Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I. Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become a popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020.[51] Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German.[52]

    North America

    In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English,

    German immigration to the country, German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region, such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions.[55]

    A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as

    Texas German
    .

    South America

    In Brazil, the largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of

    Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina, and Espírito Santo.[56]

    German dialects (namely Hunsrik and East Pomeranian) are recognized languages in the following municipalities in Brazil:

    In Chile, during the 19th and 20th centuries, there was a

    Lagunen-Deutsch and Chiloten-Deutsch.[59] Immigrants even founded prosperous cities and towns. The impact of nineteenth century German immigration to southern Chile was such that Valdivia was for a while a Spanish-German bilingual city with "German signboards and placards alongside the Spanish".[60] Currently, German and its dialects are spoken in many cities, towns and rural areas of southern Chile, such as Valdivia, Osorno, Puerto Montt, Puerto Varas, Frutillar, Nueva Braunau, Castro, Ancud
    , among many others.

    Small concentrations of German-speakers and their descendants are also found in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Venezuela, and Bolivia.[48]

    Oceania

    In Australia, the state of South Australia experienced a pronounced wave of Prussian immigration in the 1840s (particularly from Silesia region). With the prolonged isolation from other German speakers and contact with Australian English, a unique dialect known as Barossa German developed, spoken predominantly in the Barossa Valley near Adelaide. Usage of German sharply declined with the advent of World War I, due to the prevailing anti-German sentiment in the population and related government action. It continued to be used as a first language into the 20th century, but its use is now limited to a few older speakers.[61]

    As of the 2013 census, 36,642 people in New Zealand spoke German, mostly descendants of a small wave of 19th century German immigrants, making it the third most spoken European language after English and French and overall the ninth most spoken language.[62]

    A German

    creole named Unserdeutsch was historically spoken in the former German colony of German New Guinea, modern day Papua New Guinea. It is at a high risk of extinction, with only about 100 speakers remaining, and a topic of interest among linguists seeking to revive interest in the language.[63]

    As a foreign language

    UK
    ), in per cent of the adult population (+15), 2005

    Like English, French, and Spanish, German has become a standard foreign language throughout the world, especially in the Western World.[2][64] German ranks second on par with French among the best known foreign languages in the European Union (EU) after English,[2] as well as in Russia,[65] and Turkey.[2] In terms of student numbers across all levels of education, German ranks third in the EU (after English and French)[37] and in the United States (after Spanish and French).[36][66] In British schools, where learning a foreign language is not mandatory, a dramatic decline in entries for German A-Level has been observed.[67] In 2020, approximately 15.4 million people were enrolled in learning German across all levels of education worldwide. This number has decreased from a peak of 20.1 million in 2000.[68] Within the EU, not counting countries where it is an official language, German as a foreign language is most popular in Eastern and Northern Europe, namely the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Sweden, Poland, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.[2][69] German was once, and to some extent still is, a lingua franca in those parts of Europe.[70]

    German-language media worldwide

    A visible sign of the geographical extension of the German language is the German-language media outside the German-speaking countries. German is the second most commonly used scientific language

    better source needed] as well as the third most widely used language on websites after English and Russian.[72]

    Deutsche Welle (German pronunciation: [ˈdɔʏtʃə ˈvɛlə]; "German Wave" in German), or DW, is Germany's public international broadcaster. The service is available in 30 languages. DW's satellite television service consists of channels in German, English, Spanish, and Arabic.

    See also:

    Standard German

    Self-reported knowledge of German within the nations of the European Union

    The basis of Standard German developed with the Luther Bible and the chancery language spoken by the Saxon court, part of the regional High German group.[73] However, there are places where the traditional regional dialects have been replaced by new vernaculars based on Standard German; that is the case in large stretches of Northern Germany but also in major cities in other parts of the country. It is important to note, however, that the colloquial Standard German differs from the formal written language, especially in grammar and syntax, in which it has been influenced by dialectal speech.

    Standard German differs regionally among German-speaking countries in

    dialects. Even though the national varieties of Standard German are only somewhat influenced by the local dialects, they are very distinct. German is thus considered a pluricentric language, with currently three national standard varieties of German: Standard German German, Standard Austrian German and Standard Swiss German. In comparison to other European languages (e.g. Portuguese, English), the multi-standard character of German is still not widely acknowledged.[74] However, 90% of Austrian secondary school teachers of German consider German as having "more than one" standard variety.[75] In this context, some scholars speak of a One Standard German Axiom that has been maintained as a core assumption of German dialectology.[76]

    In most regions, the speakers use a continuum, e.g. "Umgangssprache" (colloquial standards) from more dialectal varieties to more standard varieties depending on the circumstances.

    Varieties

    The national and regional standard varieties of German[77]

    In German linguistics, German dialects are distinguished from varieties of Standard German. The varieties of Standard German refer to the different local varieties of the pluricentric German. They differ mainly in lexicon and phonology, but also smaller grammatical differences. In certain regions, they have replaced the traditional German dialects, especially in Northern Germany.

    In the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, mixtures of dialect and standard are very seldom used, and the use of Standard German is largely restricted to the written language. About 11% of the Swiss residents speak Standard German at home, but this is mainly due to German immigrants.[78] This situation has been called a medial diglossia. Swiss Standard German is used in the Swiss education system, while Austrian German is officially used in the Austrian education system.

    Dialects

    The German dialects are the traditional local varieties of the language; many of them are not mutually intelligible with standard German, and they have great differences in lexicon, phonology, and syntax. If a narrow definition of language based on mutual intelligibility is used, many German dialects are considered to be separate languages (for instance by ISO 639-3). However, such a point of view is unusual in German linguistics.

    The German dialect continuum is traditionally divided most broadly into High German and Low German, also called Low Saxon. However, historically, High German dialects and Low Saxon/Low German dialects do not belong to the same language. Nevertheless, in today's Germany, Low Saxon/Low German is often perceived as a dialectal variation of Standard German on a functional level even by many native speakers.

    The variation among the German dialects is considerable, with often only neighbouring dialects being mutually intelligible. Some dialects are not intelligible to people who know only Standard German. However, all German dialects belong to the dialect continuum of High German and Low Saxon.

    Low German

    The Low German dialects

    Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League. It was the predominant language in Northern Germany until the 16th century. In 1534, the Luther Bible was published. It aimed to be understandable to a broad audience and was based mainly on Central and Upper German varieties. The Early New High German language gained more prestige than Low German and became the language of science and literature. Around the same time, the Hanseatic League, a confederation of northern ports, lost its importance as new trade routes to Asia and the Americas were established, and the most powerful German states of that period were located in Middle and Southern Germany.

    The 18th and 19th centuries were marked by mass education in Standard German in schools. Gradually, Low German came to be politically viewed as a mere dialect spoken by the uneducated. The proportion of the population who can understand and speak it has decreased continuously since World War II.

    Low Franconian

    The

    Low Franconian dialects fall within a linguistic category used to classify a number of historical and contemporary West Germanic varieties most closely related to, and including, the Dutch language. Consequently, the vast majority of the Low Franconian dialects are spoken outside of the German language area. Low Franconian dialects are spoken in the Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa, Suriname and Namibia, and along the Lower Rhine in Germany, in North Rhine-Westphalia. The region in Germany encompasses parts of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region and of the Ruhr
    .

    The Low Franconian dialects have three different standard varieties: In the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname, it is Dutch, which is itself a Low Franconian language. In South Africa, it is

    Dachsprache. Following a 19th-century change in Prussian language policy, use of Dutch as an official and public language was forbidden; resulting in Standard German taking its place as the region's official language.[79][80] As a result, these dialects are now considered German dialects from a socio-linguistic point of view.[81]

    The Low Franconian dialects in Germany are divided by the Uerdingen line (north of which "i" is pronounced as "ik" and south of which as "ich") into northern and southern Low Franconian. The northern variants comprise Kleverlandish, which is most similar to Standard Dutch. The other ones are transitional between Low Franconian and Ripuarian, but closer to Low Franconian.

    * city with German as standard language

    High German

    The Central German dialects
    South Franconian**
    *Lorraine Franconian in France
    **Alsatian
    in France

    The High German dialects consist of the

    Ashkenazi Jews have several unique features and are considered as a separate language, Yiddish, written with the Hebrew alphabet
    .

    Central German

    The Central German dialects are spoken in Central Germany, from Aachen in the west to Görlitz in the east. Modern Standard German is mostly based on Central German dialects.

    West Central German

    The West Central German dialects are the

    Palatine
    ). These dialects are considered as

    Luxembourgish as well as Transylvanian Saxon and Banat Swabian are based on

    Moselle Franconian
    dialects.

    East Central German

    Further east, the non-Franconian, East Central German dialects are spoken (Thuringian, Upper Saxon, Erzgebirgisch (dialect of the Ore Mountains) and North Upper Saxon–South Markish, and earlier, in the then German-speaking parts of Silesia also Silesian, and in then German southern East Prussia also High Prussian).

    High Franconian

    The Upper German and High Franconian (transitional between Central and Upper German)

    The High Franconian dialects are transitional dialects between Central and Upper German. They consist of the East and South Franconian dialects.

    East Franconian

    The

    Franconian) in Franconia (including Bavarian Vogtland), and as "Vogtländisch" (Vogtlandian
    ) in Saxon Vogtland.

    South Franconian

    South Franconian is spoken in northern Baden-Württemberg and in the northeasternmost tip of Alsace (around Wissembourg) in France. In Baden-Württemberg, they are considered dialects of German, and in Alsace a South Franconian variant of Alsatian
    .

    Upper German

    The

    Austro-Bavarian
    dialects in the east.

    Alemannic and Swabian
    Swiss German restaurant sign in Andermatt: "Chuchichäschtli", in Standard German "Küchenkästlein"

    Zürich and Bern, in the south also Highest Alemannic, and Low Alemannic in Basel), Baden-Württemberg (Swabian and Low Alemannic, in the southwest also High Alemannic), Bavarian Swabia (Swabian, in the southwesternmost part also Low Alemannic), Vorarlberg/Austria (Low, High, and Highest Alemannic), Alsace/France (Low Alemannic, in the southernmost part also High Alemannic), Liechtenstein (High and Highest Alemannic), and in the district of Reutte in Tyrol
    , Austria (Swabian). The Alemannic dialects are considered

    In Germany, the Alemannic dialects are often referred to as Swabian in

    Bavarian Swabia and in the historical region of Württemberg, and as Badian in the historical region of Baden
    .

    The southernmost German-speaking municipality is in the Alemannic region:

    Canton of Valais, Switzerland, as is the capital of Liechtenstein: Vaduz
    .

    Austro-Bavarian
    Austro-Bavarian
    dialects

    The

    Canton of the Grisons
    .

    The northernmost Austro-Bavarian village is Breitenfeld (municipality of

    Salorno sulla Strada del Vino
    (German: Salurn an der Weinstraße), South Tyrol.

    Regiolects

    Grammar

    German is a fusional language with a moderate degree of inflection, with three grammatical genders; as such, there can be a large number of words derived from the same root.

    Noun inflection

    Declension of the Standard German definite article
    Case Masc. Neu. Fem. Plural
    Nominative
    der das die die
    Dative
    dem dem der den
    Genitive
    des des der der
    Accusative
    den das die die

    German nouns inflect by case, gender, and number:

    This degree of inflection is considerably less than in Old High German and other old Indo-European languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit, and it is also somewhat less than, for instance, Old English, modern Icelandic, or Russian. The three genders have collapsed in the plural. With four cases and three genders plus plural, there are 16 permutations of case and gender/number of the article (not the nouns), but there are only six forms of the definite article, which together cover all 16 permutations. In nouns, inflection for case is required in the singular for strong masculine and neuter nouns only in the genitive and in the dative (only in fixed or archaic expressions), and even this is losing ground to substitutes in informal speech.[82] Weak masculine nouns share a common case ending for genitive, dative, and accusative in the singular. Feminine nouns are not declined in the singular. The plural has an inflection for the dative. In total, seven inflectional endings (not counting plural markers) exist in German: -s, -es, -n, -ns, -en, -ens, -e.

    Compounding

    Like the other Germanic languages, German forms noun

    English compounds). The longest German word verified to be actually in (albeit very limited) use is Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
    , which, literally translated, is "beef labelling supervision duties assignment law" [from Rind (cattle), Fleisch (meat), Etikettierung(s) (labelling), Überwachung(s) (supervision), Aufgaben (duties), Übertragung(s) (assignment), Gesetz (law)]. However, examples like this are perceived by native speakers as excessively bureaucratic, stylistically awkward, or even satirical. On the other hand, even this compound could be expanded by any native speaker.

    Verb inflection

    The inflection of standard German verbs includes:

    Verb prefixes

    The meaning of basic verbs can be expanded and sometimes radically changed through the use of a number of prefixes. Some prefixes have a specific meaning; the prefix zer- refers to destruction, as in zerreißen (to tear apart), zerbrechen (to break apart), zerschneiden (to cut apart). Other prefixes have only the vaguest meaning in themselves; ver- is found in a number of verbs with a large variety of meanings, as in versuchen (to try) from suchen (to seek), vernehmen (to interrogate) from nehmen (to take), verteilen (to distribute) from teilen (to share), verstehen (to understand) from stehen (to stand).

    Other examples include the following: haften (to stick), verhaften (to detain); kaufen (to buy), verkaufen (to sell); hören (to hear), aufhören (to cease); fahren (to drive), erfahren (to experience).

    Many German verbs have a separable prefix, often with an adverbial function. In finite verb forms, it is split off and moved to the end of the clause and is hence considered by some to be a "resultative particle". For example, mitgehen, meaning "to go along", would be split, giving Gehen Sie mit? (Literal: "Go you with?"; Idiomatic: "Are you going along?").

    Indeed, several parenthetical clauses may occur between the prefix of a finite verb and its complement (ankommen = to arrive, er kam an = he arrived, er ist angekommen = he has arrived):

    Er kam am Freitagabend nach einem harten Arbeitstag und dem üblichen Ärger, der ihn schon seit Jahren immer wieder an seinem Arbeitsplatz plagt, mit fraglicher Freude auf ein Mahl, das seine Frau ihm, wie er hoffte, bereits aufgetischt hatte, endlich zu Hause an.

    A selectively literal translation of this example to illustrate the point might look like this:

    He "came" on Friday evening, after a hard day at work and the usual annoyances that had time and again been troubling him for years now at his workplace, with questionable joy, to a meal which, as he hoped, his wife had already put on the table, finally home "to".

    Word order

    German word order is generally with the

    yes–no questions, exclamations, and wishes, the finite verb
    always has the first position. In subordinate clauses, all verb forms occur at the very end.

    German requires a verbal element (main verb, modal verb or

    topic
    of the sentence. The element in focus appears at the end of the sentence. For a sentence without an auxiliary, these are several possibilities:

    Der alte Mann gab mir gestern das Buch. (The old man gave me yesterday the book; normal order)
    Das Buch gab mir gestern der alte Mann. (The book gave [to] me yesterday the old man)
    Das Buch gab der alte Mann mir gestern. (The book gave the old man [to] me yesterday)
    Das Buch gab mir der alte Mann gestern. (The book gave [to] me the old man yesterday)
    Gestern gab mir der alte Mann das Buch. (Yesterday gave [to] me the old man the book, normal order)
    Mir gab der alte Mann das Buch gestern. ([To] me gave the old man the book yesterday (entailing: as for someone else, it was another date))

    The position of a noun in a German sentence has no bearing on its being a subject, an object or another argument. In a declarative sentence in English, if the subject does not occur before the predicate, the sentence could well be misunderstood.

    However, German's flexible word order allows one to emphasise specific words:

    Normal word order:

    Der Direktor betrat gestern um 10 Uhr mit einem Schirm in der Hand sein Büro.
    The manager entered yesterday at 10 o'clock with an umbrella in the hand his office.

    Second variant in normal word order:

    Der Direktor betrat sein Büro gestern um 10 Uhr mit einem Schirm in der Hand.
    The manager entered his office yesterday at 10 o'clock with an umbrella in the hand.
    This variant accentuates the time specification and that he carried an umbrella.

    Object in front:

    Sein Büro betrat der Direktor gestern um 10 Uhr mit einem Schirm in der Hand.
    His office entered the manager yesterday at 10 o'clock with an umbrella in the hand.
    The object Sein Büro (his office) is thus highlighted; it could be the topic of the next sentence.

    Adverb of time in front:

    Gestern betrat der Direktor um 10 Uhr mit einem Schirm in der Hand sein Büro. (aber heute ohne Schirm)
    Yesterday entered the manager at 10 o'clock with an umbrella in the hand his office. (but today without umbrella)

    Both time expressions in front:

    Gestern um 10 Uhr betrat der Direktor mit einem Schirm in der Hand sein Büro.
    Yesterday at 10 o'clock entered the manager with an umbrella in the hand his office.
    The full-time specification Gestern um 10 Uhr is highlighted.

    Another possibility:

    Gestern um 10 Uhr betrat der Direktor sein Büro mit einem Schirm in der Hand.
    Yesterday at 10 o'clock entered the manager his office with an umbrella in the hand.
    Both the time specification and the fact he carried an umbrella are accentuated.

    Swapped adverbs:

    Der Direktor betrat mit einem Schirm in der Hand gestern um 10 Uhr sein Büro.
    The manager entered with an umbrella in the hand yesterday at 10 o'clock his office.
    The phrase mit einem Schirm in der Hand is highlighted.

    Swapped object:

    Der Direktor betrat gestern um 10 Uhr sein Büro mit einem Schirm in der Hand.
    The manager entered yesterday at 10 o'clock his office with an umbrella in the hand.
    The time specification and the object sein Büro (his office) are lightly accentuated.

    The flexible word order also allows one to use language "tools" (such as

    figures of speech
    ) more freely.

    Auxiliary verbs

    When an auxiliary verb is present, it appears in second position, and the main verb appears at the end. This occurs notably in the creation of the perfect tense. Many word orders are still possible:

    Der alte Mann hat mir heute das Buch gegeben. (The old man has me today the book given.)
    Das Buch hat der alte Mann mir heute gegeben. (The book has the old man me today given.)
    Heute hat der alte Mann mir das Buch gegeben. (Today has the old man me the book given.)

    The main verb may appear in first position to put stress on the action itself. The auxiliary verb is still in second position.

    Gegeben hat mir der alte Mann das Buch heute. (Given has me the old man the book today.) The bare fact that the book has been given is emphasized, as well as 'today'.

    Sentences using modal verbs as finite verbs place the infinitive at the end. For example, the English sentence "Should he go home?" would be rearranged in German to say "Should he (to) home go?" (Soll er nach Hause gehen?). Thus, in sentences with several subordinate or relative clauses, the infinitives are clustered at the end. Compare the similar clustering of prepositions in the following (highly contrived) English sentence: "What did you bring that book that I do not like to be read to out of up for?"

    Multiple infinitives

    German subordinate clauses have all verbs clustered at the end, with the finite verb normally in the final position of the cluster. Given that auxiliaries encode future, passive, modality, and the perfect, very long chains of verbs at the end of the sentence can occur. In these constructions, the past participle formed with ge- is often replaced by the infinitive.

    Man nimmt an, dass der Deserteur wohl erschossenV wordenpsv seinperf sollmod
    One suspects that the deserter probably shot become be should.
    ("It is suspected that the deserter probably had been shot")
    Er wusste nicht, dass der Agent einen Nachschlüssel hatte machen lassen
    He knew not that the agent a picklock had make let
    Er wusste nicht, dass der Agent einen Nachschlüssel machen lassen hatte
    He knew not that the agent a picklock make let had
    ("He did not know that the agent had had a picklock made")

    The order at the end of such strings is subject to variation, but the second one in the last example is unusual.

    Vocabulary

    Most German vocabulary is derived from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.[83] However, there is a significant number of loanwords from other languages, in particular Latin, Greek, Italian, French, and most recently English.[84] In the early 19th century, Joachim Heinrich Campe estimated that one fifth of the total German vocabulary was of French or Latin origin.[85]

    Latin words were already imported into the predecessor of the German language during the

    Christianisation, mediated by the church and monasteries. Another important influx of Latin words can be observed during Renaissance humanism
    . In a scholarly context, the borrowings from Latin have continued until today, in the last few decades often indirectly through borrowings from English. During the 15th to 17th centuries, the influence of Italian was great, leading to many Italian loanwords in the fields of architecture, finance and music. The influence of the French language in the 17th to 19th centuries resulted in an even greater import of French words. The English influence was already present in the 19th century, but it did not become dominant until the second half of the 20th century.

    Thus, Notker Labeo translated the Aristotelian treatises into pure (Old High) German in the decades after the year 1000.[86] The tradition of loan translation revitalized in the 17th and 18th century with poets like Philipp von Zesen or linguists like Joachim Heinrich Campe, who introduced close to 300 words, which are still used in modern German. Even today, there are movements that promote the substitution of foreign words that are deemed unnecessary with German alternatives.[87]

    As in English, there are many pairs of synonyms due to the enrichment of the Germanic vocabulary with loanwords from Latin and Latinized Greek. These words often have different connotations from their Germanic counterparts and are usually perceived as more scholarly.

    The Deutsches Wörterbuch (1st vol., 1854) by the Brothers Grimm

    The size of the vocabulary of German is difficult to estimate. The Deutsches Wörterbuch (German Dictionary), initiated by the Brothers Grimm (Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm) and the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language, already contained over 330,000 headwords in its first edition. The modern German scientific vocabulary is estimated at nine million words and word groups (based on the analysis of 35 million sentences of a corpus in Leipzig, which as of July 2003 included 500 million words in total).[88]

    Orthography

    Austria's standardized cursive
    Germany's standardized cursive

    Written texts in German are easily recognisable as such by distinguishing features such as umlauts and certain orthographical features, such as the capitalization of all nouns, and the frequent occurrence of long compounds. Because legibility and convenience set certain boundaries, compounds consisting of more than three or four nouns are almost exclusively found in humorous contexts. (English also can string nouns together, though it usually separates the nouns with spaces: as, for example, "toilet bowl cleaner".)

    In German orthography, nouns are capitalized, which makes it easier for readers to determine the function of a word within a sentence. This convention is almost unique to German today (shared perhaps only by the closely related Luxembourgish language and several insular dialects of the North Frisian language), but it was historically common in Northern Europe in the early modern era, including in languages such as Danish which abolished the capitalization of nouns in 1948, and English for a while, into the 1700s.

    Present

    Before the German orthography reform of 1996, ß replaced ss after long vowels and diphthongs and before consonants, word-, or partial-word endings. In reformed spelling, ß replaces ss only after long vowels and diphthongs.

    Since there is no traditional capital form of ß, it was replaced by SS (or SZ) when capitalization was required. For example, Maßband (tape measure) became MASSBAND in capitals. An exception was the use of ß in legal documents and forms when capitalizing names. To avoid confusion with similar names, lower case ß was sometimes maintained (thus "KREßLEIN" instead of "KRESSLEIN").

    Capital ß (ẞ) was ultimately adopted into German orthography in 2017, ending a long orthographic debate (thus "KREẞLEIN and KRESSLEIN").[89]

    Umlaut vowels (ä, ö, ü) are commonly transcribed with ae, oe, and ue if the umlauts are not available on the keyboard or other medium used. In the same manner, ß can be transcribed as ss. Some

    Alt codes. German readers understand these transcriptions (although they appear unusual), but they are avoided if the regular umlauts are available, because they are a makeshift and not proper spelling. (In Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, city and family names exist where the extra e has a vowel lengthening effect, e.g. Raesfeld [ˈraːsfɛlt], Coesfeld [ˈkoːsfɛlt] and Itzehoe [ɪtsəˈhoː], but this use of the letter e after a/o/u does not occur in the present-day spelling of words other than proper nouns
    .)

    There is no general agreement on where letters with umlauts occur in the sorting sequence. Telephone directories treat them by replacing them with the base vowel followed by an e. Some dictionaries sort each umlauted vowel as a separate letter after the base vowel, but more commonly words with umlauts are ordered immediately after the same word without umlauts. As an example in a telephone book Ärzte occurs after Adressenverlage but before Anlagenbauer (because Ä is replaced by Ae). In a dictionary Ärzte comes after Arzt, but in some dictionaries Ärzte and all other words starting with Ä may occur after all words starting with A. In some older dictionaries or indexes, initial Sch and St are treated as separate letters and are listed as separate entries after S, but they are usually treated as S+C+H and S+T.

    Written German also typically uses an alternative opening inverted comma (quotation mark) as in „Guten Morgen!“.

    Past

    ligatures
    used in Fraktur

    Until the early 20th century, German was printed in blackletter typefaces (in Fraktur, and in Schwabacher), and written in corresponding handwriting (for example Kurrent and Sütterlin). These variants of the Latin alphabet are very different from the serif or sans-serif Antiqua typefaces used today, and the handwritten forms in particular are difficult for the untrained to read. The printed forms, however, were claimed by some to be more readable when used for Germanic languages.[90] The Nazis initially promoted Fraktur and Schwabacher because they were considered Aryan, but they abolished them in 1941, claiming that these letters were Jewish.[91] It is believed that this script was banned during the Nazi régime,[who?] as they realized that Fraktur would inhibit communication in the territories occupied during World War II.[92]

    The Fraktur script however remains present in everyday life in pub signs, beer brands and other forms of advertisement, where it is used to convey a certain rusticality and antiquity.

    A proper use of the

    lower case
    .

    Consonant shifts

    German does not have any dental fricatives (the category containing English ⟨th⟩). All of the ⟨th⟩ sounds, which the English language still has, disappeared on the continent in German with the consonant shifts between the 8th and 10th centuries.[93] It is sometimes possible to find parallels between English and German by replacing the English ⟨th⟩ with ⟨d⟩ in German, e.g. "thank" → Dank, "this" and "that" → dies and das, "thou" (old 2nd person singular pronoun) → du, "think" → denken, "thirsty" → durstig, etc.

    Likewise, the ⟨gh⟩ in Germanic English words, pronounced in several different ways in modern English (as an ⟨f⟩ or not at all), can often be linked to German ⟨ch⟩, e.g. "to laugh" → lachen, "through" → durch, "high" → hoch, "naught" → nichts, "light" → leicht or Licht, "sight" → Sicht, "daughter" → Tochter, "neighbour" → Nachbar. This is due to the fact that English ⟨gh⟩ was historically pronounced in the same way as German ⟨ch⟩ (as /x/ and /ç/ in an allophonic relationship, or potentially as /x/ in all circumstances as in modern Dutch) with these word pairs originally (up until around the mid to late 16th century) sounding far more similar than they do today.

    Literature

    The German language is used in German literature and can be traced back to the Middle Ages, with the most notable authors of the period being Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach. The Nibelungenlied, whose author remains unknown, is also an important work of the epoch. The fairy tales collected and published by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 19th century became famous throughout the world.

    Reformer and theologian

    Paul von Heyse, Gerhart Hauptmann, Carl Spitteler, Thomas Mann, Nelly Sachs, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Böll, Elias Canetti, Günter Grass, Elfriede Jelinek, Herta Müller and Peter Handke
    , making it the second most awarded linguistic region (together with French) after English.

    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    (1749–1832)
    Friedrich Schiller
    (1759–1805)
    Brothers Grimm
    (1785–1863)
    Thomas Mann
    (1875–1955)
    Hermann Hesse
    (1877–1962)

    See also

    Notes

    1. ^ The status of Low German as a German variety or separate language is subject to discussion.[9]
    2. ^ The status of Luxembourgish as a German variety or separate language is subject to discussion.
    3. ^ The status of Plautdietsch as a German variety or separate language is subject to discussion.[9]
    4. ^ menschlich, and occasionally human, may also mean "human, pertaining to humans", whereas Menschlichkeit and Humanität never mean "humanity, human race", which translates to Menschheit.
    5. ^ In modern German, Diktionär is mostly considered archaic.
    1. ^ in danger of extinction due to the Francization of Brussels
    2. ^ moribund
    3. ^ moribund
    4. ^ moribund
    5. ^ moribund
    6. ^ moribund
    7. ^ moribund
    8. ^ moribund
    9. ^ historically Low German
    10. ^ historically Low German
    11. ^ historically Low German
    12. ^ historically Low German
    13. ^ in danger of extinction due to the Francization of Alsace
    14. ^ in danger of extinction due to the Francization of Alsace

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      The memorandum itself is typed in Antiqua, but the NSDAP letterhead is printed in Fraktur.
      "For general attention, on behalf of the Führer, I make the following announcement:
      It is wrong to regard or to describe the so-called Gothic script as a German script. In reality, the so-called Gothic script consists of Schwabach Jew letters. Just as they later took control of the newspapers, upon the introduction of printing the Jews residing in Germany took control of the printing presses and thus in Germany the Schwabach Jew letters were forcefully introduced.
      Today the Führer, talking with Herr Reichsleiter Amann and Herr Book Publisher Adolf Müller, has decided that in the future the Antiqua script is to be described as normal script. All printed materials are to be gradually converted to this normal script. As soon as is feasible in terms of textbooks, only the normal script will be taught in village and state schools.
      The use of the Schwabach Jew letters by officials will in future cease; appointment certifications for functionaries, street signs, and so forth will in future be produced only in normal script.
      On behalf of the Führer, Herr Reichsleiter Amann will in future convert those newspapers and periodicals that already have foreign distribution, or whose foreign distribution is desired, to normal script.
    92. ^ Kapr 1993, p. 81.
    93. ^ For a history of the changes in German consonants see Cercignani (1979).

    Bibliography

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