German language
Infobox Language Krahule/Blaufuß, flagicon|Czech Republic
name=German
nativename= _de. "Deutsch"
familycolor=Indo-European
pronunciation= [dɔʏ̯tʃ]
states=Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and in some border areas, Belgium, Italy, Russia, and the United States as a minority language and the Alsace region of
region=
speakers=Native speakers: ca. 105 million [SIL Ethnologue (2006). 95 million speakers of
Non-native speakers: ca. 80 million cite book
authorlink = National Geographic
title = National Geographic Collegiate Atlas of the World
publisher = R.R Donnelley & Sons Company
year = 2006
month = April
location = Willard, Ohio
pages = 257–270
isbn = Regular:0-7922-3662-9, 978-0-7922-3662-7. Deluxe:0-7922-7976-X, 978-0-7922-7976-1 ]
rank=10
fam1=Indo-European
fam2=Germanic
fam3=West Germanic
fam4=High German
script=
nation= flagicon|Austria
flagicon|Belgium
flagicon|Italy
flagicon|Germany
flagicon|Liechtenstein
flagicon|Luxembourg
flagicon|Switzerland
flagicon|European Union
flagicon|Denmark
flagicon|Hungary
flagicon|Romania
flagicon|Slovakia
agency=
iso1=de
iso2b=ger
iso2t=deu
lc1=deu|ld1=Modern German
lc2=gmh|ld2=Middle High German
lc3=goh|ld3=Old High German
lc4=gct|ld4=Alemán Coloniero
lc5=bar|ld5=Austro-Bavarian
lc6=cim|ld6=Cimbrian
lc7=geh|ld7=Hutterite German
lc8=ksh|ld8=Kölsch|ll8=Kölsch language
lc9=nds|ld9=Low German
lc10=sli|ld10=Lower Silesian|ll10=Lower Silesian language
lc11=ltz|ld11=Luxembourgish|ll11=Luxembourgish language
lc12=vmf|ld12=Main-Franconian
lc13=mhn|ld13=Mócheno
lc14=pfl|ld14=Palatinate German
lc15=pdc|ld15=Pennsylvania German|ll15=Pennsylvania German language
lc16=pdt|ld16=Plautdietsch
lc17=swg|ld17=Swabian German
lc18=gsw|ld18=Swiss German
lc19=uln|ld19=Unserdeutsch
lc20=sxu|ld20=Upper Saxon
lc21=wae|ld21=Walser German
lc22=wep|ld22=Westphalian|ll22=Westphalian language
lc23=yid|ld23=Yiddish
SIL=GER
Major German-speaking communities
The German language ( _de. "Deutsch", Audio-IPA|de-Deutsch.ogg| [dɔʏ̯tʃ] ) is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. German is related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 100 million native speakers and also by about 80 million non-native speakers. German is the most widely spoken mother tongue in the
Geographic distribution
Europe
German is spoken primarily in Germany (first language for more than 95% of the population), Austria (89%) and Switzerland (64%) together with
Other European German-speaking communities are found in
Some German-speaking communities still survive in parts of
A considerable proportion of the native population speak German dialects in Luxembourg and the surrounding areas. Some people also master standard German (especially in Luxembourg), although in the French regions of
Overseas
Outside of Europe and the former
outh America
In Brazil the largest concentrations of German speakers are in
North America
The German language is the fourth most spoken at home in the In In Mexico there are also large populations of German ancestry, mainly in the cities of: Dialects in North America: The dialects of German which are or were primarily spoken in colonies or communities founded by German speaking people resemble the dialects of the regions the founders came from. For example, Pennsylvania German resembles dialects of the Palatinate, and Hutterite German resembles dialects of Carinthia. Australia The state of Creoles There is an important German creole being studied and recovered, named Internet According to Older statistics: Babel (1998) found somewhat similar demographics. [http://alis.isoc.org/palmares.en.html Palmares] , [http://isoc.org./ Internet Society] .] FUNREDES [http://funredes.org/lc2005/english/L3.html Funredes] .] (1998) and Vilaweb [http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/demographics/article.php/408521 Vilaweb] .] (2000) both found that German is the third most popular language used by websites, after English and Japanese. History The history of the language begins with the As Germany was divided into many different When German used to be the language of commerce and government in the Until about 1800, standard German was almost only a written language. At this time, people in urban Media and written works are almost all produced in standard German (often called "Hochdeutsch" in German) which is understood in all areas where German is spoken, except by pre-school children in areas which speak only dialect, for example The first dictionary of the The German spelling reform of 1996 led to public controversy indeed to considerable dispute. Some state parliaments (Bundesländer) would not accept it (North Rhine Westphalia and Bavaria). The dispute landed at one point in the highest court which made a short issue of it, claiming that the states had to decide for themselves and that only in schools could the reform be made the official rule - everybody else could continue writing as they had learned it. After 10 years, without any intervention by the federal parliament, a major yet incomplete revision was installed in 2006, just in time for the new school year of 2006. In 2007, some venerable spellings will be finally invalidated even though they caused little or no trouble. The only sure and easily recognizable symptom of a text's being in compliance with the reform is the -ss at the end of words, like in "dass" and "muss". Classic spelling forbade this ending, instead using "daß" and "muß". The cause of the controversy evolved around the question whether a language is part of the culture which must be preserved or a means of communicating information which has to allow for growth. (The reformers seemed to be unimpressed by the fact that a considerable part of that culture - namely the entire German literature of the 20th century - is in the old spelling.) The increasing use of English in Germany's higher education system, as well as in business and in popular culture, has led various German academics to state, not necessarily from an entirely negative perspective, that German is a language in decline in its native country. For example, Ursula Kimpel, of the tandard German Standard German originated not as a traditional dialect of a specific region, but as a Standard German differs regionally, between German-speaking countries, in In most regions, the speakers use a continuum of mixtures from more dialectal varieties to more standard varieties according to situation. 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. Therefore, this situation has been called a "medial Official status Standard German is the only German has an officially recognized status as regional or auxiliary language in Denmark ( German is one of the 23 official German as a foreign language German is the third most taught German is the main language of about 90–95 million people in Europe (as of 2004), or 13.3% of all Europeans, being the second most spoken native language in Europe after Russian, above French (66.5 million speakers in 2004) and English (64.2 million speakers in 2004). It is therefore the most spoken first language in the EU. It is the second most known foreign language in the EU. [After English; cite web|url=http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_237.en.pdf|title=Europeans and Language|publisher= German was once, and still remains to some extent, a Dialects German is a member of the western branch of the Germanic family of languages, which in turn is part of the The variation among the German dialects is considerable, with only the neighbouring dialects being mutually intelligible. Some dialects are not intelligible to people who only know standard German. However, all German dialects belong to the dialect continuum of High German and Low Saxon languages. Until roughly the end of the Second World War, there was a dialect continuum of all the continental West Germanic languages because nearly any pair of neighbouring dialects were perfectly mutually intelligibleFact|date=April 2008. Low German Low Saxon varieties (spoken on German territory) are considered linguistically a language separate from the German language by some, but just a dialect by othersWho|date=May 2008. Sometimes, Low Saxon and The 18th and 19th centuries were marked by mass High German High German is divided into The Moselle Franconian varieties spoken in Luxembourg have been officially standardised and institutionalised and are therefore usually considered a separate language known as Luxembourgish. Upper German dialects include Alemannic (for instance German dialects versus varieties of standard German In German *The "German dialects" are the traditional local varieties. They are traditionally traced back to the different German tribes. Many of them are hardly understandable to someone who knows only standard German, since they often differ from standard German in Grammar German is an inflected language. Noun inflection Although German is usually cited as an outstanding example of a highly inflected language, the degree of inflection is considerably less than in In the German orthography, nouns and most words with the syntactical function of nouns are capitalised, which is supposed to make it easier for readers to find out what function a word has within the sentence ("Am Freitag bin ich einkaufen gegangen." — "On Friday I went shopping."; "Eines Tages war er endlich da." — "One day he finally showed up".) This spelling convention is almost unique to German today (shared perhaps only by the closely related Like most Germanic languages, German forms left-branching noun compounds, where the first noun modifies the category given by the second, for example: "Hundehütte" (eng. "dog hut"; specifically: "doghouse"). Unlike English, where newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written in "open" form with separating spaces, German (like the other German languages) nearly always uses the "closed" form without spaces, for example: Baumhaus (eng. "tree house"). Like English, German allows arbitrarily long compounds, but these are rare. ("See also" The longest German word verified to be actually in (albeit very limited) use is Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. [which, literally translated, breaks up into: Rind (cattle) - Fleisch (meat) - Etikettierung(s) (labelling) - Überwachung(s) (supervision) - Aufgaben (duties) - Übertragung(s) (assignment) - Gesetz (law), so "Beef labelling supervision duty assignment law".] Verb inflection Standard German verbs inflect into: Verb prefixes There are also many ways to expand, and sometimes radically change, the meaning of a base verb through a relatively small number of prefixes. Some of those prefixes have a meaning themselves (Example: zer- refers to the destruction of things, as in zerreißen = to tear apart, zerbrechen = to break apart, zerschneiden = to cut apart), others do not have more than the vaguest meaning in and of themselves (Example: ver- , as in versuchen = to try, vernehmen = to interrogate, verteilen = to distribute, verstehen = to understand). More examples: haften = to stick, verhaften = to imprison; kaufen = to buy, verkaufen = to sell; hören = to hear, aufhören = to cease; fahren = to drive, erfahren = to get to know, to hear about something. eparable prefixes Many Indeed, several Word order German requires that a verbal element (main verb or : " _de. Der alte Mann gibt mir das Buch heute." (The old man gives me the book today): " _de. Der alte Mann gibt mir heute das Buch." (stress on "das Buch"): " _de. Das Buch gibt mir der alte Mann heute." (stress on "heute"): " _de. Das Buch gibt der alte Mann heute mir." (stress on "mir"): " _de. Das Buch gibt heute der alte Mann mir." (as well): " _de. Das Buch gibt der alte Mann mir heute.": " _de. Das Buch gibt heute mir der alte Mann." (stress on "der alte Mann"): " _de. Das Buch gibt mir heute der alte Mann.": " _de. Heute gibt mir der alte Mann das Buch.": " _de. Heute gibt mir das Buch der alte Mann.": " _de. Heute gibt der alte Mann mir das Buch.": " _de. Mir gibt der alte Mann das Buch heute.": " _de. Mir gibt heute der alte Mann das Buch.": " _de. Mir gibt der alte Mann heute das Buch." The position of a noun as a subject or object in a German sentence doesn't affect the meaning of the sentence as it would in English. In a declarative sentence in English if the subject does not occur before the predicate the sentence could well be misunderstood. For example, in the sentence "Man bites dog" it is clear who did what to whom. To exchange the place of the subject with that of the object — "Dog bites man" — changes the meaning completely. In other words the word order in a sentence conveys significant information. In German, nouns and articles are declined as in Latin thus indicating whether it is the subject or object of the verb's action. The above example in German would be " _de. Ein Mann beißt den Hund" or " _de. Den Hund beißt ein Mann" with both having exactly the same meaning. If the articles are omitted, which is sometimes done in headlines (" _de. Mann beißt Hund"), the syntax applies as in English — the first noun is the subject and the noun following the predicate is the object. Except for emphasis, adverbs of time have to appear in the third place in the sentence, just after the predicate. Otherwise the speaker would be recognised as non-German. For instance the German word order (in Modern English) is: We're going tomorrow to town. (" _de. Wir gehen morgen in die Stadt.") Auxiliary verbs When an The word order is generally less rigid than in Modern English except for nouns (see below). There are two common Modal verbs Sentences using modal verbs place the infinitive at the end. For example, the sentence in Modern English "Should he go home?" would be rearranged in German to say "Should he (to) home go?" (" _de. 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 English sentence: "What did you bring that book that I don't like to be read to out of up for?" Multiple infinitives The number of infinitives at the end is usually restricted to two, causing the third infinitive or auxiliary verb that would have gone at the very end to be placed instead at the beginning of the chain of verbs. For example in the sentence "Should he move into the house that he just has had renovated?" would be rearranged to "Should he into the house move, that he just renovated had?". (" _de. Soll er in das Haus einziehen, das er gerade hat renovieren lassen?"). The older form would have been (" _de. Soll er in das Haus, das er gerade hat renovieren lassen, einziehen?"). If there are more than three infinitives, all except the first two are relocated to the beginning of the chain. Needless to say the rule is not rigorously applied. Vocabulary Most German vocabulary is derived from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, although there are significant minorities of words derived from Latin, and Greek, and a smaller amount from French [some of which might be reborrowings from Germanic The coining of new, autochthonous words gave German a vocabulary of an estimated 40,000 words as early as the ninth century. In comparison, Latin, with a written tradition of nearly 2,500 years in an empire which ruled the Mediterranean, has grown to no more than 45,000 words today. Even today, many low-key scholarly movements try to promote the " In the modern scientific German vocabulary data base in Leipzig (as of July 2003) [ [http://wortschatz.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/html/inhalt_next.html Willkommen ] ] there are nine million words and word groups in 35 million sentences (out of a corpus of 500 million words). Writing system Present German is written using the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with Umlaut, namely "ä", "ö" and "ü", as well as the Eszett or " Before the Umlaut vowels (ä, ö, ü) are commonly circumscribed with ae, oe, and ue if the umlauts are not available on the keyboard used. In the same manner ß can be circumscribed as ss. German readers understand those circumscriptions (although they look unusual), but they are avoided if the regular umlauts are available because they are considered a makeshift, 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 Unfortunately there is still no general agreement exactly where these umlauts occur in the sorting sequence. Telephone directories treat them by replacing them with the base vowel followed by an e, whereas dictionaries use just the base vowel. As an example in a telephone book "Ärzte" occurs after "Adressenverlage" but before "Anlagenbauer" (because Ä is replaced by Ae). In a dictionary "Ärzte" occurs after "Arzt" but before "Asbest" (because Ä is treated as A). In some older dictionaries or indexes, initial "Sch" and "St" are treated as separate letters and are listed as separate entries after "S". Past Until the early 20th century, German was mostly printed in A proper use of the The widespread ignorance Fact|date=July 2008 of the correct use of the Fraktur scripts shows however in the many mistakes made— such as the frequent erroneous use of the round s instead of the Phonology Vowels German vowels (excluding diphthongs; see below) come in "short" and "long" varieties, as detailed in the following table: Compound word cognates German and English also share many borrowings from other languages, especially Latin, French and Greek. Most of these words have the same meaning, while a few have subtle differences in meaning. As many of these words have been borrowed by numerous languages, not only German and English, they are called "internationalisms" in German linguistics. For reference, a good number of these borrowed words are of the neuter gender. Words borrowed by English :"For a list of German loanwords in English, see "In the English language, there are also many words taken from German without any letter change, e.g.: Names for German in other languages :"See also: The names that countries have for the language differ from region to region. In Italian the sole name for German is still "tedesco", from the Latin " A possible explanation for the use of words meaning "mute" (e.g., "nemoj" in Russian, "němý" in Czech, "nem" in Serbian) to refer to German (and also to Germans) in Slavic languages is that Germans were the first people Slavic tribes encountered with whom they could not communicate. Romanian used to use the Slavonic term "nemţeşte", but "germană" is now widely used. Hungarian "német" is also of Slavonic origin. The Arabic name for Austria, النمسا ("an-namsa"), is derived from the Slavonic term. Note also that though the Russian term for the language is "немецкий" "(nemetskij)", the country is "Германия" "(Germania)". However, in certain other Hebrew traditionally (nowadays this is not the case) used the Biblical term אַשְׁכֲּנָז ( The French term is "allemand", the Spanish term is "alemán", the Catalan term is "alemany", and the Portuguese term is "alemão"; all derive from the ancient The Latvian term "vācu" possibly comes from the German word "Volk" (folk, people). The See ee also References Notes General references * External links *
*The "varieties of standard German" refer to the different local varieties of the pluricentric standard German. They only differ slightly in lexicon and phonology. In certain regions, they have replaced the traditional German dialects, especially in Northern Germany.
* one of four cases:
* one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter. Word endings sometimes reveal grammatical gender; for instance, nouns ending in ...ung(
* two numbers: singular and plural
* one of two conjugation classes, weak and strong (like English). (There is actually a third class, known as mixed verbs, which exhibit inflections combining features of both the strong and weak patterns.)
* three persons: 1st, 2nd, 3rd.
* two numbers: singular and plural
* three moods: Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative
* two genera verbi: active and passive; the passive being composed and dividable into static and dynamic.
* two non-composed tenses (present,
* distinction between
* distinction between perfect and progressive aspect is and has at every stage of development been at hand as a productive category of the older language and in nearly all documented dialects, but, strangely enough, is nowadays rigorously excluded from written usage in its present normalised form.
* disambiguation of completed vs. uncompleted forms is widely observed and regularly generated by common prefixes (blicken - to look, erblicken - to see [unrelated form: sehen - to see] ).
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* George O. Curme, "A Grammar of the German Language" (1904, 1922) — the most complete and authoritative work in English
* Anthony Fox, "The Structure of German" (2005) ISBN 0199273995
* W.B. Lockwood, "German Today: The Advanced Learner's Guide" (1987) ISBN 0198158505
* Edmund Remys, "Comprehensive Review of Modern German" (2007).
*de icon PDF| [http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/germanistik/spr/suf/baydat-udi/pdf/Grob%FCbersicht%20Dialekte.pdf Dialect map of the German language area] |36.8 KiB