German language

German
Deutsch
Pronunciation	[dɔɪ̯tʃ]
Native to	Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Denmark, France (Alsace, Moselle), Belgium, Poland, Italy, Romania (Transylvania), Hungary, Iceland, Russia (Kaliningrad Oblast, Orenburg), Kazakhstan, Czech Republic, Slovakia,, Slovenia, Croatia, Baltic countries, Argentina, BrazilMexico
Region	Central Europe, Western Europe
Native speakers	Native speakers: ~ 100 million Non-native speakers: 28,000,000 Total: 123,527,178
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic German
Writing system	Latin alphabet (German variant)
Official status
Official language in	Austria Belgium Germany Liechtenstein Luxembourg Opole Voivodeship, Poland City of Sopron, Hungary Switzerland Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol Namibia (only regional as auxiliary language) Europe Vatican City (official language of the Swiss Guard)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	de
ISO 639-2	ger (B) deu (T)
ISO 639-3	Variously: deu – Modern German gmh – Middle High German goh – Old High German gsw – Swiss German swg – Swabian German gct – Alemán Coloniero wae – Walser German bar – Austro-Bavarian cim – Cimbrian mhn – Mócheno yid – Yiddish sxu – Upper Saxon sli – Silesian German wep – Westphalian pdt – Plattdeutsch pfl – Palatinate German vmf – Main-Frankonian ksh – Kölsch
Major German-speaking communities

The German language (Deutsch, ) is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. German is closely related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 100 million native speakers and another 20 million non-native speakers, and Standard German is widely taught in schools and universities in Europe. Worldwide, German accounts for the most written translations into and from a language (Guinness Book of Records).

Geographic distribution

German is spoken primarily in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, in two-thirds of Switzerland, in the South Tirol province of Italy (in German, Südtirol), in the East Cantons of Belgium, and in some border villages of the former South Jutland County (in German, Nordschleswig, in Danish, Sønderjylland) of Denmark.

In Luxembourg (in German, Luxemburg), as well as in the French régions of Alsace (in German, Elsass) and parts of Lorraine (in German, Lothringen), the native populations speak several German dialects, and some people also master standard German (especially in Luxembourg), although in Alsace and Lorraine French has for the most part replaced the local German dialects.

Some German-speaking communities still survive in parts of Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and above all Russia and Kazakhstan, although forced expulsions after World War II and massive emigration to Germany in the 1980s and 1990s have depopulated most of these communities. It is also spoken by German-speaking foreign populations and some of their descendants in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, Greece, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Scandinavia, Siberia in Russia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia) .

Examples of German language in Namibia's everyday life.

Outside of Europe and the former Soviet Union, the largest German-speaking communities are to be found in the United States, Brazil and in Argentina where millions of Germans migrated in the last 200 years; but the vast majority of their descendants no longer speak German. Additionally, German-speaking communities are to be found in the former German colony of Namibia independent from South Africa since 1990, as well as in the other countries of German emigration such as Canada, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Venezuela (where Alemán Coloniero developed), South Africa and Australia. See also Plautdietsch.

The United States has the largest concentration of German speakers outside of Europe, and there are large and vibrant German-speaking communities throughout the country, such as New Braunfels, Texas. In the United States, the largest concentrations of German speakers are in Pennsylvania (Amish, Hutterites, Dunkerites and some Mennonites speak Pennsylvania Dutch (a West Central German variety) and Hutterite German), Texas (Texas German), Kansas (Mennonites and Volga Germans), North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wisconsin, Indiana, Louisiana and Oklahoma. Early twentieth century immigration was often to St. Louis, Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. Most of the post-World War II wave are in the New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago urban areas, and in Florida, Arizona and California where large communities of retired German, Swiss and Austrian expatriates live.

In Brazil the largest concentrations of German speakers are in Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch was developed), Santa Catarina, Paraná, and Espírito Santo, and large German-speaking descendant communities in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. In the 20th century, over 100,000 German political refugees and invited entrepreneurs settled in Latin America, such as Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic to establish German-speaking enclaves, and there is a reportedly small German immigration to Puerto Rico.

In Canada there are people of German ancestry throughout the country and especially in the west as well as in Ontario and southern Nova Scotia. There is a large and vibrant community in the city of Kitchener, Ontario. German immigrants were instrumental in the country's three largest urban areas: Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, but post-WWII immigrants managed to preserve a fluency in the German language in their respective neighborhoods and sections. In the first half of the 20th century, over a million German-Canadians made the language one of Canada's most spoken after French.

In some US and Canadian communities, German immigrant communities lost their mother tongue more quickly than those who moved to South America^{[citation needed]}, possibly because for German speakers, English is easier to learn than Portuguese or Spanish. In all English-speaking countries, there was also fervent anti-German sentiment during, before, and after the World Wars.

In Mexico there are also large populations of German ancestry, mainly in the cities of: Mexico City, Puebla, Mazatlán, Tapachula, and larger populations scattered in the states of Chihuahua, Durango, and Zacatecas. German ancestry is also said to be found in neighboring towns around Guadalajara, Jalisco and much of Northern Mexico, where German influence was immersed into the Mexican culture. Plautdietsch is a large minority language spoken in the north by the Mennonite communities, and is spoken by more than 200,000 people in Mexico, while standard German is spoken by the affluent German communities in Puebla, Mexico City, Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosi and Quintana Roo.

Knowledge of German in the European Union and candidate countries

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). German is the third most taught foreign language worldwide, also in the United States (after Spanish and French); it is the second most known foreign language in the EU (after English; see [1]) It is one of the official languages of the European Union, and one of the three working languages of the European Commission, along with English and French.

According to Global Reach (2004), 6.9% of the Internet population is German. According to Netz-tipp (2002), 7.7% of webpages are written in German, making it second only to English. They also report that 12% of Google's users use its German interface.

Older statistics: Babel (1998) found somewhat similar demographics. FUNREDES (1998) and Vilaweb (2000) both found that German is the third most popular language used by websites, after English and Japanese.

History

The German-speaking area of the Holy Roman Empire around 962.

The history of the language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration period, separating South Germanic dialects from common West Germanic. The earliest testimonies of Old High German are from scattered Elder Futhark inscriptions, especially in Alemannic, from the 6th century, the earliest glosses (Abrogans) date to the 8th and the oldest coherent texts (the Hildebrandslied, the Muspilli and the Merseburg Incantations) to the 9th century. Old Saxon at this time belongs to the North Sea Germanic cultural sphere, and Low Saxon should fall under German rather than Anglo-Frisian influence during the Holy Roman Empire.

As Germany was divided into many different states, the only force working for a unification or standardization of German during a period of several hundred years was the general preference of writers trying to write in a way that could be understood in the largest possible area.

When Martin Luther translated the Bible (the New Testament in 1522 and the Old Testament, published in parts and completed in 1534) he based his translation mainly on this already developed language, which was the most widely understood language at this time. This language was based on Eastern Upper and Eastern Central German dialects and preserved much of the grammatical system of Middle High German (unlike the spoken German dialects in Central and Upper Germany that already at that time began to lose the genitive case and the preterite tense). In the beginning, copies of the Bible had a long list for each region, which translated words unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics rejected Luther's translation in the beginning and tried to create their own Catholic standard (gemeines Deutsch) — which, however, only differed from 'Protestant German' in some minor details. It took until the middle of the 18th century to create a standard that was widely accepted, thus ending the period of Early New High German.

German used to be the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire. It indicated that the speaker was a merchant, an urbanite, not their nationality. Some cities, such as Prague (German: Prag) and Budapest (Buda, German: Ofen), were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain. Others, such as Bratislava (German: Pressburg), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. A few cities such as Milan (German: Mailand) remained primarily non-German. However, most cities were primarily German during this time, such as Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, Zagreb (German: Agram), and Ljubljana (German: Laibach), though they were surrounded by territory that spoke other languages.

Until about 1800, standard German was almost only a written language. At this time, people in urban northern Germany, who spoke dialects very different from Standard German, learned it almost like a foreign language and tried to pronounce it as close to the spelling as possible. Prescriptive pronunciation guides used to consider northern German pronunciation to be the standard. However, the actual pronunciation of standard German varies from region to region.

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 Switzerland and Austria. However, in this age of television, even they now usually learn to understand Standard German before school age.

The first dictionary of the Brothers Grimm, the 16 parts of which were issued between 1852 and 1860, remains the most comprehensive guide to the words of the German language. In 1860, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, this was declared the standard definition of the German language. Official revisions of some of these rules were not issued until 1998, when the German spelling reform of 1996 was officially promulgated by governmental representatives of all German-speaking countries. Since the reform, German spelling has been in an eight-year transitional period where the reformed spelling is taught in most schools, while traditional and reformed spellings co-exist in the media. See German spelling reform of 1996 for an overview of the public debate concerning the reform with some major newspapers and magazines and several known writers refusing to adopt it.

German language area in 1910–11

The 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, it had to be "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.)

Classification

By the High German consonant shift, the map of German dialects is divided into Upper German (green), Central German (blue), and the Low German (yellow). The main isoglosses and the Benrath and Speyer lines are marked black.

German is a member of the western branch of the Germanic family of languages, which in turn is part of the Indo-European language family.

Official status

D-A-CH-flag, an unofficial flag comprising flags of the three dominant states in the German Sprachraum.

Standard German is the only official language in Liechtenstein and Austria; it shares official status in Germany (with Danish, Frisian and Sorbian as minority languages), Switzerland (with French, Italian and Romansh), Belgium (with Dutch and French) and Luxembourg (with French and Luxembourgish). It is used as a local official language in German-speaking regions of Denmark, Italy, and Poland. It is one of the 23 official languages of the European Union.

It is also a minority language in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Namibia, Paraguay, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Tajikistan, Togo, Ukraine and the United States.

German was once the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe and remains one of the most popular foreign languages in Europe. 32% of citizens of the EU-15 countries say they can converse in German (either as a mother tongue or as a second/foreign language). [2] This is assisted by the widespread availability of German TV by cable or satellite.

German in decline

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 University of Tübingen, said in 2005 that “German universities are offering more courses in English because of the large number of students coming from abroad. German is unfortunately a language in decline. We need and want our professors to be able to teach effectively in English.” [3]

Standard German

Main article: Standard German

In German linguistics, only the traditional regional varieties are called dialects, not the different varieties of standard German.

Standard German has originated not as a traditional dialect of a specific region, but as a written language. However, there are places where the traditional regional dialects have been replaced by standard German; this is the case in vast stretches of Northern Germany, but also in major cities in other parts of the country.

Standard German differs regionally, especially between German-speaking countries, especially in vocabulary, but also in some instances of pronunciation and even grammar and orthography. This variation must not be confused with the variation of local dialects. Even though the regional varieties of standard German are only to a certain degree influenced by the local dialects, they are very distinct. German is thus considered a pluricentric language.

In most regions, the speakers use a continuum of mixtures from more dialectical 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 diglossia. Swiss Standard German is only spoken with people who do not understand the Swiss German dialects at all. It is expected to be used in school.

Grammar

Main article: German grammar

German is an inflected language.

Noun inflection

German nouns inflect into:

• one of four cases: nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative.
• one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter. Word endings sometimes reveal grammatical gender; for instance, nouns ending in ...ung, ...schaft or ...heit are feminine, while nouns ending in ...chen or ...lein (diminutive forms) are neuter; others are controversial sometimes depending on the region in which it is spoken. To avoid a misunderstanding usually the sentence can be reorganized.
• two numbers: singular and plural

Although German is usually cited as an outstanding example of a highly inflected language (With about 100 million native speakers German is by far the most spoken strongly inflecting germanic langauge in the world), it should be noted that the degree of inflection is considerably less than in Old German, or in other old Indo-European languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek, or Sanskrit. The three genders have collapsed in the plural, which now behaves, grammatically, somewhat as a fourth gender. With four cases and three genders plus plural there are 16 distinct possible combinations of case and gender/number, but presently there are only six forms of the definite article used for the 16 possibilities. Inflection for case on the noun itself is required in the singular for strong masculine and neuter nouns in the genitive and sometimes in the dative. Both of these cases are losing way to substitutes in informal speech. The dative ending is considered somewhat old-fashioned in many contexts and often dropped, but it is still used in sayings and in formal speech or in written language. Weak masculine nouns share a common case ending for genitive, dative and accusative in the singular. Feminines are not declined in the singular. The plural does have an inflection for the dative. In total, seven inflectional endings (not counting plural markers) exist in German: -s, -es, -n, -ns, -en, -ens, -e.

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.) This spelling convention is almost unique to German today (shared perhaps only by the closely related Luxembourgish language), although it was historically common in other languages (e.g., Danish), too.

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. 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 English compounds.)

The longest German word verified to be actually in (albeit very limited) use is Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz.

Verb inflection

Standard German verbs inflect into:

• 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, Preterite) and four composed tenses (Perfect, Pluperfect, Future I, Future II)
• distinction between grammatical aspects is rendered by combined use of subjunctive and/or Preterite marking; thus: neither of both is plain indicative voice, sole subjunctive conveys second-hand information, subjunctive plus Preterite marking forms the conditional state, and sole Preterite is either plain indicative (in the past), or functions as a (literal) alternative for either second-hand-information or for the conditional state of the verb, when one of them may seem undistinguishable otherwise.
• 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]).

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.

Syntax

Generally, for a basic present tense statement sentence, the word order is:

• Subject, verb, time element, indirect object, direct object.

Generally, for a basic spoken past tense sentence, the word order is:

• Subject, supporting verb, time element, indirect object, direct object, past tense verb.

The word order is generally more rigid than in English except for nouns (see below). One word order is for a main and another for subordinate clauses. In normal positive sentences the inflected verb always has position 2; In questions, exclamations, and wishes, it always has position 1. In subordinate clauses the verb is supposed to occur at the very end. In speech this rule is often disregarded. For example in a subordinate clause introduced by "weil" ("because") the verb quite often occupies the same order as in a main clause. The correct way of saying it is "... weil ich pleite bin." (...because I'm broke). In the vernacular you hear "...weil ich bin pleite." This may be caused by mixing weil with a second, alternative word for "because", denn, which confusingly is used with the main clause order ("...denn ich bin pleite."). Another cause weil is used is, that the spoken form includes a small pause after the weil: "Ich gehe zum Arzt, weil - ich bin krank" (I'm going to see the doctor, because I am ill). The pause replaces the words: "folgendes der Fall ist:" (the following is the case:).

Sentences using modal verbs separate the auxiliary putting the infinitive at the end. For example, the sentence in English "Should he go home?" would be rearranged in German to say "Should he home go?" (Soll er nach Hause gehen?). Thus in sentences with several subordinate or relative clauses verbs tend to gather at the end. The reader or listener then has the job of reconnecting these verbs individually to the subjects to which they belong. Compare the mental acrobatics to rearrange 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?

To ease the German syntax, a rule has been imposed to limit the number of infinitives at the end to two, placing the third infinitive or auxiliary verb that would have gone to the end to the beginning of the chain of verbs. In the sentence "Should he move into the house that he just had renovated?" would be rearranged to "Should he into that house move which he just had renovate let?". (Soll er in das Haus einziehen, das er gerade hat renovieren lassen?). If there are more than three, all others are relocated to the beginning of the chain. Needless to say the rule is not exclusively applied. Many native speakers spend their entire lives without ever using it outside of school at all. It's found in newspapers, radio or TV reports and in educated circles. Mostly the situation is avoided by reorganizing the sentence.

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. In a headline, for example, "Man bites dog" it's clear who did what to whom. To exchange the place of the subject with that of the object 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 its case as nominative or accusative (among others). The above example in German would be Ein Mann beißt den Hund or Den Hund beißt ein Mann with exactly the same meaning. If the articles are omitted, which is sometimes done in headlines (Mann beißt Hund), it's like in English, the first noun is the subject. The noun following the predicate is the object.

Except for cases of 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 English) is: We're going tomorrow to town. (Wir gehen morgen in die Stadt.)

Many German verbs have a separable prefix, often with an adverbial function. In finite verb forms this 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 with" would be split giving Gehen Sie mit? (Are you going with (me or us)?).

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, French, and most recently English (which, in German, is known as Denglisch or in English as Germish or increasingly as Denglisch as well). At the same time, the effectiveness of the German language in forming rivals for foreign words from its inherited Germanic stem repertory is great. Thus, Notker Labeo was able to translate Aristotelian treatises in pure (Old High) German in the decades after the year 1000.

Still today, many low-key scholarly movements try to promote the Ersatz (substitution) of virtually all foreign words with German alternatives: ancient, dialectal, or neologisms. It is claimed that this would also help in spreading modern or scientific notions among the less educated, and thus democratise public life, too. (Jurisprudence in Germany, for example, uses perhaps the “purest” tongue in terms of "Germanness" to be found today.)

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).

Writing system

Main article: German alphabet

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 scharfes S (sharp s) ß.

In German spelling before the 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 capital ß, in capitalised writing ß is always written as SS (example: Maßband (Tape measure) in normal writing, but MASSBAND in capitalised writing). In Switzerland, ß is not used at all.

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, city names exist where the extra e has a vowel lengthening effect, e.g. Raesfeld [ˡraːsfɛlt] and Coesfeld [ˡkoːsfɛlt], 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.)

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).

Past

Until the early 20th century, German was mostly printed in blackletter typefaces (mostly in Fraktur, but also 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 particularly the handwritten forms are difficult for the untrained to read. The printed forms however are claimed by some to be actually more readable when used for printing Germanic languages. The Nazis initially promoted Fraktur and Schwabacher since they were considered Aryan, although they later abolished them in 1941 by claiming that these letters were Jewish. The latter fact is not widely known anymore; today the letters are often associated with the Nazis and are no longer commonly used . As a typographical element, they are used to remind of old German traditions (e.g. in pub signs, in the marketing of arts and crafts or tourism), but the peculiar long s letter of the Fraktur tradition is often dropped even in these uses.

Phonology

Main article: German phonology

Vowels

German vowels (excluding diphthongs; see below) come in short and long varieties, as detailed in the following table:

	A	Ä	E	I	O	Ö	U	Ü
short	/a/	/ɛ/	/ɛ/, /ǝ/	/ɪ/	/ɔ/	/œ/	/ʊ/	/ʏ/
long	/aː/	/ɛː/	/eː/	/iː/	/oː/	/øː/	/uː/	/yː/

Short /ɛ/ is realised as [ɛ] in stressed syllables (including secondary stress), but as [ǝ] in unstressed syllables. Note that stressed short /ɛ/ can be spelled either with e or with ä (hätte 'would have' and Kette 'chain', for instance, rhyme). In general, the short vowels are open and the long vowels are closed. The one exception is the open /ɛː/ sound of long Ä; in some varieties of standard German, /ɛː/ and /eː/ have merged into [eː], removing this anomaly. In that case, pairs like Bären/Beeren 'bears/berries' or Ähre/Ehre 'spike/honour' become homophonous).

In many varieties of standard German, an unstressed /ɛr/ is not pronounced as [ər], but vocalised to [ɐ].

Whether any particular vowel letter represents the long or short phoneme is not completely predictable, although the following regularities exist:

• If a vowel (other than i) is at the end of a syllable or followed by a single consonant, it is usually pronounced long (e.g. Hof [hoːf]).
• If the vowel is followed by a double consonant (e.g. ff, ss or tt), ck, tz or a consonant cluster (e.g. st or nd), it is nearly always short (e.g. hoffen [ˈhɔfǝn]). Double consonants are used only for this function of marking preciding vowels as short; the consonant itself is never pronounced lengthened or doubled.

Both of these rules have exceptions (e.g. hat [hat] 'has' is short despite the first rule; Kloster [kloːstər] 'monasterium', Mond [moːnt] 'moon' are long despite the second rule). For an i that is neither in the combination ie (making it long) nor followed by a double consonant or cluster (making it short), there is no general rule. In some cases, there are regional differences: In central Germany (Hessen), the o in the proper name "Hoffmann" is pronounced long while most other Germans would pronounce it short; the same applies to the e in the geographical name "Mecklenburg" for people in that region. The word Städte 'cities', is pronounced with a short vowel [ˈʃtɛtə] by some (Jan Hofer, ARD Television) and with a long vowel [ˈʃtɛːtə] by others (Marietta Slomka, ZDF Television). Finally, a vowel followed by ch can be short (Fach [fax] 'compartment', Küche [ˈkʏçe] 'kitchen') or long (Suche [ˈzuːxǝ] 'search', Bücher [ˈbyːçər] 'books') almost at random. Thus, Lache is homographous: [la:xe] 'puddle' and [laxe] 'manner of laughing' (coll.), 'laugh!' (Imp.).

German vowels can form the following digraphs (in writing) and diphthongs (in pronunciation); note that the pronunciation of some of them (ei, äu, eu) is very different from what one would expect when considering the component letters:

spelling	ai, ei, ay, ey	au	äu, eu
pronunciation	/aɪ̯/	/aʊ̯/	/ɔʏ̯/

Additionally, the digraph ie generally represents the phoneme /iː/, which is not a diphthong. In many varieties, a /r/ at the end of a syllable is vocalised. However, a sequence of a vowel followed by such a vocalised /r/ is not considered a diphthong: Bär [bɛːɐ̯] 'bear', er [eːɐ̯] 'he', wir [viːɐ̯] 'we', Tor [toːɐ̯] 'gate', kurz [kʊɐ̯ts] 'short', Wörter [vœɐ̯tɐ] 'words'.

In many varieties of standard German, word stems that begin with a vowel are preceded by a glottal stop [ʔ].

Consonants

• C standing by itself is not a German letter. In borrowed words, it is usually pronounced [ʦ] (before ä, äu, e, i, ö, ü, y) or [k] (before a, o, u, or before consonants).
• Ch occurs most often and is pronounced either [ç] (after ä, äu, e, eu, i, ö, ü and after consonants) or [x] (after a, o, u). In some dialects (most notably, Rheinland (Western Germany)) it is always pronounced as [ʃ], which generates ambiguities (e.g. Kirche and Kirsche are both pronounced [ˈkiɐ̯ʃǝ] and thus indistinguishable). People from those regions tend to over-correct this when speaking Standard German, pronouncing some [ʃ] as [ç]. Ch never occurs at the beginning of a German word. In borrowed words with initial Ch there is no single agreement on the pronunciation. For example, the word Chemie (chemistry) can be pronounced [keːˈmiː], [çeːˈmiː] or [ʃeːˈmiː] depending on dialect.
• H is pronounced [h] like in "home" at the beginning of a syllable. After a vowel it is silent and only lengthens the vowel (e.g. Reh = Roe Deer).
• W is pronounced [v] like in "vacation" (e.g. was [vas]).
• S is pronounced [z] (as in "Zebra") if it forms the syllable onset (e.g. Sohn [zoːn]), otherwise [s] (e.g. Bus [bʊs]). ss and ß are used in cases where [s] forms the syllable onset (e.g. Hase [ˈhaːzǝ] vs. hasse [ˈhasǝ]). st and sp at the beginning of words of German origin are pronounced [ʃt] and [ʃp], respectively.
• Sch is pronounced [ʃ] (like "sh" in "Shine").
• Dsch is pronounced ʤ (like j in Jungle).
• Z is always pronounced [ʦ] (e.g. zog [ʦoːk]).
• F is pronounced [f] as in "father".
• V is pronounced [f] in words of Germanic origin (e.g. Vater [ˈfaːtɐ]) and [v] in other words (e.g. Vase [ˈvaːzǝ]).
• ß is never used at the beginning of a word. It is always pronounced [s].

The th sound common in English actually came from Anglo Saxon. It survived on the continent up to Old High German and then disappeared in German with the consonant shifts about the 9th century. It is sometimes possible to get the link to German by replacing the th with d in German: "Thank" → in German "Dank", "this" and "that" → "dies" und "das", "you" (old form "thou") → "du", "think" → "denken", "thirsty" → "durstig" and many other examples.

Likewise, the gh in many English words, which is pronounced in different ways in modern English (like f, or not at all), can often be linked to German ch: "to laugh" → "lachen", "through" and "thorough" → "durch", "haughty" → "hoch(mütig)", "naught" → "nichts", etc.

Cognates with English

There are many German words that are cognate to English words (in fact a sizeable fraction of German and English vocabulary). Most of the words in the following table have almost the same meaning as in English.

German	Meaning of German word	English cognate
Abend	eve/evening	eve from Old E.æfen
an	on/above	on
auf	up / on	up
aus	out (of)	out // from
beginnen, begann, begonnen	to begin, began, begun	to begin, began, begun
bester, beste, bestes	best	best
Bett	bed	bed
Bier	beer	beer
Butter	butter	butter
essen	to eat	to eat
fallen, fiel, gefallen	to fall, fell, fallen	to fall, fell, fallen
Faust	fist	fist
Finger	finger	finger
Fisch	fish	fish
Gott	God	God
haben	to have	to have
Hand	hand	hand
-heit (suffix)	-ity	-hood
Haus	house	house
heißen	to be called	hight (archaic)
hören	to hear	hear
Hund	dog	hound
ist, war	is, was	is, was
Katze	cat	cat
kommen, kam, gekommen	to come, came, come	to come, came, come
König, Koenig	King	King
Laus, Läuse	louse, lice	louse, lice
lachen	to laugh	to laugh
Mann	man	man
Maus, Mäuse	mouse, mice	mouse, mice
Milch	milk	milk
müssen	to have to	must
Nacht	night	night
Pfeife	pipe	fife
preisen	to praise	to praise
Schiff	ship	ship
Schuh	shoe	shoe
schwimmen	to swim	to swim
singen, sang, gesungen	to sing, sang, sung	to sing, sang, sung
sinken, sank, gesunken	to sink, sank, sunk	to sink, sank, sunk
Sommer	summer	summer
Schwert	sword	sword
springen, sprang, gesprungen	to jump, jumped, jumped	to spring, sprang, sprung
Tag	day	day
Wetter	weather	weather
Wille	will (noun)	will
wir, uns	we, us	we, us
Winter	winter	winter

Compound word cognates

German	Cognate word parts	Meaning
Fingernagel	finger + nail	fingernail
Hochland	high + land	highland
Schneemann	snow + man	snowman
Vollmond	full + moon	full moon
Vorsicht	fore + sight	foresight (/caution)
Wasserfall	water + fall	waterfall

When these cognates have slightly different consonants, this is often due to the High German consonant shift.

There are cognates whose meanings in either language have changed through the centuries. It is sometimes difficult for both English and German speakers to discern the relationship. On the other hand, once the definitions are made clear, then the logical relation becomes obvious. Sometimes the generality or specificity of word pairs may be opposite in the two languages.

German	Meaning of German word	English cognate	Comment
antworten	to answer	an-word	the cognate prefix Ger.'ant' is equal to Old E.'and-'〈"against"〉(→an).'wort'=word,'swer'=swear, so the suffix isn't cognate.
Baum	tree	beam	Both derive from West Germanic *baumoz meaning "tree". It is the English one which, in Anglo-Saxon and Old English, has radically changed its meaning several times.
bekommen	to get	to become
Dogge	mastiff	dog
drehen	to turn	to throw	cf. to throw (make) a pot by turning it on a wheel
ernten	to harvest	to earn
fahren	to drive	to fare	O.E. faran "to journey, to make one's way," from P.Gmc. *faranan (cf. Goth. faran, Ger. fahren), from PIE *por- "going, passage"
fechten	to fence (sport)	to fight
Gift	poison	gift	the original meaning of Gift in German can still be seen in the German deflection Mitgift "dowry"
kaufen	to buy	cheap, chapman
Knabe (formal)	boy	knave
Knecht	servant	knight
nehmen	to take	numb	sensation has been taken away; cf. German benommen, 'dazed'
raten	to guess, to advise	to read	cf. riddle, akin to German Rätsel
ritzen	to scratch	to write
Schmerz	pain	smart	The verb smart retains this meaning
schlecht	bad	slight	Sense of Ger. cognate schlecht developed from "smooth, plain, simple" to "bad," and as it did it was replaced in the original senses by schlicht, a back-formation from schlichten "to smooth, to plane," a derivative of schlecht in the old sense.
sich rächen	to take revenge	to wreak (havoc)
Tisch	table	dish, desk	Latin discus
Vieh	cattle	fee	from O.E. 'feoh' money, property, cattle
Wald	forest	weald
werden	to become	weird	see wyrd
Zeit	time	tide	the root is re-used in German Gezeiten as Tiden ('tides')

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.

German	Meaning of German word	language of origin
Armee	army	French
Arrangement	arrangement	French
Chance	opportunity	French
Courage	courage	French
Disposition	disposition	Latin
Feuilleton	feuilleton	French
Futur	future tense	Latin
Boje	buoy	Dutch
Genre	genre	French
Mikroskop	microscope	Greek
Partei	political party	French
Position	position	Latin
positiv	positive	Latin
Prestige	prestige	French
Psychologie	psychology	Greek
Religion	religion	Latin
Restaurant	restaurant	French
Tabu	taboo	Tongan
Zigarre	cigar	Spanish
Zucker	sugar	Sanskrit, via Arabic

German words in the English language

In the English language, there are also many words taken from German without any letter change, e.g.:

German word	English cognate	Meaning of German word
Angst	angst	fear / angst
Anschluss	anschluss	connection / access
Automat	automat	automation / machine / automat
Bildungsroman	bildungsroman	novel of personal development
Blitz	blitz	flash / lightning
Delikatessen	delikatessen	delicate, resp. delicious food items
Doppelgänger	doppelgänger	spectral look-alike of somebody
Edelweiß	edelweiss	edelweiss
Gesundheit!	Gesundheit! (Amer.)	health / bless you!
Hinterland	hinterland	interior / backwoods
Kindergarten	kindergarten	playschool
Kraut	kraut	cabbage
Rucksack	rucksack	backpack
Schadenfreude	schadenfreude	taking pleasure in someone else's misfortune
Wanderlust	wanderlust	desire, pleasure, or inclination to travel, or walk
Zeitgeist	zeitgeist	the spirit of the age/decade; the trend at that time

Names for German in other languages

See also: Deutsch, Dutch, Deitsch, Dietsch, Teuton, Teutonic, Allemanic, Alleman, Theodisca

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 theodiscum, meaning "vernacular".

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. Another less-attested possibility is that the Slavs first encountered a Germanic tribe called the Nemetes (a tribe mentioned by the Romans), and later applied that tribe's name to all Germans.

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 Slavic languages, such as Czech, the country name (Německo) is similar to the name of the language, německý (jazyk).

Finns and Estonians use the term saksa, originally from the Saxon tribe. Scandinavians outside these two countries use derivatives of the word Tyskland (from Theodisca) for the country and tyska/tysk for the language.

Hebrew traditionally (nowadays this is not the case) used the Biblical term Ashkenaz (Genesis 10:3) to refer to Germany, or to certain parts of it, and the Ashkenazi Jews are those who originate from Germany and Eastern Europe and formerly spoke Yiddish as their native language, derived from Middle High German.

The French term is allemand, the Spanish term is alemán and the Portuguese term is alemão; all derive from the ancient Alamanni tribal alliance.

The Latvian term vācu means "tinny" and refers disparagingly to the iron-clad Teutonic Knights that colonized the Baltic in the Middle Ages.

See Names for Germany for further details on the origins of these and other terms.

See also

• Dutch influence on the German language
• Ethnic German
• German as a Minority Language
• German exonyms
• German family name etymology
• German in the United States
• German loan words
• German placename etymology
• German spelling reform of 1996
• Germish, Denglish, Ginglish, Genglish Pseudo-Anglicism
• List of English words of German origin
• List of English words of Yiddish origin
• Names for Germany
• Thou
• Umlaut, ß
• Various terms used for Germans
• Wiktionary:Transwiki:List of German words and phrases
• Austro-Bavarian
• Alemannic German
• Swiss German
• Luxembourgish language
• Pennsylvania Dutch
• Hutterite German

References

• Michael Clyne, The German Language in a Changing Europe (1995) ISBN 0521499704
• 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
• Template:PDF Template:De icon

External links

General

• Ethnologue: Languages of the World (unknown ed.). SIL International.
• List of online German-related resources
• Digital Wenker-Atlas Project publishing the 19th century Linguistic Atlas of the German Empire

Grammar

• Grammar of German
• German Grammar on the Web
• German Review Grammar

Dictionary and word translations

• The LEO Online Dictionary German-English-German dictionary at Leo.org
• TU Chemnitz Dictionary a 185000+ German-English Dictionary with proverbs and pronunciations
• dict.cc: User-editable German-English-German Dictionary works similar to a wiki, more than 840,000 keywords (420,000 translation pairs)
• phrasen.com Dictionary: German-English-German idioms and phrases
• German Grammar, Online Dictionary for Spelling, Inflection and Wordformation for the German Language
• Odge.de uses part of dict.cc's data according to license page
• clip2go German-English-Spanish Online-Dictionary and vocabulary trainer- 50,000 recorded words and phrases
• GEODic German-English-Online-Dictionary
• woerterbuch.info — Free English-German Online Dictionary with over 600.000 translations
• The Digital Dictonary Projectin German - Dictionary, Corpus and Statistics
• http://www.deutsch-englisch.org - English-German Onlinetranslator
• http://www.dedict.de - English-German Online Dictionary
• http://www.spell-it.net - Free English-German Online Dictionary
• Type any text with German characters.
• http://www.pdictionary.com/german/ - The Internet Picture Dictionary: German - Free
• http://www.interglot.com - Free translator in various languages
• http://www.deutschtum.net/welsch - Jargon / German Dictionary
• Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon Free online visual lexicon of the German language with authentic photos from German speaking world.
• Cross-translation of German to English, French, and Italian

Learning German

• Learn German Online - Learn the Basics of German for free.
• DeutschLern.net Learn German online Interactive exercises for different levels. (Site is in German,Free login required)
• German resources at the University of Michigan
• Learn German Online Interactive javascript-based German course.
• Deutsche Welle's Online German Courses includes daily German-laungage newscasts.
• Passwort Deutsch - A German course (site is in German)
• Why learn German? — German Language references. Also English listings of German movies & books.
• German Vocabulary from ielanguages.com organized by subject, nouns and verbs.
• Learn German vocabulary Interactive quizzes on vocabulary and conjugation.
• Learn and listen to useful expressions in German Each expression is presented with an audio recording and an illustration (uses flash)
• Articles on learning German Cultural resources for ex-patriots, including glossary of business words, and English articles on German language peculiarities.
• German Flashcards registration required
• Sprachtausch.net — German website to find someone to teach you, for example German in exchange with your language.
• Online Learno german course Free online German tutorial at Learno.com
• How to write an application in german Also in English
• Deutsch@YG - Deutsch at Young Germany Some language tips. A number of podcasts. More Lifestyle information.
• Online conjugation of German verbs Complete German conjugation of irregular and regular verbs

Organizations

• Template:De icon Bund für deutsche Schrift und Sprache
• Verein Deutsche Sprache - International German Club