Encyclopedia
German is a
West Germanic language. It is a member of the
western group of the
Germanic branch of the
Indo-European language family and one of the world's major languages. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 110 million native speakers and another 18 million non-native speakers .
Worldwide, German accounts for the most written
translations into and from a language .
Historically, the
Dutch language is considered as a German dialect. Over the last few centuries, however, Dutch developed a high degree of autonomy and is considered as a seperate and independent language today. Despite this fact, it is counted as a German dialect on various maps, and although its spoken form is hard to understand for a standard German-speaker, written Dutch is comprehensible for most Germans.
Geographic distribution
German is spoken primarily in
Germany,
Austria,
Liechtenstein,
Luxembourg, in two-thirds of
Switzerland, in the
South Tyrol province of Italy , in the small
East Cantons of
Belgium, and in some border villages of the
South Jutland County of
Denmark.
In
Luxembourg , as well as in the French
régions of
Alsace and parts of Lorraine , the native populations speak several German dialects, and some people also master standard German , although in Alsace and Lorraine
French has for the most part replaced the local German dialects in the last 40 years.
Some German-speaking communities still survive in parts of
Romania, the
Czech Republic,
Hungary, and above all
Russia and
Kazakhstan, although the ethnic cleansings 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,
United Kingdom,
Netherlands,
Scandinavia,
Siberia.
Outside of Europe and the former
Soviet Union, the largest German-speaking communities are to be found in the
U.S.,
Brazil and in
Argentina where millions of Germans migrated in the last 200 years; but the great majority of their descendants no longer speak German. Additionally, German-speaking communities are to be found in the former German colony of
Namibia, as well as in the other countries of German emigration such as
Canada,
Mexico,
Paraguay,
Uruguay,
Chile,
Peru,
Venezuela ,
South Africa, and
Australia. See also Plautdietsch.
In the USA, the largest concentrations of German speakers are in
Pennsylvania ,
Texas ,
Kansas ,
North Dakota,
South Dakota,
Montana,
Wisconsin and
Indiana. Early twentieth century immigration was often to
St. Louis,
Chicago,
New York, and
Cincinnati. Most of the post-
World War II wave are in the
New York, Los Angeles, and
Chicago urban areas, and in
Florida. In Brazil the largest concentrations of German speakers are in
Rio Grande do Sul , Santa Catarina, Paraná, and
Espírito Santo. Generally, German immigrant communities in the USA have lost their mother tongue more quickly than those who moved to South America, possibly because for German speakers, English is easier to learn than Portuguese or Spanish. But mainly, it was due to fervent anti-German sentiment in the
US before and after the
World Wars, and the fear it caused in German-speakers of being attacked.
In
Canada there are people of German ancestry throughout the country and especially in the west as well as in
Ontario. There is a large and vibrant community in the city of
Kitchener, Ontario.
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. 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 and
Mexico City.
German is the main language of about 100 million people in Europe , or 13.3% of all Europeans, being the second most spoken native language in Europe after
Russian, above
French and
English . German is the third most taught foreign language worldwide, also in the
USA ; it is the second most known foreign language in the
EU 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 , 6.9% of the Internet population is German. According to Netz-tipp , 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 found somewhat similar demographics. FUNREDES and Vilaweb both found that German is the third most popular language used by websites, after English and Japanese.
History
The history of the German 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 date to the
8th and the oldest coherent texts 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 standardisation 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 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 . 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 — 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 and
Budapest , were gradually Germanised in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain. Others, such as
Bratislava , were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. A few cities such as
Milan remained primarily non-German. However, most cities were primarily German during this time, such as Prague,
Budapest, Bratislava,
Zagreb , and
Ljubljana , 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, learnt 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 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.
After the spelling reform of 1996 led to so much public controversy and some of its changed rules introduced new ambiguities or were simply perceived as "ugly", the transitional period was extended until at least the end of 2006, and some parts of the reform were changed again in March 2006. This new "reform of the reform" tries to remove the ambiguities introduced in 1996. To date , it is yet to be accepted by all German-speaking countries.
Classification and related languages
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.
Neighbouring languages
In these modern days Germany is surrounded by language borders, in the north by the
Frisian and
Danish; in the east Polish,
Sorbian,
Czech, Slovak, and
Hungarian; in the south
Slovenian,
Italian,
Friulian,
Ladin, and
Romansh; in the west
French and
Dutch. Except for Frisian and Dutch, none of these languages are West Germanic, and so they are clearly distinct from German. Frisian, which after Scots is the closest related living language to English, and Dutch, the closest related living language to German , are not mutually intelligible with German. Although a dialect continuum still exists at certain places along the Dutch-German language border this is rapidly fading away because of centuries of standardisation in both countries, today limited to only a few villages.
Official status
Standard German is the only official language in
Liechtenstein and
Austria; it shares official status in
Germany ,
Switzerland ,
Belgium and
Luxembourg . It is used as a local official language in German-speaking regions of
Denmark,
Italy, and
Poland. It is one of the 20 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,
Slovakia,
Tajikistan,
Togo, the
Ukraine and the
USA, .
German was once the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe and remains one of the most popular foreign languages taught worldwide, and is more popular than
French as a foreign language in
Europe. 32% of citizens of the EU-15 countries say they can converse in German. This is assisted by the widespread availability of German TV by cable or satellite.
Dialects
Main article German dialectsGerman dialects vs. varieties of standard German
In German linguistics,
German dialects are distinguished from
varieties of standard 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 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 . However, such a point of view is unusual in German linguistics.
- The varieties of standard German refer to the different local varieties of the pluricentric language standard German. They only differ slightly in lexicon and phonology. In certain regions, they have replaced the traditional German dialects, especially in Northern Germany.
Dialects in Germany
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. In the past , there was a dialect continuum of all the continental
West Germanic languages because nearly any pair of neighbouring dialects were perfectly mutually intelligible.
The German dialect continuum is traditionally divided into
High German and
Low German.
Low Saxon
Low Saxon varieties are considered dialects of the German language by some, but a separate language by others. Sometimes, Low Saxon and
Low Franconian are grouped together because both are unaffected by the
High German consonant shift.
Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the
Hanseatic League. It was the predominant language in Northern Germany. This changed in the
16th century. In 1534, the
Luther Bible, by
Martin Luther was printed. This translation is considered to be an important step towards the evolution of the Early New High German. It aimed to be understandable to an ample audience and was based mainly on
Central and Upper German varieties. The Early New High German language gained more prestige than Low Saxon and became the language of science and literature. Other factors were that around the same time, the Hanseatic league lost its importance as new trade routes to
Asia and the
Americas were established, and that 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, the language of the schools being standard German. Slowly Low Saxon was pushed back and back until it was nothing but a language spoken by the uneducated and at home. Today, Low Saxon could be divided in two groups: Low Saxon varieties with a standard German influx, and varieties of standard German with a Low Saxon influence .
High German
High German is divided into
