German language
What is the German language?
Where is German spoken in the world?
What alphabet does German use?
How is German different from English?
German language, official language of Germany, Austria, and Liechtenstein and one of the official languages of Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Belgium. German belongs to the West Germanic group of the Indo-European language family, along with English, Frisian, and Dutch (Netherlandic or Flemish).
General characteristics
The recorded history of Germanic languages begins with their speakers’ first contact with the Romans in the 1st century bce. At that time and for several centuries thereafter, there was only a single “Germanic” language, with little more than minor dialect differences. Only after about the 6th century ce can one speak of a “German” (i.e., High German) language.
German is an inflected language with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative), three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and strong and weak verbs. Standard German, a variety of High German that is the language of public life in Germany, is the native language of more than 76 million speakers. It is widely studied as a foreign language, with more than 57 million people speaking it as a second language.
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As a written language, German is quite uniform; it differs in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland no more than written English does in the United States and the British Commonwealth. As a spoken language, however, German exists in many varieties, most of which belong to either of two dialectal groups: High German (spoken in the mountainous regions of central and southern Germany and adjacent regions) or Low German (spoken in the lowlands of Germany and adjacent regions). The main difference between High and Low German is in the sound system, especially in the consonants. High German, the language of the southern highlands of Germany, is the official written language.
High German (Hochdeutsch)
Old High German, a group of dialects for which there was no standard literary language, was spoken until about 1100 ce in the highlands of southern Germany. During Middle High German times (after 1100), a standard language based on the varieties of Upper German (Alemannic and Bavarian) in the southernmost part of the German speech area began to arise. Middle High German was the language of an extensive literature that includes the early 13th-century epic Nibelungenlied.
Modern standard German is descended from the Middle High German varieties and is spoken in the central and southern highlands of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It is used as the language of administration, higher education, literature, and the mass media in the Low German speech area as well. Standard German is based on, but not identical with, the Middle German dialect used by Martin Luther in his 16th-century translation of the Bible. Within the modern High German speech area, Middle and Upper German dialect groups are differentiated, the latter group including Austro-Bavarian, Alemannic (Swiss German), and High Franconian.
Low German (Plattdeutsch, or Niederdeutsch)
Low German, with no single modern literary standard, is the spoken language of the lowlands of northern Germany. It developed from Old Saxon and the Middle Low German speech of the citizens of the Hanseatic League. The language supplied the Scandinavian languages with many loanwords, but, with the decline of the league, Low German declined as well.
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Although the numerous varieties of Low German are still spoken in the homes of northern Germany and a small amount of literature is written in them, no standard Low German literary or administrative language exists.
Other major varieties
Varieties of Alemannic, which developed in the southwestern part of the Germanic speech area, differ considerably in sound system and grammar from standard High German. These dialects are spoken in Switzerland, western Austria, Swabia, Liechtenstein, and in the Alsace region of France. Yiddish, the language of the Ashkenazi Jews (Jews whose ancestors lived in Germany in the European Middle Ages), also developed from High German.