German (called "Deutsch" in German), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages
and is one of the world's major languages. It is the language with the most native speakers
in the European Union. It is spoken primarily in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, the major
part of Switzerland, Luxembourg, the South Tyrol (Südtirol) region of Italy, the East Cantons
of Belgium and some other places.
German spoken around the World
Additionally, several former colonial possessions of these
countries, such as Namibia, have sizable German-speaking populations, and there are German-speaking
minorities in several eastern European countries, including Russia, Hungary and Slovenia, and in
North America (particularly Canada and the United States) as well as in Iceland. Some South
American areas, such as Argentina and the Brazilian states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina,
Paraná, and Espírito Santo, also have German-speaking minorities.
The Amish and some Mennonites also speak a dialect of German. Approximately 120 million people,
or a quarter of all Europeans, speak German. German is the third most popular foreign language
taught worldwide, and the second most popular in Europe (after English), the USA and East Asia
(Japan). It is one of the official languages of the European Union.
History of the German Language
The dialects subject to the second Germanic sound shift (High German dialects as opposed to
Low German dialects) during medieval times are regarded as part of the modern German language.
As a consequence of the colonization patterns, the Völkerwanderung, the routes for trade
and communication (chiefly the rivers), and of physical isolation (high mountains and deep
forests) very different regional dialects developed.
These dialects, sometimes mutually unintelligible, were used across 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 when writers would
try to write in a way that could be understood in the largest possible area.
When Martin Luther translated the Bible (the New Testament in 1521 and the Old Testament in 1534)
he based his translation mainly on this already developed language, which was the most widely
understood language at this time. 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). 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.
(See also the related article about the Fraktur Font.)
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-nineteenth 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 Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the
Habsburg domain. Others, such as Bratislava (Preßburg), 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. In 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 that 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 of German languages (except by pre-school children
in areas which speak only dialect - but in this age of TV, even they now usually learn to understand
Standard German before school age).
Modern German Language
The first dictionary of the Brothers Grimm, the 16 parts
of which were issued between 1852 and
1960, remains the most comprehensive guide to the words of the German language. In 1860,
grammatical and orthographical 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 spelling co-exist in the media. See German spelling
reform of 1996 for an overview of the heated public debate concerning the reform.
During the 1870s, the German language successfully replaced Latin as the dominant language in all
major European and North American universities, thanks to the prominence of German universities
at the time. Most important research in the sciences for some decades afterward was published in
German.
Minority Languages in Germany
Danish, Low German, Sorbian, and Frisian are officially recognized and protected as minority
languages per the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in their respective regions.
As speakers of Romany are living in all parts of Germany, the federal government has promised to
take action to protect the language.
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