German

German (Deutsch) (the default is called High German ) is a language belonging to the West Germanic branch of the Germanic languages ​​. It is the official language ofGermany , Austria and Liechtenstein, and one of the official languages ​​of Switzerland , Luxembourg , Belgium ( East Cantons ), Denmark ( South Jutland ) and Italy (South Tyrol ). Include in Namibia (a former German colony ), France ( Alsace ) and countries of the former Eastern bloc is also spoken, but without official recognition.

In the Asian part of the former Soviet Union was German still the mother tongue of about two million people, descendants of the Black Sea and the Volga Germans (Volga Deutschen) who came in the 18th century at the invitation of the czars to Russia conquered new but colonize little inhabited regions. After 1990, most of these "Russlanddeutsche 'emigrated to Germany. Also in North America ( Canada and the United States ) still live about two million people who have German as their mother tongue. In South America, finally, there is also a minority of German speakers. Who mainly live in Argentina , Brazil , Chile and Paraguay .

Content

 * 1 General
 * 2 German and Dutch
 * 3 Spelling Revision August 1998
 * 3.1 Key changes
 * 4 Spelling Revision February 2006
 * 5 Grammar
 * 6 The German dialects
 * 7 German and Continental West Germanic
 * 8 Periphery of German
 * 8.1 Within Europe
 * 8.2 Outside Europe
 * 8.3 The German-based creole languages
 * 8.4 Other mixing languages
 * 8.5 Rotwelsch
 * 9 History
 * 10 See also
 * 11 External links
 * 12 Sources

General [ edit ]
With about 105 million native speakers, German is the main language in the European Union after the Russian language the largest in Europe.

In a synod message from 786 of the papal nuncio Gregor Ostia is the oldest occurrence of the word German, in its Latin form, preserved: theodisce. This report on two synods that took place in England, was displayed both in Latin and in the vernacular so mentioned. "Theudo 'is the old Germanic word for people, which was fitted with asuffix '-iska.

German is written using the Latin alphabet, in which four characters are added: Ä / ä, Ö / ö, Ü / ü and ß . ß is also true in Switzerland, but is rarely used in daily practice, but in the printing of books.

At most high schools German is a compulsory subject from the VMBO but some schools also give it to a lower level [source?]

[German and Dutch edit ]
The vocabulary of the Dutch is very similar to that of German. Dutch and German are very closely related languages ​​and know so very many cognates . Most Dutch words will appear both in form and meaning strongly on their German translation equivalent . Also, Dutch and German, to some extent, mutually intelligible .

Yet for Dutch is often precisely because of this weather difficult German really good to understand and speak (and of course vice versa), as many etymologically related words biting mean something else. Caution should both be understood as speaking German are very aware of false friends . A fewvoorbeelden: See ("meer"), Meer("zee"), Winkel ("hoek"), einladen ("uitnodigen"), bellen ("blaffen"), dürfen ("mogen"), brauchen ("nodig have ") were (" be "but also" will ") einstellen (lift) machen (do) andschlimm (" very ").

The Dutch and German languages ​​standard (resp. ABN and Hochdeutsch) are in the appropriate state areas since a century have become common colloquialisms.Before these languages ​​were exclusive means of expression of the 'educated classes' and were generally regional languages ​​that did hear a very large variety. The regional languages ​​in Northern Germany are very different from those elsewhere and have, over the High German, Dutch agreement, even as one with northeastern Dutch dialects. They are referred to somewhat confusing and incomplete as Low German (Niederdeutsch), Low Saxon (Niedersachsisch) and Low German (Platt Deutsch). The southeastern Dutch regional languages ​​is that they are an integral part of the regional languages ​​of the German Lower Rhine region . German-Dutch language barriers were therefore not pulling for the everyday language to modern times. But now a growing majority of the population no longer speaks dialect and switched to the default, the state border is no longer just formally but also will act as a de facto language border.

Before 1945 the German was an international lingua franca throughout Central Europe. Then that function by the Russian adopted and since 1990 the English became.If scientific language was German until the Nazi period an international scientific medium in the philosophy and philology, and in physics and chemistry, and related applied sciences.

Spelling Revision August 1998 [ edit ]
On 1 August 1998 the German spelling was changed. This spelling is true for Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. This spelling reform is somewhat controversial. Leading newspapers such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung are therefore now gone back to the old spelling before 1998. Nobel -winnares Elfriede Jelinek made ​​it known that she was against the new spelling reform.

Main changes [ edit ]

 * The beta is still used only after long vowels and diphthongs. After the change, for example, still Fuß (foot) and road (street) but Fluss (river) and Anschluß have changed Fluss and Anschluss. More about this on the page about the Ringel-s .


 * The disappearance of a third, same consonant in formulations has been deleted. The former Schiffahrt (shipping) is Schifffahrt (or Schiff Fahrt).

Spelling Revision of February 2006 [ edit ]
After major criticism came a review of the spelling reform (Reform of the Reform), which some spelling changes were reversed. [1]

Grammar [ edit ]
German has four names are : When choosing prepositions is the dative of place and time and the accusative of direction. If it is neither to be always chosen the dative, and except auf über.
 * the nominative : the subject and nominal part of the predicate [2]
 * the genitive : Expressing the owner and accompany verbs / prepositions [3]
 * the dative : the indirect object and complement verbs / (choice) prepositions [4]
 * the accusative : the direct object and complement verbs / (choice) prepositions [5]

Declension of articles (der - and ein group): The adjective get the same end point as the definite article according to this table. The output of the adjective is -e, -er, -em, -and or -es. An exception is if there is already an article or pronoun with a case ending, that are in the table above, the articles which do not have yellow background. In this special case is the adjective simplified output, as follows: Conjugating German verbs goes this way:

The German dialects [ edit ]
The sub-groups of the first level, after the main groups Lower, Middle and Upper German. The Lower Franconian in the Netherlands, Belgium and France to the Dutch counted In the German language itself, we can distinguish two major dialect groups. We give here under the rubric of the Low German (also Niedersachsisch called) vernacular names which, as can be seen in the accompanying ticket, in numerous and sometimes confusing synonyms are used: Northern Low Saxon (including East Friesian and Holstein), Westphalian and Eastphalian dialect, Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch dialect, and Brandenburg. Before 1945 the Low German dialect group also included the Pomeranian and East Prussian, and the Middle German dialect group of the Silesian, but these three regional languages ​​with their speakers disappeared from these areas. See Flight and expulsion of Germans . West Middle German dialect group originated from the historical Rhenish FRANCONIE ( Rhine Province , Palatinate ).Ripuarisch, sparked (including Luxembourg and Lorraine) and Rhine Franconian dialects among them. From Thuringia and the East Mark, the East Middle German group that includes Thuringian , Upper Saxon , and Silesia . The Upper German includes Opperfrankisch ( East- and Zuidfrankisch ) and regional languages ​​that developed from the historical Bajuvarisch and now as Bavarian and Austrian indicated, and from the historic Alemannisch which the present Alsatian , Swabian (Baden-Württemberg) and Swiss German are counted. The major difference between the major dialect areas, whether or not lined or second High German sound shift . So they will be in the Low German rather Pund, Water and I say, while High German dialect speakers rather Pfund, Laundry and ich will say. Especially since more than 12 million Germans from Central European states and Poland annexed German provinces after 1945 in what is now Germany had to settle, the communicative function of the High German as commonly understood language was in the postwar period and mandatory slumped of the regional languages ​​road. In Bavaria, the use of the vernacular still general, but in the north of Germany speaks only a small and dwindling minority the Low German dialects. Outside Germany, Alsace-Lorraine the use of regional languages ​​also become marginal. In Luxembourg, the regional official language and promoted it as a general everyday language, although especially in the capital of the French competition is considerable. In German-speaking Switzerland, the Swiss German variants general colloquialisms and High German is mainly used in written language functions. Since the beginning of the 19th century, German philology and linguistics, the regional languages ​​very extensively described and documented.

German and Continental West Germanic [ edit ]
In the older language scientific literature the term is sometimes as old-fashioned German synonym for the current term used Continental West Germanic. Both terms mean the current German, Low German / Saxon, Dutch, and places all three next to the West Coast including Germanic than the English and Frisian fall.

This is based on the premise that an original West Germanic language existed, which occurred in the third and fourth centuries of the Christian era shared in the so-called "Anglo-Frisian '(putative precursor of Old English and Old Frisian ) and the "German style" the presumed precursor of Old High German , Old Saxon and Old Dutch, a format that first created in 1898 by the linguist Karl Müllenhoff. Only in 1943 Friedrich Maurer suggested a different (and more accurate) model. [6]

Today we consider the division into "Anglo-Frisian" and "German" as simple and as insufficient. [7] [8]

Periphery of the German [ edit ]
Standard German is based on the High German(green) and differs from the Central German(turquoise) and the Low German (yellow). The black lines represent the main isoglossen weather,Benrather line and Speyer line . In lighter shades are the corresponding regions of France indicated that belong to the Western Periphery of German

Spread of German: tribal area and periphery in Europe, 2006

German and German-speaking population in Central Europe, 1910 - 1930 . State borders as at January 1 1931 .

Under the collective term 'Periphery of the German, "and as a concept analogous to a similar concept for the Dutch, here's a list of language variants or derivatives of the German geographically, sociolinguistic and / or typological at a greater distance from the 'tribal area' and / or Standard German than others, more mainstream varieties of German. Peripheral varieties arise from the contact with, and the influence of one or more exogenous, non-German languages ​​or dialects. They can both dialects, regional speech, language contact, mixed languages ​​as concern sociolects or steel group. In most cases, these are varieties that have emerged in the periphery of the German language in the more distant past. The probability of the emergence of modern peripheral varieties is limited, but still present. There must be distinguished in varieties result from a peripheral-internal, and at a peripheral external environment.

[Inside Europe Edit ]
To the west (peripheral-internal) periphery of German belong eastern and northeastern (Low German or Low Saxon) varieties of Dutch, southeastern (Lower Franconian) varieties of Dutch ( Limburg ), the Luxembourg, the Lorraine Franconian and Alsatian. To the southern (peripheral-internal) periphery belong Swiss dialects of German, Austrian varieties in Carinthia and South Tyrol in the Italian province of Trentino-Alto Adige . A small German-speaking minority in the province of Trentino is Cimbrian language called.

In countries of the former Eastern bloc is also remnants of the 1945 contained millions still speaking German spoken here and there, but without official recognition.

[Outside Europe edit ]
In the Asian part of the former Soviet Union was still the German mother tongue of about two million people. These are called Black Sea and Volga Germans(Volga Deutschen). They were during World War II from their homelands, when the German armies came close to there, to the Asian part of the Soviet Uniondeported. In 1990 there still lived about 800,000 in the Asian part of Russia, 900,000 in Kazakhstan, and 100,000 in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan . Then most emigrated to Germany.

In Africa, German is spoken in Namibia (a former German colony). Australia is still at least 200,000 people spoke German, while two million German descendants live (mainly around Adelaide ). In North America (Canada and USA) still live around two million people who have German as their mother tongue, especially inNorth Dakota and South Dakota . There is also the so-called Pennsylvania Dutch (actually Pennsylvaniadeitsch), which is not a derivative of Dutch, but descended from Palatinate Tunisian dialects and furthermore varieties like Texas Deutsch . Usually, these variants are religious communities like the Amish, the Mennonites and the Moravians Hutterisch spoken as their first language. In South America, finally, there is also a minority of German speakers, especially living in Brazil , Chile, Argentina and Paraguay .

[From the German-based creole languages ​​edit ]
In the wake of the German colonial expansion began in the current East New Britain in the Pacific called the Unserdeutsch Language ; Namibia also emerged yet the Namibian Black German (Küchendeutsch). These are the only two on the German-based creole languages. The Unserdeutsch Language has become almost extinct, however, because most speakers have left. The Namibian Black German still has about 15,000 - mainly older - speakers.

There are in Papua New Guinea about 150 words of German origin preserved in the language Tok Pisin .

Other mixing languages ​​[ edit ]
If mixed language from High German and Low German was in the 16th century Missingsch in use, mainly in written form. The Petuh is spoken among the German minority in Jutland, as spoken by High German, Low German, Danish and South Jutland elements. South Jutlandic is generally regarded as a Danish dialect with strong influences from Low German. Yiddish in origin as a German language considered because it relies on the Rhenish . Very many borrowings from Hebrew and Slavic languages ​​have given it its own character and before 1945 it was as a literary language in Central and Eastern Europe in use. Water Pools (Wasserpolnisch ), spoken in Upper Silesia has many borrowings from German, but is considered a Polish dialect.

Rotwelsch [ edit ]
Rotwelsch or Romany is a mixture of Yiddish, German and Romani . It is a collective term for a secret language or sociolects social fringe groups on the basis of German. Since the 13th century, this used by beggars, vagrants, tractors (vagantes) and members of the so-called indecent professions. Where these groups settled permanently given the language the character of regiolect. Many Rotwelsche words are now included in the common language. The only ones that still Rotwelsch either Jenisch speak, the Yeniche people nomadic people in Switzerland, Alsace and Baden-Württemberg .

History [ edit ]
The history of the German standard language can be divided into four main phases (Sprachstufen):
 * Old High German
 * Middle High German
 * Early New High German
 * New High German

See also [ edit ]

 * German orthography reform of 1996
 * List of German words and phrases in the Dutch language
 * Germanism
 * German Netherlands
 * Namibian Black German
 * World German
 * Speyer line
 * South-Limburg
 * Flat Diets
 * Ripuarisch
 * Plautdietsch
 * German Braille