Background
With about 118 million speakers, German is one of the most-spoken languages in the world. It is the official language in seven countries, which include Germany, Austria, and Belgium. It is a minority language in an additional ten countries, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Denmark, and Russia. About two million citizens in the United States speak German. German is the language with the most native speakers in the European Union (EU) .
The language has two major dialect groups: High German (Hochdeutsch) and Low German (Plattdeutsch). Within these groups are many regional dialects. In the past, High German was spoken in southern and central Germany, areas that are elevated, while Low German was spoken in the lowlands of northern Germany. High and Low German differ significantly and are sometimes considered separate languages.
High German replaced Low German by the nineteenth century. While about three million people still speak Low German dialects, no Low German literary standard exists. High German is the standard literary and spoken language in Germany. High German is used by businesses, the government, and the media and is taught in schools.
Many consider German to be a difficult language to learn. Like Latin and Greek, it is an inflectional language, which means its words are comprised of a root and an inflection, or ending, that changes depending on the position of the word within the sentence. German has four cases of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative). It has two verb conjugation classes (strong and weak) and three genders (masculine, feminine, and neutral). The word order in a sentence is more flexible than in the English language; word order can be changed to slightly alter a sentence's meaning.
History and Classification
Like English and Dutch, German belongs to the West Germanic group of the Indo-European family of languages. It is believed to have descended from an ancient language known as proto-Germanic.
The German language is often divided into three historical periods, but the beginning and ending dates of these periods are only approximate: Old German (750 CE–1100 CE), Middle German (1100 CE–1500 CE), and Modern German (1500–present). One of the oldest languages, the German language stems from the Old Saxon language, which is also referred to as Old Low German. The Saxon people were Germanic tribes who lived in the regions that are now the North Sea coast of Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark.
Between the third and fifth centuries, a phonological development took place called the High German Consonant Shift. It was a series of gradual changes that took place over centuries. It affected the pronunciation of the Old Saxon language, especially the consonants. Because of the shift, a new language evolved: Old High German.
Old High German and Old Low German were spoken until about 1100. Old High German literature includes the poem Evangelienbuch (Book of the Gospels). Old Low German literature includes the poems Heliand (the Savior) and Genesis.
Old German evolved into Middle High German and Middle Low German, which were spoken from about 1100 to 1500. Important literature in Middle High German includes Nibelungenlied , an epic poem written in the thirteenth century. Middle High German was used to write the chivalric poetry that marked the period.
In this middle period, a fairly uniform written language emerged in High German. Writers who wanted more people to be able to read their work were mainly responsible for this. Martin Luther , a Christian theologian and an Augustinian monk, was one of the most prominent of these writers. In the 1500s, Luther translated the Bible from Greek to Middle High German. However, the Catholic Church rejected his translation and created its own translation using different German dialects. These writers were unable to create a standard German language, however.
This achievement did not come about until around 1800, during the Modern Language period. Standard German was first used to create government documents. In time, many people began to speak it and it became the common literary language as well. Using this language was a major change for many Germans. Some of the dialects people spoke were so different from standard German that they could not understand it. They had to learn standard German as if they were learning a new language.
The Brothers Grimm wrote a sixteen-part German dictionary from 1852 to 1860. The brothers were Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm , German professors best known for their collection of fairy tales. Their dictionary remains the most comprehensive dictionary of the German language. Around the same time, the Duden Handbook was published. It contains grammar, spelling, and writing rules for the German language.
In 1996, steps were taken to significantly change the German language. Government officials of several German-speaking countries, including Germany and Sweden, signed an agreement called Rechtschreibreform. They agreed to simplify the spelling of German words so that the language would be easier to learn. Concerned that the agreement would destroy their culture, many German citizens refused to adopt it. In 1998, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany ruled that German citizens could continue to spell words as they always had, but children would be taught the new spellings in school. This would take place during an eight-year transition period.
Geographic Distribution and Modern Usage
German is the official language in Germany, where it is also the most widely spoken. Modern Standard High German is the standard language and is used by the government, businesses, and the media and is taught in schools. This standard language evolved from the Middle High German language used by Martin Luther in the 1500s in his translation of the Bible. Low German is still spoken, but only informally. Despite the standardization of the German language, regional dialects still exist, especially in rural areas.
Varieties of the German language are spoken in some countries outside of Germany. One of these is Swiss German, which is spoken by about four million people in Switzerland. Pennsylvania German is spoken in North America by about 250,000 people in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana and in Ontario, Canada. A dialect of German, Lëtzeburgesch, is the official language of Luxembourg (Source: EBSCO, 2022)