It is also a co-official language of Luxembourg and Belgium (specifically in the German-speaking Community), and a national language in Namibia. Select United Kingdom from the drop-down list under Country or region . (imperative). The same phenomenon is found in the eastern Netherlands, as the traditional dialects are not always identified with their Low Saxon/Low German origins, but with Dutch. Usage of German sharply declined with the advent of World War I, due to the prevailing anti-German sentiment in the population and related government action. To avoid confusion with similar names, lower case ß was maintained (thus "KREßLEIN" instead of "KRESSLEIN"). Despite this there were significant pockets of German-speaking communities which lasted until the first decades of the 20th century, principally in Puhoi, Nelson, and Gore. Franconia consists of the Bavarian districts of Upper, Middle, and Lower Franconia, the region of South Thuringia (Thuringia), and the eastern parts of the region of Heilbronn-Franken (Tauber Franconia and Hohenlohe) in Baden-Württemberg. ... History of the Language:. Jan Goossens: Niederdeutsche Sprache – Versuch einer Definition. It is structured in such a way that you will acquire high-level language competencies and the skills to become an independent and critical thinker, equipped for professional employment. German belongs to the West Germanic group of the Indo-European language family, along with English, Frisian, and Dutch (Netherlandic, Flemish). Also closely related to Standard German are the Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries, such as Swiss German (Alemannic dialects) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est, such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central- and Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). "under sea boat": submarine, abbreviated as U-Boot, lit. Also noteworthy is the Sachsenspiegel, the first book of laws written in Middle Low German (c. 1220). Because of the possibility of creating wo… The largest cities in the Bavarian area are Vienna and Munich. It has, however, an additional consonant: the ß, called "Eszett". Updated February 21, 2020 You hear it all the time. The largest cities in the East Franconian area are Nuremberg and Würzburg. The letter never stands at the beginning of the word and, following a long vowel or diphtong, takes the form of a double-s. German is most similar to other languages within the West Germanic language branch, including Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German (Low Saxon), Luxembourgish, Scots, and Yiddish. In general, the surviving texts of OHG show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. German is a fusional language with a moderate degree of inflection, with three grammatical genders; as such, there can be a large number of words derived from the same root. As in English, there are many pairs of synonyms due to the enrichment of the Germanic vocabulary with loanwords from Latin and Latinized Greek. Telephone directories treat them by replacing them with the base vowel followed by an e. Some dictionaries sort each umlauted vowel as a separate letter after the base vowel, but more commonly words with umlauts are ordered immediately after the same word without umlauts. The Alemannic dialects are considered as Alsatian in Alsace. Prague (German: Prag) and Budapest (Buda, German: Ofen), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others like Pozsony (German: Pressburg, now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Also related to German are the Frisian languages—North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland)—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. immigrants). In Brazil, the largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina and Espírito Santo.[43]. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. German, along with English and Afrikaans, was a co-official language of Namibia from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. In finite verb forms, it is split off and moved to the end of the clause and is hence considered by some to be a "resultative particle". German is one of the official working languages of the European community and still a global language of culture and diplomacy. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. The largest cities in the Franconian Central German area are Cologne and Frankfurt. In most regions, the speakers use a continuum from more dialectal varieties to more standard varieties depending on the circumstances. German has also been influential the fields of science and technology, where it is the second most commonly used scientific language and the third most widely used language on websites after English and Russian. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. They consist of Franconian dialects in the west (West Central German) and non-Franconian dialects in the east (East Central German). German is thus considered a pluricentric language. The auxiliary verb is still in second position. German is an inflected language, with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter); and two numbers (singular, plural). According to a 2012 survey, 47 million people within the EU (i.e., up to two-thirds of the 75–100 million worldwide) claimed to have sufficient German skills to have a conversation. "laugh!" Voiced stops became voiceless in certain phonetic settings. Hyde Flippo. During the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, the Low Franconian dialects now spoken in Germany, used Middle Dutch or Early Modern Dutch as their literary language and Dachsprache. The Allgemeine Zeitung is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. German does not have any dental fricatives (as English th). German is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. Swiss Standard German is used in the Swiss education system, while Austrian German is officially used in the Austrian education system. It is a West Germanic language that is also the most commonly spoken first language in the European Union. [41] As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country, German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region, such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital).[42]. Linguistically this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The size of the vocabulary of German is difficult to estimate. In many Romance languages, nouns are either male or female, making them difficult enough for native English speakers. Unlike English, this rule applies not only … Alphabet & Scripts:. It has strong and weak verbs. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as a result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. The High Franconian dialects are transitional dialects between Central and Upper German. In 1534, the Luther Bible was published. Raesfeld [ˈraːsfɛlt], Coesfeld [ˈkoːsfɛlt] and Itzehoe [ɪtsəˈhoː], but this use of the letter e after a/o/u does not occur in the present-day spelling of words other than proper nouns.). German is the most widely spoken first language in the European Union, with around 100 million native speakers. As of August 2017[update], it was in its 27th edition and in 12 volumes, each covering different aspects such as loanwords, etymology, pronunciation, synonyms, and so forth.The first of these volumes, Die deutsche Rechtschreibung (German Orthography), has long been the prescriptive source for the spelling of German. Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by the Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser-Rhine group).[8]. This is the case if you meet the oral and written requirements for the Zertifikat Deutsch language examination (level B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages in … After 10 years, without any intervention by the federal parliament, a major revision was installed in 2006, just in time for the coming school year. Following a 19th century change in Prussian language policy, use of Dutch as an official and public language was forbidden; resulting in Standard German taking its place as the region's official language. – "On Friday I went shopping. But tell me is this talking German? The word Fuß 'foot' has the letter ß because it contains a long vowel, even though that letter occurs at the end of a syllable. My motivated German students learn to communicate Hyde Flippo taught the German language for 28 years at high school and college levels and published several books on the German language and culture. The 18th and 19th centuries were marked by mass education in Standard German in schools. ): Niederdeutsch – Sprache und Literatur. The Deutsches Wörterbuch (German Dictionary) initiated by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm already contained over 330,000 headwords in its first edition. German is a very descriptive language. [11] This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Numbers in German (Deutsch) How to count in German with cardinal and ordinal numbers. Nevertheless, in today's Germany, Low Saxon/Low German is often perceived as a dialectal variation of Standard German on a functional level even by many native speakers. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of Standard German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially the pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. You would like to receive regular information about Germany? The new terms added means the German language contains far more words than the English language. Unlike English, whose newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written "open" with separating spaces, German (like some other Germanic languages) nearly always uses the "closed" form without spaces, for example: Baumhaus ("tree house"). For polar questions, exclamations, and wishes, the finite verb always has the first position. 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