German

Introduction

Germany Map German belongs to the Western group of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is one of the world's major languages spoken by an estimated 95 million native and 28 million second language speakers in some 40 countries around the world (Ethnologue).

German diverged from other Germanic languages by a sound change called the Second Germanic Sound Shift that occurred in the 3rd-5th centuries and was probably completed by the 9th century AD. Its effect can Mountains be seen by comparing modern German words with their English counterparts, e.g., pound-Pfund, apple-Apfel, cat-Katze, heart-Herz, make-machen. The Second Sound Shift divided Germany into a smaller Northern part (without the sound shift) and a larger central and Southern part (with the sound shift). The border between the two regions approximates a line through Cologne (Köln) and Berlin. The other countries where German is spoken are all south of this line. Since the part of Germany where there was no Second Sound Shift are the North German Lowlands, their language is called Low German as d Castle istinct from High German spoken in the areas where the sound change occurred.
Learn more about the Second Sound Shift.

German has undergone a number of changes throughout history.

Old High German was spoken until the 10th-11th centuries. Its grammar resembled that of Latin or Slavic languages in its complexity. It is incomprehensible to readers of modern German
Middle High German was spoken until the end of the Middle Ages. It is partially comprehensible to readers of modern German.
New High German developed at the end of the Middle Ages. It is partially comprehensible to readers of modern German.

Germany German is the official language of Germany, where it is spoken by 75 million people, and of Austria, where it is has 7.5 million speakers. It is one of the official languages of Liechtenstein, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Italy. It is used as a local official language in German-speaking regions of Belgium, Italy, Denmark, and Poland. It is also spoken in Namibia, a former German colony in Africa, in several Eastern European countries, and in the Americas. In the U.S., the Amish and some Mennonites speak a dialect of German. Ethnologue estimates that there are Austria 28,000,000 second-language speakers of German worldwide. It is one of the twenty official languages of the European Union.

German was once the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe. Today, it is the second most studied language in Europe and Asia. The popularity of German is supported by the wide availability of German TV in Europe. German is the third most-commonly taught language in U.S. schools and universities.

Dialects

lederhosen

german kersi

There is considerable variation among German dialects. All German dialects belong to the dialect continuum of High German to Low German. Only neighboring dialects are mutually intelligible. Many dialects are not comprehensible to those who speak standard German.

Low German dialects are more closely related to Dutch than to High German dialects.
High German dialects, spoken in the upper Rhine region, are divided into Middle German and Upper German.
Standard German is one High German variety, which developed in Saxony, and accepted as the written standard in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Austrian and Swiss German are based on Upper German.
The High German dialects spoken by Ashkenazi Jews have several unique features, and are usually considered to be a separate language, called Yiddish.
The German dialects spoken in colonies founded by German-speaking people were based on the regional dialects spoken by the original colonists, e.g., Pennsylvania German (erroneously called Dutch instead of Deutsch) is based on the dialects of the Palatinate region of Germany.

Click on the MLA Interactive Language Map to find out where German is spoken in the U.S.

Structure

Sound System

children

Bavarian Men

Vowels

Consonants

German has 7 vowels: i, e, a, u, o, ö, ü. They can be short or long. Vowel length makes a difference in word meaning.
German has three diphthongs: ai, oi, au.

Click here to listen to the pronunciation of German vowels.

p, t, k are less aspirated than in English.
At the end of words, paired voiced consonants are devoiced, e.g., Brod "bread" is pronounced with a final t.
German has a uvular trilled /r/ which has no counterpart in English.
The affricates /pf/ and /ts/ can occur in the beginning of words.
German has a voiceless palatal fricative /ch/ (e.g., Bücher "books), and a voiceless velar fricative (e.g., Buch "book"). These sounds have no counterparts in English.
In Standard German, r tends to be a uvular fricative or trill initially, but an uvular approximant* between vowels.

* An approximant is a semi-vowel pronounced with slightly more friction.

Click here to listen to the pronunciation of German consonants.

Stress
Stress in German words normally falls on the first syllable of the root. There are some exceptions, especially in loanwords.

Grammar

Church

Statue

Heidelberg

German is a highly inflected language that adds endings to stems to indicate the function of words in sentences.

Nouns, adjectives, and articles

Verbs

Nouns are declined based on gender: masculine, feminine, or neuter. The gender of some nouns can be predicted based on their endings, but in most cases the gender is arbitrary and has to be memorized.
There are two numbers: singular and plural.
There are four cases: nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive .
There are two articles: indefinite and definite.
Articles and adjectives agree with nouns in gender and case in the singular; there is no gender distinction in the plural.
Adjectives have strong and weak endings.

There are strong verbs (so-called irregular verbs that undergo internal vowel changes when conjugated), and weak verbs (so-called regular verbs that add endings to stems).
Verbs are conjugated based on person (lst, 2nd, 3rd) and number (singular and plural).
Verbs have the following tense forms: simple past, compound past, past perfect, future, future perfect.
There are three moods: indicative, subjunctive/conditional, and imperative.
There are two voices: active and passive.
The meaning of verbs can be expanded and refined through the use of prefixes, e.g., aufmachen (auf "out" + machen "make, do," i.e., "to open.") Sometimes, prefixes can be separated from the main verb, e.g., Mach das Fenster auf! literally "Make the window out!"(i.e., "Open the window!")

Word order
The neutral word order in German is Subject-Verb-Object. However, other orders are also possible because inflectional endings mark grammatical roles in the sentence making them clear. Word order is principally determined by topic (what the sentence is about, or old information) and comment (new information). Constituents with old information (topic) precede constituents with new information (comment). Additionally, no matter which element begins a German statement, the verb is always the second element.

Click here to learn more about German word order.

Vocabulary

Most German words are derived from Old Norse. German has also borrowed from French, and English. Much of its scientific terminology has Greek and Latin roots. The latest source of loanwords is English. Words are frequently formed by compounding native components, e.g., Weihnachtsmann, (literally "'Holy Night Man", i.e., "Santa Claus").

Below are some common words and phrases in German.

Hallo	Hello
Auf Wiedersehen	Good bye
Bitte	Please
Danke	Thank you
Entschuldigung	Excuse me
Ja	Yes
Nein	No
Mann	Man
Frau	Woman

Click here to listen to the pronunciation of some common phrases in German.
Click here to watch short German videos.

Below are the German numerals 1-10.

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
eins	zwei	drei	vier	fünf	sechs	sieben	acht	neun	zehn

Click here to listen to their pronunciation.

Writing

Guttenberg Press
Gutenberg printing press

Martin Luther

Konrad Duden

Duden Dictionary

Prior to the 13th-14th centuries, German was largely unwritten. All official documents were written in Latin. However, in the 13th-14th centuries, German started to be used in most official documents. With Johannes Gutenberg's (circa 1400-1468) invention of the printing press, and Martin Luther's (1483-1546) translation of the Bible using a more colloquial language than previously in writing, there was, for the first time, a German text of common interest that spread rapidly all over Germany, thus communicating not only the contents but also a specific variety of the German language. This contributed to the creation of a standard written language that would be understood in throughout Germany.

Another important step towards the standardization of German was the creation of an orthography by the kingdom of Bavaria in 1879; the kingdom of Prussia followed one year later when Konrad Duden (1829-1911) created his famous dictionary which is still used today. This dictionary was regarded as the standard of German orthography. Since 1880, the orthography has undergone two reforms (1901 and 1990s).

Today, German is written using the Latin alphabet. In general, the spelling of German words is a pretty good indication of their pronunciation.

Aa

Bb

Cc

Dd

Ee

Ff

Gg

Hh

Ii

Jj

Kk

Ll

Mm

Nn

Oo

Pp

Qq

Rr

Ss

Tt

Uu

Vv

Ww

Xx

Yy

Zz

In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with an umlaut: Ää, Öö, Üü and a special letter that represents ss.

Some notable German letter-sound correspondences are:

v represents /f/, e.g., Volkswagen is pronounced with an initial /f/.
w represents /v/, e.g., Wien "Vienna" is pronounced with an initial /v/.
z represents /ts/, e.g., Zeit "time" is pronounced with an intial /ts/.
q is always followed by u.
y and x appear only in loanwords
long vowels are generally doubled, or followed by a silent h or single consonant
Short vowels are generally followed by a double consonant.
is equivalent to ss. It is used when the preceding vowel is long; ss is used when the preceding vowel is short.

A unique feature of German orthography is that all nouns are capitalized, regardless of whether they are proper or common.

Fraktur alphabet (deutsche Schrift "German script")
The Fraktur alphabet was used for printed and written German from the 16th century until 1940. The name comes from Latin and means "broken script" so-called because the letters are not connected to each other..

Take a look Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in German.

Die Allgemeine Erklärung der Menschenrechte
Artikel 1
Alle Menschen sind frei und gleich an Würde und Rechten geboren. Sie sind mit Vernunft und Gewissen begabt und sollen einander im Geist der Brüderlichkeit begegnen.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Dachshund

Wiener

Schnitzel

German words in English
English has borrowed many words from German.

English	from German
angst	Angst "neurotic fear, anxiety, guilt, remorse"
autobahn	auto "car" + bahn" road."
blitz	shortening of Blitzkrieg "rapid attack," from Blitz "lightning" + Krieg "war"
dachshund	Dachshund, from Dachs "badger" + Hund "dog," so-called because the dogs were used for hunting badgers
delicatessen	delikatessen, plural of delikatesse "a delicacy, fine food"
ersatz	Ersatz "units of the army reserve," literally "compensation, replacement, substitute," from ersetzen "to replace"
gesundheit	literally "health!"
kindergarten	literally "children's garden," from Kinder "children" + Garten "garden"
kitsch	literally "gaudy, trash"
sauerkraut	Sauerkraut, literally "sour cabbage," from sauer "sour" + Kraut "cabbage"
schnitzel	Schnitzel "cutlet," literally "a slice" (from Schnitz "a cut, slice") + -el, diminutive suffix
spiel	"glib speech, pitch," from spielen "to play"
wiener	shortening of Wienerwurst from wiener "Viennese" + wurst "sausage"
wunderkind	Wunderkind, literally "wonder-child."

Resources

Click here to find out where German is taught in the United States.
Click here to find learning materials for studying German.

Online resources for the study of German language and culture
German Electronic Textbook
German for beginners: A free online German course
About German language
Wikipedia article on German
English-German-English Online Dictionary
A short history of the German language
Ethnologue report on German
Yamada Language Center Guide for German
Resources and links for German
BBC German Steps (tourist German with sound files)
BUBL Link catalogue of German resources
Multimedia Materials