German language

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Geographic distribution

Europe

German is official and is spoken mainly in Germany (where it is the mother tongue of more than 95% of the population), Austria (89%), Switzerland (65%), most of Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, where is the only official language.

It is also one of the three official languages of Belgium, along with Flemish and French. Its speakers are concentrated in the German-speaking Community of Belgium, located in the extreme east of the country, which constitutes 1% of the population.

There are other German-speaking communities where the Alemannic dialect predominates: in northern Italy (in the autonomous Province of Bolzano and in some other municipalities of other provinces), in the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine (bilingualism of French and Alsatian)^{[citation needed]} and in some border towns in South Jutland, in Denmark.

There are a few smaller German-speaking communities in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Expulsions following World War II, as well as mass emigration to Germany in the 1980s and 1990s have depopulated most of these communities. In Hungary it is spoken in some cities, including Sopron, near the border with Austria.

Oceania

In Australia, the state of South Australia received a large wave of migrants from Prussia. Due to prolonged isolation from other German speakers and contact with Australian English, a unique dialect known as Barossa German has developed, which is spoken in the Barossa Valley near Adelaide.

In 1899 Spain sold its Micronesian territories to the German Empire and this made German the second language in Micronesia along with Spanish. These territories are currently known as Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Northern Mariana Islands, Nauru, and the Marshall Islands.

Germany has signed memorandums of understanding for language study with its former colony of Papua New Guinea. The once colonial German of Papua New Guinea gave rise to a German-influenced creole, colloquially called Unserdeutsch (literally, 'our German').

Africa

German is spoken by approximately 30,000 people as their first language in the former German colony of Namibia. Today, English is the only official language of the country, but it is spoken by a significant number of the around 30,000 Namibians of German descent (about 2% of the country's total population). Since the 1940s it no longer enjoys the status of an official language (it is a national language), it continues to be widely used, especially in the fields of business, tourism, and religion (with greater notoriety in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Namibia). There are also German-speaking communities in South Africa, especially in Wartburg. Small German-speaking communities can be found in the former German colonies of Togo. Germany has established cooperation agreements for the study of the language.

North America

In the United States, North Dakota and South Dakota are the only states where German is the second most spoken language after English (the second most spoken in other states is Spanish or French). German place names exist throughout the Midwest region of the country: New Ulm and many other cities in Minnesota; Bismarck (North Dakota state capital), Munich, Karlsruhe and Strasburg in North Dakota; New Braunfels, Fredericksburg and Muenster in Texas; and Kiel, Berlin, and Germantown in Wisconsin. During the xix German immigration was very important, especially among workers in Chicago and other cities (there 9 of the 14 worker newspapers were published in German) and several of the "heroes of Chicago" spoke German and used it at public events.

In Canada, according to the 2006 census, there are 622,650 German speakers, and across the country there are people of German ancestry. The largest German-speaking communities are found primarily in British Columbia (118,035) and Ontario (230,330). There is a large and vibrant community in the city of Kitchener, Ontario, which at one point came to be called Berlin.

In Mexico, the Alexander von Humboldt Organization of Mexico City has the largest school for teaching German outside of Germany. ^{[citation needed]} In Mexico there is a large Mennonite group, established mainly in the north of the country. The first to arrive in Mexico moved in entire families and acquired large tracts of cultivable land after the First World War began. Currently, the Chihuahua Mennonite community still maintains their language, Low German, a kind of traditional German dialect that is taught in schools. The Mexican authorities gave their approval for Mennonites to maintain an education other than the official one, and every Monday the Mexican national anthem is sung in traditional German.

South America

In Brazil, the largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo and Espírito Santo. Almost all the inhabitants of Pomerode, a municipality in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, speak German.^{[citation required]}

In Argentina the distribution of German is dispersed, since there are large colonies in different provinces, including the Capital of the Republic and the northern coastal area of the Río de la Plata immediately adjacent to it (Olivos, San Isidro, San Fernando, Tigre), the south of the homonymous province, Córdoba (Villa General Belgrano), center and south of Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, Misiones, Corrientes, in the Patagonian provinces of Río Negro and Neuquén. In the south of the country there are communities with strong German and Swiss descent where special dialects are spoken with around 70,000 bilingual speakers in the Andean zone.

In the province of La Pampa there are Mennonite colonies that speak both German and Low German. In the case of the Province of Entre Ríos there are several German villages in the south of the Paraná department and the Diamante department. In these villages, the people, mainly over 40 years of age, are Germans or descendants of Germans.

German coloniero, is a German dialect spoken today in the Tovar municipality of the state Aragua, Venezuela

In Paraguay they are distributed in the departments of Caaguazú, Guairá.

In Bolivia there are Mennonite settlements that speak German and Plautdietsch, mainly in the department of Santa Cruz.

In Chile, the German language is still spoken in the south, especially in the Los Lagos Region.

In Peru, German immigration was concentrated in the departments of Huánuco, Junín and Pasco and in the cities of Oxapampa, Pozuzo, Villa Rica, Tingo María, Tarapoto, Moyobamba and Amazonas.^{[quote required]}

In Venezuela it is still spoken by some 1,500 people in Colonia Tovar, who use the dialectal variant of colonier German.

Central America

In Costa Rica, one of the most important migratory flows was from the German-speaking regions, mainly present in the country and from the xix , with an important sociocultural, economic influence and thousands of descendants.^{[citation needed]} Currently, more than 3,000 Germans, 2,000 Swiss and 600 Austrians live in Costa Rica, which constitute one of the largest German communities on the isthmus.^{[citation needed]} There is also a large Mennonite community of predominantly German origins. This leads to the fact that several communities have been founded, colonized or populated by German migrants in San Carlos, Sarapiquí, the Huetar Norte Region and the Central Valley.^{[citation required]} The Descendants of these migrants speak a dialect from Plautdietsch or Mennonite Low German, which is even studied in regional public education. In this country there are also dozens of German organizations and cultural alliances, schools and churches.^{[citation needed]} In the century xx More than 100,000 political and business refugees settled in countries like Costa Rica, Panama, and the Dominican Republic.^{[citation needed ]}

Historical, social and cultural aspects

Modern Standard German is a West Germanic language descended primarily from the set of varieties spoken during the Middle Ages in central and southern Germany, known as High German. Conventionally High German texts are divided into three periods:

Old German High Between the Centuryviii and 1050.
High German average between 1050 and 1350.
High modern German from 1350 onwards, sometimes distinguished between the early modern high German (1350-1650) and the modern high German (properly said). Note that this modern German high is usually divided between top central German and top German.

Modern Standard German is a form based primarily on Early High German, although the pronunciation was influenced by the way North German speakers, who mostly spoke Low German, adopted to pronounce written Standard.

Standardization of the language

Historically, the moment in which a language begins its standardization is crucial for its use as an official language. Before the 15th century each region used its regional variety almost exclusively. In the north of present-day Germany, until the 16th century the language of prestige was Low German (a group of sister varieties of which gave rise to High German which is at the base of the standard language). From the 15th and xvi official documentation ceased to be written predominantly in Latin and an attempt to use a German that represented a compromise between regional varieties began to emerge in the region occupied by East Central German. It is then that a consensus began to form between authorities and speakers to determine how it would be written and spoken, although this did not prevent regional variations from existing. From this consensus, the standard language began to be seen as a variety of prestige, and measures were taken to regulate the way in which it would be taught as the main vehicular language of education, as well as a second or foreign language. East Central German legal writings and Luther's Bible (1522-34) are the starting point for the formation of the modern standard German language. On this matter it has been said:

With his translation from the Bible into German, and despite not being the first, Luther became worthy of a recognition that today endures in relation to the enrichment and normalization of the German (of what is now known as the new German high, to be more accurate). Something that is marked by the fact that, in his translation, Luther does not choose the vocabulary bearing in mind his own dialect (the central-eastern German) but the one that was then more widespread in the German territories. Thus, Luther made the language a national issue. German was no longer a language but the national language.

This standardization of the language consists of choosing rules from among alternative regional forms. In his case, it was not until the middle of the 18th century that a more or less definitive written standard can be taken for granted, and During the 19th century the standard pronunciation would also be fixed. Although the Prussian unification and its Customs Union (Zollverein) was a boost to the standard language, originally in the Prussian territory the dominant language was Low German, although the incipient standard based on education was promoted the high german This Standard German was not accepted as an official language until 1902, when the Second Orthographic Conference established the first rules for Standard German. In parallel, regional languages continued to be used to this day, especially in informal matters and always between people from the same region.

German spelling is regulated by the German Spelling Council, in German Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung.

Standard language

The German language in the European Union

Although we use the term German to refer to the written language and the standard language, in the spoken field there are numerous linguistic varieties with an autonomous linguistic development. Standard German, known as Hochdeutsch (High German), did not originate from a particular dialect, but was created from various dialects, primarily central and southern ones, as a written language. Already from the 15th century this allowed communication between them, but when it came to speaking there was no unified pattern. The creation of a standard pronunciation was made necessary by the rise in importance of theater in the 19th century, which led those responsible of the companies to find a unique way of reciting that would be understandable throughout the territory. Thus the Bühnendeutsch or 'stage German' was created, which eventually became the standard German pronunciation, although some of its precepts (such as -ig = / -iç/) are not due to linguistic reasons but to acoustic ones.^{[citation required]}

Today, in most of the North German regions, people have abandoned their regional dialects (belonging to Low German) and colloquially speak mainly Standard German; the most extreme cases are those of the Ruhr Valley (place where immigrants from all over Germany flocked throughout the XIX century) and the south of the state of Brandenburg, in the so-called Prussian Saxony, where the dialect has practically disappeared. This is not the case in South Germany, Austria and especially Switzerland, where standard German is hardly spoken, only on rare occasions, such as when speaking to someone who does not understand the Swiss dialect. In certain German regions, especially in some large cities, a large part of the population only speaks the standard language.

The standard language has regional differences, especially in vocabulary, but also in pronunciation and grammar. These differences are much smaller than those that exist between local dialects. However, German is considered a multicentric language, since the varieties of the three largest German-speaking countries are considered standard in the same way.

Dialects

German dialectal map: The Benrath line separates the dialectal area from the German low (yellow) transition area to the German high (blue). The line of Espira separates this area of transition (blue) from the dialectal area of the high German (green)

Innumerable regional varieties coexist alongside the standard language, forming a continuum that extends throughout Teutonia, that is, those territories in the West Germanic area whose official language is Dutch, High German and Luxembourgish. The variations between the different regional dialects are considerable, since the High German and Low German dialects are not mutually intelligible; likewise, German dialects are often not understood by someone who only knows standard German.

Dialects can be divided into "Low German" and "High German". The separation between both zones is given by the so-called Benrath line, which separates the zones that suffered the second Germanic consonantal mutation from those that did not. That mutation occurred around the year 500 AD. C. in the towns to the south of this line; the dialects of these peoples have given rise to today's High German. The dialects of the peoples north of this line have given rise to English, Dutch, Frisian, and Low German dialects.

Another noteworthy second line is the Speyer line, marked by the Main river, to the south of which the second mutation fully occurs (High German or Oberdeutsch), and to the north only partially (Central German or Mitteldeutsch, from which Standard German is derived). An example of phonetic variations is seen below:

Word of the Under German	Word of the High German	Meaning
ik	ich	Me.
maken	machen	make
Dorp	Dorf	people
♪	zwischen	between
op	auf	above, in, of
Korf	Korb	basket
dat	da	That's it.
Appel	Apfel	apple

The High/Middle German group is subdivided into the following dialects:

German Dialects since 1900
Ancient German language area. Extinct since 1945/50.

Language area of German and Dutch, with the following dialect groups: Under German Central German High German Under phrancic Frisian

Bavarian (Bairischor austrobavaro (Bairisch-Österreichisch), which extends through the territory of the Ancient Bavaria, most of Austria (with the exception of the Vorarlberg), as well as the Italian region of the Southern Tyrol (Südtirol/Alto Adigio). It is characterized, among other features, by the assimilation of the group ei (/ai/), resulting in the sound /a:/ (Stein  Staan), as well as the presence of personal pronoun enk (2nd person of the plural), which was subsequently adopted by the yidis. But large differences can also be found among Bavarian subdialects; for example, with the hedgehog (German: Igel) there are almost all pronouncements between Ü:gü e Igl.
- northern Bavarian (Nordbairisch)
- Central (Mittelbairisch)
- South Bavarian (Südbairisch)
Renean troops (Rheinfränkisch), considered as an area of transition between Upper and Lower German and where there is a large dispersion of isoglosses.
Nordhessisch (North Hessian)
Mittelhessisch (central hessian)
Osthessisch (Eastern Hessian)
Mittelfränkisch
- Fráncico ripuario (Ripuarisch)
- Fráncico del Mosela (Moselfränkisch), spoken in the South of Renania (Tréveris) and in Luxembourg. Base Luxembourg standard language.
Eastern (Ostfränkisch), spoken in Franconia (north of Bavaria). Its linguistic domain includes the cities of Würzburg, Nuremberg and Bayreuth. It is the language Hans Sachs used in his work and in the centuryXVI was very close linguistically to the dialects of the High Saxony.
The High sajón (Obersächsisch), which is spoken mainly in the state of Saxony, as well as in the South of Brandenburg. Although today it is considered a comic dialect, in the centuryXVIII was regarded as the standard German paradigm. The language of the Leipzig Chancellery was used by Luther in his translation of the Bible and is the basis of the normative German.
Nordobersächsisch
Thüringisch (turingio)
Schlesisch (silesius)
Hochpreußisch (high Prussian)
The German of Pennsylvania is a German variant, spoken by approximately 225 000 people North America (more specifically, in the Canadian province of Ontario and in the states of Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania).
The Belgranodeutsch It is a German dialect spoken in Buenos Aires, specifically in the neighborhood of Belgrano and still survives today.
The Germanic (Alemannisch im weiteren Sinne), spoken in almost all Baden-Württemberg (with the exception of its northern strip), Alsace, Switzerland, the Bavarian Suabia (with capital in Augsburg), Liechtenstein and Vorarlberg (the westernmost federated state of Austria). This is the language used by Wolfram von Eschenbach, Walther von der Vogelweide and other German medieval troubers, as well as by later authors such as Sebastian Brant (author of the Ship of the Locos). For centuries a standard variety of its own persisted in this linguistic domain, which was gradually replaced by modern German in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
- Suabo language (Schwäbisch)
- German of Switzerland
  - Swiss German of Argentina
- Niederalemannisch (German bass)
- Mittelalemannisch (central Germanic)
- Hochalemannisch (German High)
- Höchstalemannisch (higher Germanic)

For its part, the Low German group is articulated in the following linguistic modalities:

Under sajón (Niedersächsischor Under German (Platdeutsch) proper, spoken throughout the northern part of Germany, as well as in the northeast of the Netherlands.
- Westfälisch (westfaliano)
- Ostfälisch (ostfaliano)
- Nordniederdeutsch (under northern German)
- Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch (mecklembourgeois-pomeran western)
- Brandenburgisch (burdened)
- Ostpommersch (Eastern)
- Mittelpommersch (central speaker)
- Niederpreußisch (low Prussian)
Under phrancic (Niederfränkisch), whose linguistic domain extends through almost all the Netherlands, Flanders, as well as those comarcas renanas (Cléveris, Emmerich) that border those countries. The dialect of Holland and Zealand, the Dutch, became the standard language of these territories in the centuryXVII.

Swiss German: Schwyzerdütsch

Main article: German of Switzerland

Swiss German dialects present several curiosities: there are various modalities depending on the geographical region, for example, Züridütsch (Swiss German from Zurich), Bärndütsch (from Bern), the Urnerdüütsch (from Uri), the Luzärnerdütsch (from Lucerne), the Baseldiitsch (from Basel), the Sanggallerdüütsch (from Sankt Gallen) or the Wallisertiitsch (from Valais).

In all these cases they are spoken dialects: their speech is dialectal, but they usually write in standard German, although there is also a minority trend that tries to reflect dialectal speech in written editions (email, SMS). The main problem is the large number of dialectal variations, which in many cases differ significantly from each other. For example, the Germans do not understand Swiss German easily, but the Swiss, on the other hand, understand the Germans without any problem.

Examples of dialectal lexical variations

Among the regional lexical variants that exist, some of the best known are:

Grüezi (in Swiss German of Zürich or Züridütsch)  Hallo (in Hochdeutsch“Hello” (although its origin is (ich) grüß(e) dich in standard German meaning "I greet you"
Rüebli (in Swiss German)  Karotte or Möhre (o) Mohrrübe or Wurzel(en) Hochdeutsch)  Wuddel (in Niederdeutsch“zanahoria”
Merci vill mal (in Swiss German)  Danke schön (in Hochdeutsch“Thank you very much”
schnufe (in Swiss German)  Atmen (in Hochdeutsch“breathing”
Nai (in Swiss German)  nö, ♪ (in colloquial language) nein (in Hochdeutsch“no”
chli (in Swiss German)  klein (in German standard)  glõa (in Bavarian dialect)  lütt (in Niederdeutsch“small”
BrötliUDWeggli/Weggä (in Swiss German)  Semmel (in Bavarian dialect)  Brötchen (in Hochdeutsch) ‘panecillo’
Samschtig (in Swiss German)  Samstag (in Hochdeutsch or standard German) or Sonnabend (in northern Germany) ‘Saturday’
According to the region, autumn can receive names Herbst, Spätjahr or Spätlingamong others.

In some cases, Swiss dialects differ considerably from one another, as can be seen in the following example:

is mödeli Ankä (in Swiss German of Bern Bärndütsch)

e stückli Butter (in Swiss German Zürich züritütsch)

ein Stück(chen) Butter (in Hochdeutsch)

‘A little butter’

Examples of morphological variations

In Swiss German they employ - Li. as diminutive suffix instead of - or - Lein. standard German.

Examples of Phonological Variations

In Zurich's German a vibrant, as are the Spanish speakers, when he performs the corresponding phone with the letter r.
The sequence ei which is pronounced /ai/ in standard German, is pronounced /i:/ in Swiss German.

Linguistic description

Evolution

German is a language of the Alto-Germanic group; This is part of the Germanic languages, like English, Dutch or Scandinavian languages. All of them are in turn part of the Indo-European family of languages.

German Consonant Mutations

The Germanic languages began to differ from the other Indo-European languages on the European continent by undergoing certain consonant changes (as well as other changes):

The first change, called the first consonant mutation, would have occurred before the year 500 a. C (maybe even at 750 BC). In the protogermanic the indo-European consonants p, t and k They turned f (as in the English pronunciation of [th] and h). Indo-European consonants b, d and g returned, respectively, p, t and k. For example, taking the consonants of Latin and English (showing the change of protogermanics):

Latin	Proto-Germanic	English	German	GLOSA
piscis	♪fisx-	fish	Fisch	'pez'
tres	♪!rejiz	three	Drei	'three'
decem	♪texn	tin	Zehn	'ten'
genu	♪knē-	k♪	KNie	'rodilla'

This first change in consonants is what differentiates Germanic languages from all other indo-European languages. This variation is fundamental in the evolution of German, although it is not enough to distinguish it from other Germanic languages.

A second change in consonants, called the second consonant mutation, was given before the s. VII d.C. and had a more limited scope by affecting only the high-Germanic languages. This change gradually spread from the mountainous areas of southern Germany and did not affect northern Germany (where BajoGerman languages were spoken). In fact, by failing to achieve this change in the north, it is possible to find transition dialects that do not present this second change, or which partially reflect it in some contexts. The simple explanation of this variation is that Germanic consonants t, p and k became z, pf and ch High German. Examples:

Proto-Germanic	English	German	GLOSA
♪Ton...	Tooth	Zahn	'diente'
___	Penny	Pfennig	'centavo, céntimo'
♪kan	Make	Machin	'doing'

Evolution from the Middle German High

In Early Modern High German there were numerous changes both grammatically and phonologically that gave Modern Standard German some of its characteristics. In phonology, open syllables with a short vowel experienced either vowel or consonantal lengthening:

[ligøn]  ligen [li development]

[hamambir]  hammer [hammambir]

Furthermore, the [ə] sound was lost in numerous phonetic contexts (in some dialects much more so than in others), so legete > (er) legte ‘(he) put’. Middle High German diphthongs ie, üe, uo became monophthongized into /iː, üː, uː/ (in Central German, though not in Higher German, which retains such diphthongs), so AAM. biegen > [biːgən] ‘to bend’, küene > kühn ‘daring, daring’, ruofen > rufen 'to call'. On the other hand the Middle High German long close vowels /iː, üː, uː/ became /ei, öu (eu), ou/ (again with dialectal differences) zīt > Zeit ‘time’, [lüːtə] > Leute ‘people’, hūs > Haus ‘house’.

Classification

German belongs to the western branch of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European language family. Together with its closest relative, Dutch, it forms a cohesive and well-defined language area separated from its neighbors by precise language boundaries. These neighbors are: in the north, the Frisian and the Danish; to the east, Polish, Sorbian, Czech, Hungarian and Croatian; to the south, Slovene, Friulian, Ladino, Romansh, Lombard and Italian; and to the west, Dutch, Limburgish, Luxembourgish, French and Franco-Provençal. Except for Frisian, Dutch, Limburgish, and Luxembourgish, none of these languages is West Germanic; consequently, they are clearly different from German and Dutch. Now, despite the fact that Frisian is a Germanic language, like German and Dutch, it is not considered to be mutually intelligible with them.

The situation is more complex regarding the distinction between German and Dutch. Until recently there has been a dialect continuum throughout the entire German-speaking area, without language boundaries. On this continuum, dialects are always mutually intelligible with their neighbors, but dialects that are far apart are usually not. The German-Dutch continuum lends itself to a classification of High German and Low German dialects based on the presence of the second consonant mutation. Dutch is part of the Low German group. However, due to the political separation between Germany and the Netherlands, the Low German dialects of Germany and the Netherlands began to evolve independently throughout the century XX. Furthermore, in both countries many dialects are on the verge of extinction having been replaced by the standard language. This is why the linguistic border between Dutch and German is beginning to form.

While German is grammatically very similar to Dutch, it is very different in dialogue. A speaker of one of the languages needs some practice to be able to understand a speaker of the other. Compare, for example:

De kleinste kameleon is volwassen 2 cm groot, de grootste kan wel 80 cm worden. (Dutch)

Das kleinste Chamäleon ist ausgewachsen 2 cm groß, das größte kann gut 80 cm werden. (German)

(“The smallest adult chameleon measures 2 cm, the largest can reach 80 cm.”)

Monolingual Dutch speakers can generally read German, and German speakers who can speak Low German generally understand read Dutch, but have trouble understanding spoken Dutch.

Phonology

Main article: Fonology of German

The inventory of consonantal allophones in Standard High German is given by:

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Gloss
Occlusive	p		d			k g		1
Africada	p		t	t offsetd2
Nasal	m		n			Русский⁵
Fridge		f⁶	s	・2	ç3	x3	⁴	h
Approximately					j	w
Liquidated			r⁴l				⁴

In the northern dialects, [ gul ] appears before roots with initial vowel. It appears as a prosthesis of accented vowels, it does not constitute an independent phenoma, as it is an optional mark of root limit without distinctive phenological value.
[ d cheering ] and [ laughter ] appear only in words of foreign origin. In some dialects they are replaced by [ t implied ] and [ laughter ]respectively.
[ ç ] and [ x ] they are traditionally considered as alophones after previous and subsequent vowels, however at least a couple, thanks to the composition. For a more detailed analysis see below in ich-Laut and ach-Laut. According to some analysis, [ χ ] It's an allophone. [ x ] after [a] and [ a development]and according to some also after [ α ], [ ] ] and [ a score ].
[ r ], [ ] ] and [ ] ] They're free alophones to each other. [ r ] is used only in the southern dialects. In the Silábica elbow, the phone [ ] ] is used in many dialects, except in the southwest.
Some phonologists reject /EUR/ and instead of this they use /n//and/nk/ instead of /żk/. The phonemic sequence /n// is done as [GRUNTING] When /// can start a valid beginning of the next syllable whose core is another atonous vowel /^, /or /. It becomes [GRUNTS] otherwise. Example:
- dipthong /d tiraft/n//: diphthongieren /d filaft]n]irðn/ [dūft] ː ː ] ]n]]
- Englisch / instructorn]l hymn/ [ŭl hymn]: Anglo /an]lo/ [awards]
- Ganges /]an]øs/ []aהs] ~ /]an] audiences/ []aŭtres]
[ ] ] is occasionally considered as a [v] alophone, especially in the southern German dialects.

Writing system

German alphabet

(Listen to a German speaker recite the German alphabet)

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German is written using the Latin alphabet. In addition to the twenty-six basic letters, it has three vowels with Umlaut (vocalic mutation): ä, ö and ü. Perhaps the most characteristic feature of German writing is the existence of the character ß, called Eszett or scharfes S ('spicy or sharp'), which represents the fricative phoneme. voiceless alveolar [s] (AFI). This spelling, which bears no relation to Greek beta, was introduced in the days of typing, but the character was originally a long s (Is) (long S) and lowercase z (Zett) with a descending loop, according to the calligraphy conventions of the time. In Switzerland it is not used and is replaced by ss.

German is also characterized by transcribing with the letter k the words that were originally written with c, generally borrowings from Latin, as can be seen below.

Word in German	Word in Latin	Meaning
Kalender	calendarius	calendar
klar	clarus	Clear.
Konzept	conceptum	concept
Kultur	culture	culture

This form of transcription is applied even to country names, as can be seen in the following table:

Country name in German	Country name in Spanish
Kanada	Canada
Kolumbien	Colombia
Kuba	Cuba
Mexiko	Mexico

As can be seen from the examples shown, German has an almost unique feature among the world's languages: all nouns, both proper and common, are written with a capital letter.

The traditional handwritten script was called Kurrent. At the beginning of the XX century, a form of writing called Sütterlin was established, compulsory in schools until 1941, nowadays in disuse.

In 1996 its spelling was substantially reformed, which caused some controversy, in order to reduce the number of exceptions and make the rules more logical.

Grammar

Main article: German grammar

German is an inflectional language. Inflection not only affects the end of the word, but also its root, which makes declension and conjugation somewhat more complex. Compared to English, it has a more intricate morphological structure due to nominal inflection (see German declension) and verb conjugation, although its grammatical structure is not really much more complex than most Indo-European languages with nominal and verb inflection..

Its advantages when it comes to learning are:

It has a very rigid, positional structure. For example, in the main sentence, the verb always goes second in the sentence, regardless of whether it is preceded by the subject, a complement or a full subordinate prayer; and if the subject does not occupy the first position, before the verb, it is placed in third position, after the verb.
It is read as it is written, although its sounds or phonemes are not exactly the same as the Spanish. A series of rules make certain groups of letters have a prefixed pronunciation (as in Spanish with "go" and "güe"). For example, "eu" and "äu" are pronounced /oi/.
It presents great ease to form composite words, joining simpler words. For example, "Tisch" means 'mesa' and 'Nacht', 'night': the composite word "Nachttisch" is 'nightstand' (not confusing with "Nachtisch", "postre", where "nach" means "after",) Unlike in Spanish, the use of a preposition would not be required. The addition of words, on the other hand, does not necessarily mean the addition of meanings.
Compared to Spanish words whose meaning and etymology are often difficult to discern, Germans are more easily understood, for example in the field of medicine: kneel. It is "Kniescheibe" (disco on the knee), sternocleidomastoid "Kopfnicker" (derivated from "mit dem Kopf nicken, do yes with the head) ungular "Nagelbett" bed.

Its disadvantages (in learning as a 'second' language):

It is essential to learn with every word its genre and its idiosyncratic form of plural. However, there are rules that help to determine the gender of many words or the number, although there are a lot of suffixes that determine the affiliation to one genre or another; for example, -keit, -heit., -ung They're female, -, - Got it. are male and -, - Lein. They're neutral.
The use of decline is important in German. In Spanish there is only one residue, like the different forms of personal pronouns according to the syntactic function they represent (me, me, me, with me; you, you, you, with you).

Nominal bending

German nouns are inflected according to:

Three types of decline (force, weak or mixed).
Three genera (male, female or neutral).
Two numbers (singular or plural).
Four cases (nominative, genitive, dative or accustive). The genitive is used little in the spoken language, is usually replaced by the dative.

The gender of a word is almost always predictable when it refers to people. Eg: der Vater ('the father'), is masculine, and die Mutter ('the mother') is feminine. There are very few exceptions for neuter nouns referring to people. Eg: das Kind (the boy or the girl) is always gender neutral, just like das Mädchen (the girl; in this case, the word is gender neutral because being a diminutive, indicated by the ending chen)). It is not usually predictable when it refers to objects, animals or parts of the body. Eg: der Bleistift (the pencil) is masculine, die Schere (the scissors) is feminine and das Notizbuch (the notebook) is neuter. From the above, we can deduce the three articles in German according to gender: der (masculine), die (feminine) and das (neuter), in the case of the singular. For the plural, die is always used for the three genders of the noun.

Another notable (but not exclusive) feature of German is the ability to construct compound words of theoretically unlimited complexity. For this reason, many inventions are given compound names of this type, instead of inventing new words. For example, "fridge" is Kühlschrank (literally, 'cooling cabinet'); television is Fernseher (literally, 'distant viewer'); telescope is Fernrohr (literally, 'far tube'). Ancient objects also follow the same pattern, such as Handschuh (gloves, literally 'handshoes'). And even this pattern applies to medical and scientific terminology, for example Harnröhre (urethra, literally 'urine tube'), Harnstoff (urea, literally 'urine matter'), Wasserstoff (hydrogen, literally 'water matter') or Sauerstoff (oxygen, literally & 'acid matter'). Some of these words were introduced during the National Socialist era and have since been superseded, such as "telephone", which was called Fernsprecher (literally "talker from afar") and nowadays it is Telefon.

Verbal inflection

German verbs are inflected according to:

The type of conjugation, weak, strong (with metaphony or supplementation), or mixed.
Three people, first, second or third.
Two numbers, singular or plural.
Two voices, active or passive, existing two types of passive, action (dynamic) and state (static).
Three modes, indicative, subjunctive and imperative.
There is the aspectual distinction, but it is not systematized.

The infinitive of German verbs always ends in -n and almost always in -en, except for some verbs such as sein ('to be /estar') and tun ('do' in a less concrete sense, similar to do in English). There are also a small number of verbs whose infinitive ends in "-ern", such as "verbessern" (‘to improve’) or "sich erinnern" ('remember').

The meaning of verbs can be extended by various prefixes, similar to what happens in Spanish. The order of the sentence is slightly flexible, but it has some fixed points, such as the immovable position of the conjugated verb within the sentence. For example:

gehen 'andar' ▼ Vorgehen 'proceder'.

schreiben 'write'  ausschreiben 'Announce', unterschreiben 'sign'.

Most of the German vocabulary is of Germanic origin, although there are a significant number of borrowings from French, English (more recently) and, above all, Latin. In fact, any word from Latin can be converted into a German word following defined rules and the speaker who uses words constructed in this way from Latin is usually considered educated by Germans. For example:

reagieren 'react' (from neo-Latin reagere)

akzeptieren "accept" (from Latin acceptāre)

frequenteren "frequency" (from Latin frequentāre)

triumphieren "triunfar" (from Latin triumphāre)

Syntax

German, like Dutch, is a V2 language (specifically SC-V2-SOV); that means that there are important restrictions on the order of finite verbs (inflected according to time) in the main clauses. More specifically in German, a finite verb in the main clause of an affirmative sentence must appear in second position, as in the following examples:

(1) Johann kaufte ein Buch

NProp buy.PAS A book

'John bought a book.'

(2) [Ein Buch] kaufte ich

a book to buy.PAS 1.aSG

I bought a book.

Note that in both cases a verb appears in the second syntactic position ("ein Buch", although they are two words, it forms a single phrase). The situation is the same for auxiliaries conjugated according to tense, as observed in these other examples:

(3) Simone wird das lesen

NProp FUT this read

'Simone will read this.'

(4) Heute Habe ich deine Mutter gesehen

Today AUX-PAS 1.aSG Your mother see

'Today I saw your mother.'

Note that here the conjugated element appears again in second position, although the infinitive lesen and the participle gesehen (which do not have inflection tense) remain in last position.

This can be explained if it is postulated that in German, as in other languages, it has two additional functional categories: the time phrase, which must necessarily be occupied by the verb or auxiliary with time marks, and a complement phrase, which must be busy. To satisfy the above rules, lexical verbs must "move" to these positions, thus leaving a syntactic trace of movement. Furthermore, in that scheme it can be said that German has an SOV order in its deep structure, as reflected by the usual relative ordering with non-finite verbs, and the apparent deviations from that order are explained by subsequent shifts required by elemental emphasis and the restrictions of a V2 language.

The fact that the movement is related to the complementant is seen very clearly when we analyze what happens in subordinate clauses, where the verb can no longer "appear" in V2 because the position is already occupied by the complementant:

(5th) Ich the dieses Buch gestern.

I read this book yesterday.

(5b) Ich sagte, dass ich gestern dieses Buch the.

I said I read this book yesterday'

In these sentences the 'read' it appears in second position (V2) in the main clause, but in the subordinate las it appears at the end because the conjunction dass prevents the "ascend" up to that position.

Other representations

German Braille

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