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The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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Last Updated:
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Key People:
Martin Buber
Franz Rosenzweig
Moses Mendelssohn
Robert Bly
August Wilhelm von Schlegel
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Old High German
Swiss German language
Old Saxon language
Low German language
High German language
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German language , German Deutsch , official language of both Germany and Austria and one of the official languages of Switzerland . German belongs to the West Germanic group of the Indo-European language family, along with English , Frisian , and Dutch (Netherlandic, Flemish).
The recorded history of Germanic languages begins with their speakers’ first contact with the Romans , in the 1st century bce . At that time and for several centuries thereafter, there was only a single “Germanic” language, with little more than minor dialect differences. Only after about the 6th century ce can one speak of a “German” (i.e., High German) language.
German is an inflected language with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative), three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), and strong and weak verbs. Altogether, German is the native language of more than 90 million speakers and thus ranks among the languages with the most native speakers worldwide. German is widely studied as a foreign language and is one of the main cultural languages of the Western world.
As a written language, German is quite uniform; it differs in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland no more than written English does in the United States and the British Commonwealth . As a spoken language , however, German exists in many dialects , most of which belong to either the High German or Low German dialectal groups. The main difference between High and Low German is in the sound system, especially in the consonants. High German, the language of the southern highlands of Germany, is the official written language.
Old High German , a group of dialects for which there was no standard literary language, was spoken until about 1100 in the highlands of southern Germany. During Middle High German times (after 1100), a standard language based on the Upper German dialects (Alemannic and Bavarian) in the southernmost part of the German speech area began to arise. Middle High German was the language of an extensive literature that includes the early 13th-century epic Nibelungenlied .
Modern standard High German is descended from the Middle High German dialects and is spoken in the central and southern highlands of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It is used as the language of administration, higher education , literature, and the mass media in the Low German speech area as well. Standard High German is based on, but not identical with, the Middle German dialect used by Martin Luther in his 16th-century translation of the Bible . Within the modern High German speech area, Middle and Upper German dialect groups are differentiated , the latter group including Austro-Bavarian, Alemannic (Swiss German), and High Franconian.
Low German, with no single modern literary standard, is the spoken language of the lowlands of northern Germany. It developed from Old Saxon and the Middle Low German speech of the citizens of the Hanseatic League . The language supplied the Scandinavian languages with many loanwords, but, with the decline of the league, Low German declined as well.
Although the numerous Low German dialects are still spoken in the homes of northern Germany and a small amount of literature is written in them, no standard Low German literary or administrative language exists.
Alemannic dialects , which developed in the southwestern part of the Germanic speech area, differ considerably in sound system and grammar from standard High German. These dialects are spoken in Switzerland, western Austria, Swabia , and Liechtenstein and in the Alsace region of France . Yiddish , the language of the Ashkenazic Jews (Jews whose ancestors lived in Germany in the European Middle Ages ), also developed from High German.
Why are Germans seen as rude? The country explains
Published Fri, Oct 18 2013 6:08 AM EDT Updated Fri, Oct 18 2013 8:35 AM EDT
Jacobs Stock Photography | Photodisc | Getty Images
According to the stereotypes, Germans are first to grab the sunbeds, incapable of cracking a smile and rarely say "thank you".
In an attempt to dispel these myths, Germany has launched a series of videos explaining where the misconceptions arise from and how to do business in the country.
Germany is the euro zone's largest economy and the world's second biggest exporter, making it an attractive and important country with which to do business.
The Goethe Institute, Germany's cultural promotion body, made the video entitled "Typical German", which claims that "a German's tendency to stick to the point of a conversation" is rooted in history.
"Germany used to be divided up into lots of little separate states so each one was constantly surrounded by enemies. They could never take their safety and stability for granted so they kept themselves to themselves," the video said.
"This is why they value stability and structure so much more now. And that is why Germans never leave things to chance."
The Germans' desire to get to the point straight away, "can lead to misunderstandings", the video admits.
But the Goethe Institute video says there is a certain way to do business successfully in Germany.
"If you are well-prepared and clearly set out your business agenda at the first meeting, Germans will take what you have to say very seriously indeed."
—By CNBC's Arjun Kharpal: Follow him on Twitter @ArjunKharpal
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Opinion | A German Who Explains Trump
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BRANDENBURG AN DER HAVEL, Germany — Klaus Riedelsdorf calls himself a German patriot. He’s tired of German shame over its Nazi past: enough of “schuldkult,” or guilt celebration. He did not give up East Germany, a vassal state to Moscow, to join a united Germany that’s a vassal state to the European Union and Washington. He wants his country back. “We need to be sovereign in our land,” he tells me.
Islam is an ideology, he says, and an Islamic takeover of Germany is the greatest danger the country has faced since the Cold War. Not since the Cuban missile crisis has Europe been confronted with a danger as acute as the Arab Islamist threat to the West. When there are terrorist attacks by Muslims “and we say that has nothing to do with Islam, it’s a very dangerous development,” he says, because it deludes people.
Riedelsdorf’s tone is flat, clipped. The tension in his face gathers in his pursed mouth. The room is warm; occasionally a bead of sweat appears. Slim, a smoker, he wears glasses, a gray jacket, jeans and a blue tie. He’s a middle-aged Everyman: thoughtful, tortured and angry about the drift of Angela Merkel’s Germany.
There was the euro fiasco, where Germany ended up paying to bail out other countries. There was the environment fiasco, where Germany renounced nuclear power and Merkel went “green,” embracing the view that, as Riedelsdorf put it, “humans can change the climate when the climate does what it will.” There is the refugee fiasco, where Merkel has let in a million-strong “army with stones” since 2015, “an irresponsible and crazy thing to do.”
In all of this, Riedelsdorf says, Merkel insisted that she was, in effect, “alternativlos” — or had no alternative, which is precisely why his political party is called Alternative for Germany (AfD). As Merkel’s Christian Democratic party had forsaken the right to merge into some center-left hodgepodge, and the chancellor had joined the cohorts of the politically correct, there was, of course, a need for the AfD, formed in 2013, he says. There must always be alternatives.
“Germany,” he tells me, “has no special responsibility for Arab refugees just because 80 years ago we persecuted the Jews.” It should have said no.
Riedelsdorf is a German who has thrown in his lot with a nationalist and xenophobic party that, breaking taboos, has just taken almost 100 seats in the German Parliament. He lives in this small, formerly East German town an hour’s drive west of Berlin where, in last month’s election , he got almost 17 percent of the vote (up to 41 percent in some parts of the constituency), not enough to win, but still. He’s a rightist German, though in the current political climate he could be from anywhere: the United States, France, Britain, the Netherlands. It’s important to recognize him: a conservative white man — intelligent, patriotic, uneasy, resentful, who’s had enough.
“The pendulum is swinging back,” he tells me. Then, using a German expression for a situation where something has to give, he says, “The bow was stretched too tight.”
Propped in his office is one of the AfD campaign posters with the words “We will take our country back.” There are peculiarly German elements to Riedelsdorf’s story — life under the Stasi in a divided Germany emerging from the ruins of Nazism will play with anyone’s mind — but this slogan is the universal cry of rightist reaction. It’s Trump’s “America First.” It’s Brexit. It’s Marine Le Pen’s nationalists against the globalists. It’s behind the word of the moment: sovereignty.
The question arises: back from what or whom? In Brandenburg, as in Trump-world, there’s plenty of political energy against globalized, mealy-mouthed, quinoa-loving, inequality-fostering, immigrant-embracing elites with their gender spectra, climate doomsdays, multilateral organizations, mainstream parties and smug no-alternatives views of existence.
When the pendulum swings, pay close attention. Riedelsdorf riffs onward, turning to gay rights and women’s rights. All fine, all great, he says, but if gays can marry now in Germany, does what homosexuals do with each other really need to be taught in some German schools? Do gender-neutral neologisms, like “studierende” for students, really need to be adopted to satisfy feminists?
“Our language is being raped for ideological reasons,” he says.
Later he writes to me. In East Germany, he says, everyone was taught to love peace, socialism and each other. But as soon as the wall fell, there were racist attacks against blacks, the Vietnamese, other foreigners. Riedelsdorf’s conclusion: “It makes no sense to force people to think this or that when they don’t believe it. They will do the opposite as soon as they can. Political correctness will lead to the opposite!”
Riedelsdorf often sounds like Trump (who incarnates the election of the “opposite”) but won’t be drawn on him, beyond saying, “We are very lucky that the biggest economic power got out of the Paris climate agreement because billions will be spent and nothing accomplished.”
I ask Riedelsdorf if Muslims are today’s Jews for the AfD. He denies any possible analogy. He tries to argue that most Germans never had anything against the Jews. They followed orders. “My grandfather and three of my father’s brothers fought in the war,” he says. “They did what they were told to do, as any soldier in the world would. They tried to be honorable. The war was a crime, we know that, but soldiers did not commit the crimes. That was the SS. We need a differentiated view of the Third Reich.”
I disagree with this German on just about everything. But I think it’s important to listen to him. It’s critical to listen to people you disagree with, however difficult. Oh, and I don’t think Riedelsdorf is an anti-Semite.
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