German ( Deutsch )

Wilkommen - Welcome

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 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 distinct 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.

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 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.

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