GeezerVison

German
Deutsch
Pronunciation	[dɔʏtʃ]
Native to	Primarily German-speaking Europe, also in the worldwide German-speaking diaspora
Ethnicity	Germans
Native speakers	90 million (2010)[1] to 95 million (2014)[2] L2 speakers: 10–15 million (2014)[2]
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic High German German
Early forms	Old High German Middle High German
Standard forms	Standard German Swiss Standard German Austrian Standard German
Writing system	Latin (German alphabet) German Braille
Signed forms	Signed German, LBG (Lautsprachbegleitende / Lautbegleitende Gebärden)
Official status
Official language in	6 countries  Austria  Belgium  Germany  Liechtenstein  Luxembourg   Switzerland 3 dependencies South Tyrol (Italy) 31 communes in Poland 9 municipalities in Brazil Several international institutions
Recognised minority language in	13 countries (minority/cultural/national language)  Brazil (Espírito Santo, Rio Grande do Sul & Santa Catarina)  Bosnia and Herzegovina  Czech Republic  Denmark (Syddanmark)  Hungary  Italy (Trentino)  Kazakhstan  Namibia  Poland  Romania  Russia (Azovo German National District)  Slovakia  Ukraine
Regulated by	No official regulation (German orthography regulated by the Council for German Orthography[3]).
Language codes
ISO 639-1	de
ISO 639-2	ger (B) deu (T)
ISO 639-3	Variously: deu – German gmh – Middle High German goh – Old High German gct – Colonia Tovar German bar – Bavarian cim – Cimbrian geh – Hutterite German ksh – Kölsch nds – Low German[a] sli – Lower Silesian ltz – Luxembourgish[b] vmf – Mainfränkisch mhn – Mócheno pfl – Palatinate German pdc – Pennsylvania German pdt – Plautdietsch[c] swg – Swabian German gsw – Swiss German uln – Unserdeutsch sxu – Upper Saxon wae – Walser German wep – Westphalian hrx – Riograndenser Hunsrückisch yec – Yenish
Glottolog	high1287  High Franconian uppe1397  Upper German
Linguasphere	further information 52-AC (Continental West Germanic) > 52-ACB (Deutsch & Dutch) > 52-ACB-d (Central German incl. 52-ACB–dl & -dm Standard/Generalised High German) + 52-ACB-e & -f (Upper German & Swiss German) + 52-ACB-h (émigré German varieties incl. 52-ACB-hc Hutterite German & 52-ACB-he Pennsylvania German etc.) + 52-ACB-i (Yenish); Totalling 285 varieties: 52-ACB-daa to 52-ACB-i
(Co-)Official and majority language   Co-official, but not majority language   Statutory minority/cultural language   Non-statutory minority language

German (German: Deutsch) is a West Germanic language. It is spoken in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg; natively by around 100 million people. It is the most spoken first language within European Union. There are some people who speak German in Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Northern Italy. There are people who speak German in many countries, including the United States and Canada, where many people emigrated from Germany. It is also spoken in Eastern Europe, Bulgaria, Romania, and Russia.

German is a part of the West Germanic language family and is much like English and Dutch. Much of the vocabulary in German is related to English, but the grammar is more complicated.^[4]

German has a system of cases, and when helping verbs are used, the main part of the verb must be moved to the end of the sentence. For example, "Someone has stolen my car" is Jemand hat mein Auto gestohlen ("Someone has my car stolen"), and "Someone called me last night" is Jemand hat mich letzte Nacht angerufen ("Someone has me last night called").

In writing, every noun must start with a capital letter. German is the only language that still has that rule, but Danish and English did so a long time ago.

Standard German is an official language in Switzerland, but the Swiss dialect of German is difficult to understand for native speakers from Germany and even for Swiss who are not native to speaking German.^[5] One reason that the dialects are still so different today is that even if Switzerland adopted Standard German, mostly as a written standard, German Swiss in World War II wanted to separate themselves from the Nazis by choosing to speak dialect over the Standard German.^[6]

Swiss German also has some differences in spelling, for example, the letter ß, which is used only in German, is replaced by ss.

• Alsatian
• Bavarian dialect
• Franconian Dialect
• Kölsch
• Low Saxon
• Swiss dialect
• Mannheimerisch dialect
• Palatinate German
• Russian (Siberian) dialect

German numbers are similar to their English counterparts. Like most languages, the German number system is based mainly on the first 10 numbers. They occur over and over throughout all the higher numbers. However, there is one big difference. Numbers like 21, 45 and 98 have the single digit first, with und ("and") connecting it to the tens as individual words, for example, einundzwanzig, fünfundvierzig und achtundneunzig (literally, one-and-twenty, five-and-forty, and eight-and-ninety).

Notes

German edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Online German Language Course An online German language course that includes lessons covering pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.
• German phrasebook at Wikivoyage
• Learn to Speak German Archived 2013-06-08 at the Wayback Machine Student Resource
• Free German Language Course Archived 2013-02-17 at the Wayback Machine
• German Thesaurus Archived 2018-03-31 at the Wayback Machine