German: a short portrait

Where it comes from

German is a Germanic language, and so is English. Both go back to the same group of dialects spoken in northern Europe some two thousand years ago, which is why so many everyday words still look alike: das Haushousedie Handhanddas Wasserwatertrinkendrink

The Germanic family split into a northern branch (the Scandinavian languages), an eastern one that has died out, and a western one. German, Dutch, Frisian and English all belong to the western branch — English is not a descendant of German but a sister of it.

One change set German apart from its neighbours. In the early Middle Ages the dialects of the south shifted certain consonants: a t became z or ss, a p became pf or f, a k became ch. That is why English says «ten», «water», «pound» and «make» where German says zehn, Wasser, Pfund and machen. The dialects of the north, today called Low German, never made this shift, and «High» German is named after the higher land in the south, not after any claim to be better.

A short history in four stages

Old High German (roughly 750 to 1050) survives mostly in the writing of monasteries: prayers, translations from Latin and single German words noted in the margins of Latin books. Middle High German (roughly 1050 to 1350) is the language of courtly poetry and of the epic Nibelungenlied, written down around 1200.

Early New High German (roughly 1350 to 1650) is the time of printing. Gutenberg’s press in Mainz in the fifteenth century and Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible, whose New Testament appeared in 1522, carried one written form of German into every region. People went on speaking their own dialects, but more and more of them read the same German.

New High German is the language since then. For a long time it was above all a written standard, because the German-speaking lands were split into many states. Konrad Duden published his spelling dictionary in 1880, and a conference in 1901 fixed one spelling for all German-speaking countries. A reform from 1996 changed a number of rules — since then dass is written with ss where it used to have ß.

Where it is spoken today

German is the main language of Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein, one of four national languages of Switzerland, one of three languages of Luxembourg and an official language in a small region of eastern Belgium. It is also spoken in South Tyrol in northern Italy, and small German-speaking communities live as far away as Namibia and southern Brazil. The «Pennsylvania Dutch» of the United States are in fact a German-speaking group: «Dutch» there comes from Deutsch.

Standard German has three national varieties, all of them correct. Austrians say Jänner for January and Erdäpfel for potatoes; the Swiss ride a Velo rather than a Fahrrad and write no ß at all, using ss everywhere instead. Greetings change with the map too: Moinin the far northGrüß Gottin the south and in AustriaGrüeziin Switzerland

Below the standard live the dialects — Bavarian, Swabian, Saxon, Low German and many more. In German-speaking Switzerland the dialect is the everyday spoken language for almost everybody, while standard German is what people write. You will not need a dialect to be understood, but expect to hear one.

How German is written

German uses the Latin alphabet with four extra letters. The dots on ä, ö and ü grew out of a small e that scribes wrote above the vowel, which is why Müller can also be spelled «Mueller» when the dots are not available. The ß began as two letters joined together in handwriting and print; it stands for a sharp s after a long vowel, as in Straße, and a capital form has been officially allowed since 2017.

For centuries German was printed in blackletter type and written by hand in a script of its own. Both remained common until the middle of the twentieth century, so an old book or a letter from a great-grandparent can look foreign even to Germans today.

The capital letters on nouns became the rule in the early modern period, and German is the only major language that still keeps them. The good news is the spelling itself: once you know a handful of rules — ie sounds like «ee», ei like «eye», w like an English v, z like «ts» — you can read almost any word aloud correctly.

Words it gave and words it took

English has borrowed a good number of German words, often for ideas that had no short English name: «kindergarten», «angst», «rucksack», «wanderlust», «doppelgänger», «zeitgeist», «kitsch» and, in American English, «gesundheit» after a sneeze.

German itself took words from Latin early on, when the Romans built along the Rhine — die Mauerwalldas Fensterwindowder Weinwinedie Straßestreet In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries French was fashionable, and words such as das Restaurant, die Etage and der Friseur remain from that time. Today most new loans come from English.

Some of those «English» words are not English at all. Germans have invented a few of their own, and they will puzzle you: das Handymobile phoneder Beamerprojectorder Oldtimervintage car

German also likes to build its own words from its own parts rather than borrow: das Fernsehen is «far-seeing» for television, and der Wasserstoff is «water stuff» for hydrogen.

What tends to surprise English speakers

Every noun has one of three genders, and the gender often follows the form of the word rather than its meaning. Das Mädchen, the girl, is neuter because every word ending in -chen is neuter, and the cutlery drawer holds one of each: der Löffel, die Gabel, das Messer. Learn every noun together with its article.

The verb likes the edges of the sentence. In a main clause the conjugated verb stands second and the rest of the verb waits at the very end: Ich habe gestern einen langen Brief geschrieben. In a clause starting with weil or dass, the whole verb moves to the end.

Long words are usually just short words in a row, and taking them apart often makes them easy: der Handschuhglove (hand + shoe)das Krankenhaushospital (sick + house)der Kühlschrankfridge (cool + cupboard)

Watch out for words that look English and are not: das Giftpoisonbekommento receiveder Chefbossalsoso