German language

The German language (Deutsch, ) is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. German is related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 100 million native speakers and also by about 80 million non-native speakers. German is the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union and is generally considered as a global language. Standard German is widely taught in schools, universities, and Goethe Institutes worldwide.

Geographic distribution


German is spoken primarily in Germany (first language for more than 95% of the population), Austria (89%) and Switzerland (64%) together with Liechtenstein, Luxembourg (D-A-CH-Li-Lux) constituting the countries where German is the majority language.

Other European German-speaking communities are found in Italy (Bolzano-Bozen), in the East Cantons of Belgium, in the French area Alsace which often was traded between Germany and France in history and in some border villages of the former South Jutland County (in German, Nordschleswig, in Danish, Sønderjylland) of Denmark.

Some German-speaking communities still survive in parts of Romania, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and above all Russia and Kazakhstan, although forced expulsions after World War II and massive emigration to Germany in the 1980s and 1990s have depopulated most of these communities. It is also spoken by German-speaking foreign populations and some of their descendants in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, Greece, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Scandinavia, Siberia in Russia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia and Slovenia).

A considerable proportion of the native population speak German dialects in Luxembourg and the surrounding areas. Some people also master standard German (especially in Luxembourg), although in the French regions of Alsace (German: Elsass) and Lorraine (German: Lothringen) French has replaced the local German dialects as the official language, even though it has not been fully replaced on the street.


Outside of Europe and the former Soviet Union, the largest German-speaking communities are to be found in the United States, Canada, Brazil and in Argentina where millions of Germans migrated in the last 200 years; but the vast majority of their descendants no longer speak German. Additionally, German-speaking communities can be found in the former German colony of Namibia independent from South Africa since 1990, as well as in the other countries of German emigration such as Canada, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Venezuela (where Alemán Coloniero developed), South Africa and Australia.

South America

In Brazil the largest concentrations of German speakers are in Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch was developed), Santa Catarina, Paraná, and Espírito Santo, and large German-speaking descendant communities in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. In the 20th century, over 100,000 German political refugees and invited entrepreneurs settled in Latin America, such as Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic to establish German-speaking enclaves, and there is a reportedly small German immigration to Puerto Rico.

North America

The German language is the fourth most spoken at home in the United States (~ 1.4 million) after English, Spanish and French according to the 2000 US Census. The United States therefore has one of the largest concentrations of German speakers outside of Europe. The state of North Dakota is the only state where German is the most common language spoken at home after English (the second most spoken language in other states is either Spanish or French). An indication of the German presence can be found in the names of such villages and towns as Munich, Karlsruhe, and Strasburg, North Dakota, New Braunfels and Muenster, Texas, and Berlin and Germantown, Wisconsin. Over the course of the 20th century many of the descendants of 18th and 19th-century immigrants ceased speaking German at home, small populations of elderly (as well as some younger) speakers can be found in Pennsylvania (Amish, Hutterites, Dunkards and some Mennonites historically spoke Pennsylvania Dutch, (a West Central German variety, and Hutterite German), Kansas (Mennonites and Volga Germans), North Dakota (Hutterite Germans, Mennonites, Russian Germans, Volga Germans, and Baltic Germans), South Dakota, Montana, Texas (Texas German), Wisconsin, Indiana, Louisiana and Oklahoma. Early twentieth century immigration was often to St. Louis, Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. Most of the post–World War II wave are in the New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago urban areas, and in Florida, Arizona and California where large communities of retired German, Swiss and Austrian expatriates live.

In Canada, there are 622,650 speakers of German according to the most recent census in 2006 while people of German ancestry (German Canadians) are found throughout the country. German-speaking communities are particularly found in British Columbia (118,035) and Ontario (230,330). There is a large and vibrant community in the city of Kitchener, Ontario, which was at one point named Berlin. German immigrants were instrumental in the country's three largest urban areas: Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver and post-WWII immigrants managed to preserve a fluency in the German language in their respective neighborhoods and sections. In the first half of the 20th century, over a million German-Canadians made the language one of Canada's most spoken after French.

In Mexico there are also large populations of German ancestry, mainly in the cities of: Mexico City, Puebla, Mazatlán, Tapachula, and larger populations scattered in the states of Chihuahua, Durango, and Zacatecas. German ancestry is also said to be found in neighboring towns around Guadalajara, Jalisco and much of Northern Mexico, where German influence was immersed into the Mexican culture. Standard German is spoken by the affluent German communities in Puebla, Mexico City, Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosi and Quintana Roo. German immigration in the twentieth century was small, but produced German-speaking communities in Central America (i.e. Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua) and the Caribbean Islands like the Dominican Republic.

Dialects in North America:

The dialects of German which are or were primarily spoken in colonies or communities founded by German speaking people resemble the dialects of the regions the founders came from. For example, Pennsylvania German resembles dialects of the Palatinate, and Hutterite German resembles dialects of Carinthia. Texas German is a dialect spoken in the areas of Texas settled by the Adelsverein, such as New Braunfels and Fredericksburg. In the Amana Colonies in the state of Iowa Amana German is spoken. Plautdietsch is a large minority language spoken in Northern Mexico by the Mennonite communities, and is spoken by more than 200,000 people in Mexico.



The state of South Australia experienced a pronounced wave of Germans arriving in the 1840s from Prussia (particularly the Silesia region). With the prolonged isolation and contact with Australian English some have suggested a unique dialect formed known as Barossa German spoken predominantly in the Barossa Valley near Adelaide. Usage sharply declined with the advent of World War I with the presiding anti-German sentiment in the population and related government action. It continued to be used as a first language late into the twentieth century but now its use is limited to a few older speakers.


There is an important German creole being studied and recovered, named Unserdeutsch, spoken in the former German colony of Papua New Guinea, across Micronesia and in northern Australia (i.e. coastal parts of Queensland and Western Australia), by few elderly people. The risk of its extinction is serious and efforts to revive interest in the language are being implemented by scholars.


According to Global Reach (2004), 6.9% of the Internet population is German. According to Netz-tipp (2002), 7.7% of webpages are written in German, making it second only to English in the European language group. They also report that 12% of Google's users use its German interface.

Older statistics: Babel (1998) found somewhat similar demographics. FUNREDES (1998) and Vilaweb (2000) both found that German is the third most popular language used by websites, after English and Japanese.


The history of the language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, separating High German dialects from common West Germanic. The earliest testimonies of Old High German are from scattered Elder Futhark inscriptions, especially in Alemannic, from the 6th century, the earliest glosses (Abrogans) date to the 8th and the oldest coherent texts (the Hildebrandslied, the Muspilli and the Merseburg Incantations) to the 9th century. Old Saxon at this time belongs to the North Sea Germanic cultural sphere, and Low Saxon should fall under German rather than Anglo-Frisian influence during the Holy Roman Empire.


When Martin Luther translated the Bible (the New Testament in 1522 and the Old Testament, published in parts and completed in 1534) he based his translation mainly on the bureaucratic standard language used in Saxony (sächsische Kanzleisprache) also known as Meißner-Deutsch (Meißner-German), which was the most widely understood language at this time, because the region it was spoken in was quite influential amongst the German states. This language was based on Eastern Upper and Eastern Central German dialects and preserved much of the grammatical system of Middle High German (unlike the spoken German dialects in Central and Upper Germany that already at that time began to lose the genitive case and the preterite tense). In the beginning, copies of the Bible had a long list for each region, which translated words unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics rejected Luther's translation in the beginning and tried to create their own Catholic standard (gemeines Deutsch) — which, however, only differed from 'Protestant German' in some minor details. It took until the middle of the 18th century to create a standard that was widely accepted, thus ending the period of Early New High German. In 1901 the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a complete standardization of German language in written form while the Deutsche Bühnensprache (literally: German stage-language) had already established spelling-rules for German three years earlier which were later to become obligatory for general German pronunciation.



Media and written works are almost all produced in standard German (often called Hochdeutsch in German) which is understood in all areas where German is spoken, except by pre-school children in areas which speak only dialect, for example Switzerland and Austria. However, in this age of television, even they now usually learn to understand Standard German before school age.


The German spelling reform of 1996 led to public controversy indeed to considerable dispute. Some state parliaments (Bundesländer) would not accept it (North Rhine Westphalia and Bavaria). The dispute landed at one point in the highest court which made a short issue of it, claiming that the states had to decide for themselves and that only in schools could the reform be made the official rule - everybody else could continue writing as they had learned it. After 10 years, without any intervention by the federal parliament, a major yet incomplete revision was installed in 2006, just in time for the new school year of 2006. In 2007, some venerable spellings will be finally invalidated even though they caused little or no trouble. The only sure and easily recognizable symptom of a text's being in compliance with the reform is the -ss at the end of words, like in dass and muss. Classic spelling forbade this ending, instead using daß and muß. The cause of the controversy evolved around the question whether a language is part of the culture which must be preserved or a means of communicating information which has to allow for growth. (The reformers seemed to be unimpressed by the fact that a considerable part of that culture - namely the entire German literature of the 20th century - is in the old spelling.)

The increasing use of English in Germany's higher education system, as well as in business and in popular culture, has led various German academics to state, not necessarily from an entirely negative perspective, that German is a language in decline in its native country. For example, Ursula Kimpel, of the University of Tübingen, said in 2005 that “German universities are offering more courses in English because of the large number of students coming from abroad. German is unfortunately a language in decline. We need and want our professors to be able to teach effectively in English.”

Standard German





Official status

Standard German is the only official language in Liechtenstein and Austria; it shares official status in Germany (with Danish, Frisian and Sorbian as minority languages), Switzerland (with French, Italian and Romansh), Belgium (with Dutch and French) and Luxembourg (with French and Luxembourgish). It is used as a local official language in Italy (Province of Bolzano-Bozen), as well as in the cities of Sopron (Hungary), Krahule (Slovakia) and several cities in Romania. It is the official language (with Italian) of the Vatican Swiss Guard.

German has an officially recognized status as regional or auxiliary language in Denmark (South Jutland region), France (Alsace and Moselle regions), Italy (Gressoney valley), Namibia, Poland (Opole region), and Russia (Asowo and Halbstadt).

German is one of the 23 official languages of the European Union. It is the language with the largest number of native speakers in the European Union, and, just behind English and ahead of French, the second-most spoken language in Europe.

German as a foreign language

German is the third most taught foreign language in the English speaking world after French and Spanish.


German was once, and still remains to some extent, a lingua franca in Central, Eastern and Northern Europe.



The variation among the German dialects is considerable, with only the neighbouring dialects being mutually intelligible. Some dialects are not intelligible to people who only know standard German. However, all German dialects belong to the dialect continuum of High German and Low Saxon languages. Until roughly the end of the Second World War, there was a dialect continuum of all the continental West Germanic languages because nearly any pair of neighbouring dialects were perfectly mutually intelligible.

Low German

Low Saxon varieties (spoken on German territory) are considered linguistically a language separate from the German language by some, but just a dialect by others. Sometimes, Low Saxon and Low Franconian are grouped together because both are unaffected by the High German consonant shift. However, the part of the population capable of speaking and responding to it, or of understanding it has decreased continuously since WWII. Currently the effort to maintain a residual presence in cultural life is negligible.

Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League. It was the predominant language in Northern Germany. This changed in the 16th century. In 1534 the Luther Bible by Martin Luther was printed. This translation is considered to be an important step towards the evolution of the Early New High German. It aimed to be understandable to an ample audience and was based mainly on Central and Upper German varieties. The Early New High German language gained more prestige than Low Saxon and became the language of science and literature. Other factors were that around the same time, the Hanseatic league lost its importance as new trade routes to Asia and the Americas were established, and that the most powerful German states of that period were located in Middle and Southern Germany.

The 18th and 19th centuries were marked by mass education, the language of the schools being standard German. Slowly Low Saxon was pushed back and back until it was nothing but a language spoken by the uneducated and at home. Today Low Saxon can be divided in two groups: Low Saxon varieties with a reasonable standard German influx and varieties of Standard German with a Low Saxon influence known as Missingsch.

High German

High German is divided into Central German and Upper German. Central German dialects include Ripuarian, Moselle Franconian, Hessian, Thuringian, South Franconian, Lorraine Franconian and Upper Saxon. It is spoken in the southeastern Netherlands, eastern Belgium, Luxembourg, parts of France, and in Germany approximately between the River Main and the southern edge of the Lowlands. Modern Standard German is mostly based on Central German, but it should be noted that the common (but not linguistically correct) German term for modern Standard German is Hochdeutsch, that is, High German.


Upper German dialects include Alemannic (for instance Swiss German), Swabian, East Franconian, Alsatian and Austro-Bavarian. They are spoken in parts of the Alsace, southern Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria, and in the German-speaking parts of Switzerland and Italy.

Wymysorys, Sathmarisch and Siebenbürgisch are High German dialects of Poland and Romania respectively. The High German varieties spoken by Ashkenazi Jews (mostly in the former Soviet Union) have several unique features, and are usually considered as a separate language, Yiddish. It is the only Germanic language that does not use the Latin alphabet as its standard script.

German dialects versus varieties of standard German




German is an inflected language.

Noun inflection

German nouns inflect into:

  • one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter. Word endings sometimes reveal grammatical gender; for instance, nouns ending in ...ung(-ing), ...schaft(-ship), ...keit or ...heit(-hood) are feminine, while nouns ending in ...chen or ...lein (diminutive forms) are neuter and nouns ending in ...ismus (-ism) are masculine. Others are controversial, sometimes depending on the region in which it is spoken. Additionally, ambiguous endings exist, such as (-er), e.g. Feier (feminine), engl. celebration, party, and Arbeiter (masculine), engl. labourer. Sentences can usually be reorganized to avoid a misunderstanding.
  • two numbers: singular and plural


In the German orthography, nouns and most words with the syntactical function of nouns are capitalised, which is supposed to make it easier for readers to find out what function a word has within the sentence (Am Freitag bin ich einkaufen gegangen. — "On Friday I went shopping."; Eines Tages war er endlich da. — "One day he finally showed up".) This spelling convention is almost unique to German today (shared perhaps only by the closely related Luxemburgish language and several insular dialects of the North Frisian language), although it was historically common in other languages (e.g., Danish and English), too.

Like most Germanic languages, German forms left-branching noun compounds, where the first noun modifies the category given by the second, for example: Hundehütte (eng. dog hut; specifically: doghouse). Unlike English, where newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written in open form with separating spaces, German (like the other German languages) nearly always uses the closed form without spaces, for example: Baumhaus (eng. tree house). Like English, German allows arbitrarily long compounds, but these are rare. (See also English compounds.)

The longest German word verified to be actually in (albeit very limited) use is Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. [which, literally translated, breaks up into: Rind (cattle) - Fleisch (meat) - Etikettierung(s) (labelling) - Überwachung(s) (supervision) - Aufgaben (duties) - Übertragung(s) (assignment) - Gesetz (law), so "Beef labelling supervision duty assignment law".]

Verb inflection

Standard German verbs inflect into:

  • one of two conjugation classes, weak and strong (like English).

(There is actually a third class, known as mixed verbs, which exhibit inflections combining features of both the strong and weak patterns.)

  • three persons: 1st, 2nd, 3rd.
  • two numbers: singular and plural
  • three moods: Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative
  • two genera verbi: active and passive; the passive being composed and dividable into static and dynamic.
  • distinction between grammatical aspects is rendered by combined use of subjunctive and/or preterite marking; thus: neither of both is plain indicative voice, sole subjunctive conveys second-hand information, subjunctive plus Preterite marking forms the conditional state, and sole preterite is either plain indicative (in the past), or functions as a (literal) alternative for either second-hand-information or for the conditional state of the verb, when one of them may seem indistinguishable otherwise.

Verb prefixes

There are also many ways to expand, and sometimes radically change, the meaning of a base verb through a relatively small number of prefixes. Some of those prefixes have a meaning themselves (Example: zer- refers to the destruction of things, as in zerreißen = to tear apart, zerbrechen = to break apart, zerschneiden = to cut apart), others do not have more than the vaguest meaning in and of themselves (Example: ver- , as in versuchen = to try, vernehmen = to interrogate, verteilen = to distribute, verstehen = to understand). More examples: haften = to stick, verhaften = to imprison; kaufen = to buy, verkaufen = to sell; hören = to hear, aufhören = to cease; fahren = to drive, erfahren = to get to know, to hear about something.

Separable prefixes

Many German verbs have a separable prefix, often with an adverbial function. In finite verb forms this is split off and moved to the end of the clause, and is hence considered by some to be a "resultative particle". For example, mitgehen meaning "to go with" would be split giving Gehen Sie mit? (Literal: "Go you with?" ; Formal: "Are you going along"?).


A literal translation of this example might look like this:
He arr- on a Friday evening after a hard day at work and the usual disagreements that had been troubling him repeatedly, looking forward to a questionable meal which, as he hoped, his wife had already fixed for him, -ived at home.

Word order

German requires that a verbal element (main verb or auxiliary verb) appear second in the sentence, preceded by the most important topical phrase. The second most important phrase appears at the end of the sentence. For a sentence without an auxiliary, this gives several options:

Der alte Mann gibt mir das Buch heute. (The old man gives me the book today)
Der alte Mann gibt mir heute das Buch. (stress on das Buch)
Das Buch gibt mir der alte Mann heute. (stress on heute)
Das Buch gibt der alte Mann heute mir. (stress on mir)
Das Buch gibt heute der alte Mann mir. (as well)
Das Buch gibt der alte Mann mir heute.
Das Buch gibt heute mir der alte Mann. (stress on der alte Mann)
Das Buch gibt mir heute der alte Mann.
Heute gibt mir der alte Mann das Buch.
Heute gibt mir das Buch der alte Mann.
Heute gibt der alte Mann mir das Buch.
Mir gibt der alte Mann das Buch heute.
Mir gibt heute der alte Mann das Buch.
Mir gibt der alte Mann heute das Buch.

The position of a noun as a subject or object in a German sentence doesn't affect the meaning of the sentence as it would in English. In a declarative sentence in English if the subject does not occur before the predicate the sentence could well be misunderstood.

For example, in the sentence "Man bites dog" it is clear who did what to whom. To exchange the place of the subject with that of the object — "Dog bites man" — changes the meaning completely. In other words the word order in a sentence conveys significant information. In German, nouns and articles are declined as in Latin thus indicating whether it is the subject or object of the verb's action. The above example in German would be Ein Mann beißt den Hund or Den Hund beißt ein Mann with both having exactly the same meaning. If the articles are omitted, which is sometimes done in headlines (Mann beißt Hund), the syntax applies as in English — the first noun is the subject and the noun following the predicate is the object.

Except for emphasis, adverbs of time have to appear in the third place in the sentence, just after the predicate. Otherwise the speaker would be recognised as non-German. For instance the German word order (in Modern English) is: We're going tomorrow to town. (Wir gehen morgen in die Stadt.)

Auxiliary verbs

When an auxiliary verb is present, the auxiliary appears in second position, and the main verb appears at the end. This occurs notably in the creation of the perfect tense. Many word orders are still possible, e.g.:

Der alte Mann hat mir das Buch gestern gegeben. (The old man has given me the book yesterday.)
Der alte Mann hat mir gestern das Buch gegeben.
Das Buch hat mir der alte Mann gestern gegeben.
Das Buch hat mir gestern der alte Mann gegeben.
Gestern hat mir der alte Mann das Buch gegeben.
Gestern hat mir das Buch der alte Mann gegeben.

The word order is generally less rigid than in Modern English except for nouns (see below). There are two common word orders; one is for main clauses and another for subordinate clauses. In normal positive sentences the inflected verb always has position 2; in questions, exclamations and wishes it always has position 1. In subordinate clauses the verb is supposed to occur at the very end, but in speech this rule is often disregarded. For example in a subordinate clause introduced by "weil" ("because") the verb quite often occupies the same order as in a main clause. The correct way of saying "because I'm broke" is "…weil ich pleite bin.". In the vernacular you may hear instead "…weil ich bin pleite." This phenomenon may be caused by mixing the word-order pattern used for the word weil with the pattern used for an alternative word for "because", denn, which is used with the main clause order ("…denn ich bin pleite.").

Modal verbs


Multiple infinitives

The number of infinitives at the end is usually restricted to two, causing the third infinitive or auxiliary verb that would have gone at the very end to be placed instead at the beginning of the chain of verbs. For example in the sentence "Should he move into the house that he just has had renovated?" would be rearranged to "Should he into the house move, that he just renovated had?". (Soll er in das Haus einziehen, das er gerade hat renovieren lassen?). The older form would have been (Soll er in das Haus, das er gerade hat renovieren lassen, einziehen?).

If there are more than three infinitives, all except the first two are relocated to the beginning of the chain. Needless to say the rule is not rigorously applied.


Most German vocabulary is derived from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, although there are significant minorities of words derived from Latin, and Greek, and a smaller amount from French and most recently English . At the same time, the effectiveness of the German language in forming equivalents for foreign words from its inherited Germanic stem repertory is great. Thus, Notker Labeo was able to translate Aristotelian treatises in pure (Old High) German in the decades after the year 1000. Overall, German has fewer Romance-language loanwords than does English.

The coining of new, autochthonous words gave German a vocabulary of an estimated 40,000 words as early as the ninth century. In comparison, Latin, with a written tradition of nearly 2,500 years in an empire which ruled the Mediterranean, has grown to no more than 45,000 words today.

Even today, many low-key scholarly movements try to promote the Ersatz (substitution) of virtually all foreign words with ancient, dialectal, or neologous German alternatives. It is claimed that this would also help in spreading modern or scientific notions among the less educated, and thus democratise public life, too. Jurisprudence in Germany, for example, uses perhaps the "purest" tongue in terms of "Germanness", but also the most cumbersome, to be found today..

In the modern scientific German vocabulary data base in Leipzig (as of July 2003) there are nine million words and word groups in 35 million sentences (out of a corpus of 500 million words).

Writing system




Umlaut vowels (ä, ö, ü) are commonly circumscribed with ae, oe, and ue if the umlauts are not available on the keyboard used. In the same manner ß can be circumscribed as ss. German readers understand those circumscriptions (although they look unusual), but they are avoided if the regular umlauts are available because they are considered a makeshift, not proper spelling. (In Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, city and family names exist where the extra e has a vowel lengthening effect, e.g. Raesfeld [ˈraːsfɛlt], Coesfeld [ˈkoːsfɛlt] and Itzehoe [ɪtsəˈhoː], but this use of the letter e after a/o/u does not occur in the present-day spelling of words other than proper nouns.)

Unfortunately there is still no general agreement exactly where these umlauts occur in the sorting sequence. Telephone directories treat them by replacing them with the base vowel followed by an e, whereas dictionaries use just the base vowel. As an example in a telephone book Ärzte occurs after Adressenverlage but before Anlagenbauer (because Ä is replaced by Ae). In a dictionary Ärzte occurs after Arzt but before Asbest (because Ä is treated as A). In some older dictionaries or indexes, initial Sch and St are treated as separate letters and are listed as separate entries after S.


Until the early 20th century, German was mostly printed in blackletter typefaces (mostly in Fraktur, but also in Schwabacher) and written in corresponding handwriting (for example Kurrent and Sütterlin). These variants of the Latin alphabet are very different from the serif or sans serif Antiqua typefaces used today, and particularly the handwritten forms are difficult for the untrained to read. The printed forms however were claimed by some to be actually more readable when used for printing Germanic languages . The Nazis initially promoted Fraktur and Schwabacher since they were considered Aryan, although they later abolished them in 1941 by claiming that these letters were Jewish. The latter fact is not widely known anymore; today the letters are often associated with the Nazis and are no longer commonly used . The Fraktur script remains present in everyday life through road signs, pub signs, beer brands and other forms of advertisement, where it is used to convey a certain rusticality and oldness.


The widespread ignorance of the correct use of the Fraktur scripts shows however in the many mistakes made— such as the frequent erroneous use of the round s instead of the long s at the beginning of a syllable, the failure to employ the mandatory ligatures of Fraktur, or the use of letter-forms more alike to the Antiqua for certain especially hard-to-read Fraktur letters.




short /a/ /ɛ/ /ɪ/ /ɔ/ /œ/ /ʊ/ /ʏ/

In many varieties of standard German, an unstressed /ɛr/ is not pronounced as [ər], but vocalised to [ɐ].


  • If the vowel is followed by a double consonant (e.g. ff, ss or tt), ck, tz or a consonant cluster (e.g. st or nd), it is nearly always short (e.g. hoffen [ˈhɔfǝn]). Double consonants are used only for this function of marking preciding vowels as short; the consonant itself is never pronounced lengthened or doubled.

Both of these rules have exceptions (e.g. hat [hat] 'has' is short despite the first rule; Kloster [kloːstər], 'cloister'; Mond [moːnt], 'moon' are long despite the second rule). For an i that is neither in the combination ie (making it long) nor followed by a double consonant or cluster (making it short), there is no general rule. In some cases, there are regional differences: In central Germany (Hessen), the o in the proper name "Hoffmann" is pronounced long while most other Germans would pronounce it short; the same applies to the e in the geographical name "Mecklenburg" for people in that region. The word Städte 'cities', is pronounced with a short vowel [ˈʃtɛtə] by some (Jan Hofer, ARD Television) and with a long vowel [ˈʃtɛːtə] by others (Marietta Slomka, ZDF Television). Finally, a vowel followed by ch can be short (Fach [fax] 'compartment', Küche [ˈkʏçe] 'kitchen') or long (Suche [ˈzuːxǝ] 'search', Bücher [ˈbyːçər] 'books') almost at random. Thus, Lache is homographous: (Lache) [la:xe] 'puddle' and (lache) [laxe] 'manner of laughing' (coll.), 'laugh!' (Imp.).


spelling ai, ei, ay, ey au äu, eu
pronunciation /aɪ̯/ /aʊ̯/ /ɔʏ̯/

In most varieties of standard German, word stems that begin with a vowel are preceded by a glottal stop [ʔ].


  • c standing by itself is not a German letter. In borrowed words, it is usually pronounced [ʦ] (before ä, äu, e, i, ö, ü, y) or [k] (before a, o, u, or before consonants). The combination ck is, as in English, used to indicate that the preceding vowel is short.
  • ch occurs most often and is pronounced either [ç] (after ä, ai, äu, e, ei, eu, i, ö, ü and after consonants, in the diminutive suffix -chen and at the beginning of a word) or [x] (after a, au, o, u). Ch never occurs at the beginning of an originally German word. In borrowed words with initial Ch there is no single agreement on the pronunciation. For example, the word "Chemie" (chemistry) can be pronounced [keːˈmiː], [çeːˈmiː] or [ʃeːˈmiː] depending on dialect.
  • dsch is pronounced ʤ (like j in Jungle) but appears in a few loanwords only.
  • h is pronounced [h] like in "home" at the beginning of a syllable. After a vowel it is silent and only lengthens the vowel (e.g. "Reh" = roe deer).
  • j is pronounced [j] in Germanic words ("Jahr" [jaːɐ]). In younger loanwords, it follows more or less the respective languages' pronunciations.
  • l is always pronounced [l], never [ɫ] (the English "Dark L").
  • q only exists in combination with u and appears both in Germanic and Latin words ("quer"; "Qualität"). It is pronounced [kv].
  • r is pronounced as a guttural sound (an uvular trill, [ʀ]) in front of a vowel or consonant ("Rasen" [ʀaːzən]; "Burg" like [buʀg]). In spoken German however, it is commonly vocalised after a vowel ("er" being pronounced rather like ['ɛɐ] - "Burg" [buɐg]). In some southern non-standard varieties, the r is pronounced as a tongue-tip r (the alveolar trill).
  • s in Germany, is pronounced [z] (as in "Zebra") if it forms the syllable onset (e.g. Sohn [zoːn]), otherwise [s] (e.g. Bus [bʊs]). In Austria, always pronounced [s]. A ss [s] indicates that the preceding vowel is short. st and sp at the beginning of words of German origin are pronounced [ʃt] and [ʃp], respectively.
  • ß (a letter unique to German called "Esszet") was a ligature of a double s and of a sz and is always pronounced [s]. Originating in Blackletter typeface, it traditionally replaced ss at the end of a syllable (e.g. "ich muss""ich muß"; "ich müsste""ich müßte"); within a word it contrasts with ss [s] in indicating that the preceding vowel is long (compare "in Maßen" [in 'maːsən] "with moderation" and "in Massen" [in 'masən] "in loads"). The use of ß has recently been limited by the latest German spelling reform and is no longer used for ss at the end of a syllable; Switzerland and Liechtenstein already abolished it in 1934.
  • sch is pronounced [ʃ] (like "sh" in "Shine").
  • tion in Latin loanwords is pronounced tsion.
  • v is pronounced [f] in words of Germanic origin (e.g. "Vater" [ˈfaːtɐ]) and [v] in most other words (e.g. "Vase" [ˈvaːzǝ]).
  • w is pronounced [v] like in "vacation" (e.g. "was" [vas]).
  • z is always pronounced [ʦ] (e.g. "zog" [ʦoːk]). A tz indicates that the preceding vowel is short.

Consonant shifts

German does not have any dental fricatives (as English th). The th sounds, which the English language has inherited from Anglo Saxon, survived on the continent up to Old High German and then disappeared in German with the consonant shifts between the 8th and the 10th century. It is sometimes possible to find parallels between German by replacing the English th with d in German: "Thank" → in German "Dank", "this" and "that" → "dies" and "das", "thou" (old 2nd person singular pronoun) → "du", "think" → "denken", "thirsty" → "durstig" and many other examples.


Cognates with English

There are many thousands of German words that are cognate to English words (in fact a sizeable fraction of native German and English vocabulary, although for various reasons much of it is not immediately obvious). Most of the words in the following table have almost the same meaning as in English.

German Meaning of German word English cognate
Abend eve/evening eve from Old E.æfen
an on/above on
Arm arm arm
auf up / on up
aus out (of) out
beginnen, begann, begonnen to begin, began, begun to begin, began, begun
bester, beste, bestes best best
Bett bed bed
Bier beer beer
Blut blood blood
bringen, brachte, gebracht to bring, brought, brought bring, brought
Butter butter butter
Erde Earth Earth
das that that
essen to eat, food to eat
fallen, fiel, gefallen to fall, fell, fallen to fall, fell, fallen
Faust fist fist
fechten, focht, gefochten to fence fight, fought, fought
Finger finger finger
Fisch fish fish
Freund friend friend
Fuß foot foot
Gans, Gänse goose goose, geese
Gott God God
haben to have to have
Hand hand hand
-heit (suffix) -ity, -ness, -hood -hood
Haus house house
Hilfe, helfen help (noun), to help help, to help
heißen to be called hight (archaic)
hören to hear hear
Hund dog hound
ist, war is, was is, was
kalt cold cold
Katze cat cat
Knie knee knee
kommen, kam, gekommen to come, came, come to come, came, come
König King King
Laus, Läuse louse, lice louse, lice
lachen to laugh to laugh
Mann, Männer man man, men
Maus, Mäuse mouse, mice mouse, mice
Milch milk milk
Mond moon moon
müssen to have to must
Mutter mother mother
Nacht night night
Nachbar neighbor neighbor
Polen Poland Poland
Regen rain rain
scheinen to shine to shine
Schiff ship ship
Schuh shoe shoe
Schnee snow snow
schwimmen, schwamm, geschwommen to swim to swim, swam, swum
singen, sang, gesungen to sing, sang, sung to sing, sang, sung
sinken, sank, gesunken to sink, sank, sunk to sink, sank, sunk
Schwert sword sword
Sohn son son
Sommer summer summer
springen, sprang, gesprungen to jump, jumped, jumped to spring, sprang, sprung
stehlen, stahl, gestohlen to steal to steal, stole, stolen
Tag day day
Tisch table dish (both eating surfaces)
Tochter daughter daughter
Vater father father
Vogel bird fowl
Wasser water water
Waffe weapon weapon
warm warm warm
Weib woman wife
Wetter weather weather
Wille will (noun) will
wir, uns we, us we, us
Winter winter winter

Compound word cognates

German Cognate word parts Meaning
Fingernagel finger + nail fingernail
Hochland high + land highland
Ringfinger ring + finger ring finger
Schneemann snow + man snowman
Schwertfisch sword + fish swordfish
Vollmond full + moon full moon
Vorsicht fore + sight foresight (/caution)
Wasserfall water + fall waterfall

When these cognates have slightly different consonants, this is often due to the High German consonant shift. Hence the affinity of English words with those of German dialects is more evidently:

German English German dialects
allein alone allon, alloan
aus out ut
blasen blow blosa
breit broad broad, brad
dünn thin dinn
das that dat
ein grüner Apfel a green apple a griener Appl
eine Katze a cat en Katt
Freund friend Freind
fühlen to feel fihla
Füllung filling Fillung
fünf five feif
geben to give geva
gehört heard ghärt
gesehen seen gsihn
grün green grien
haben to have hava
heben to heave heva
heim home hom, hoam
küssen to kiss kissa
Läuse lice Leis
leben to live levve
Leber liver Lever
Lunge lung Lung
Mäuse mice Meis
mein Kamm my comb mei Kambl
meine Mutter my mother mei Modder
nein no no, nee
neun nine nein
nicht not net
offen open open
Silber silver Silver
Regen rain Reen
Stein stone Ston, Stoan
sie ist allein she is alone sie is allon
sieben seven seven
sieben to sieve sieva
streben to strive streva
Sommer summer Summer
Tage days Dage
treiben to drive driven
Wann when Wenn
Wasser water Water
zehn ten tien

There are cognates whose meanings in either language have changed through the centuries. It is sometimes difficult for both English and German speakers to discern the relationship. On the other hand, once the definitions are made clear, then the logical relation becomes obvious. Sometimes the generality or specificity of word pairs may be opposite in the two languages.

German Meaning of German word English cognate Comment
antworten to answer an-word the cognate prefix Ger.'ant' is equal to Old E.'and-'〈"against"〉(→an).'wort'=word,'swer'=swear, so the suffix isn't cognate.
Baum tree beam Both derive from West Germanic *baumoz meaning "tree". It is the English one which, in Anglo-Saxon and Old English, has radically changed its meaning several times. (The original meaning is retained in the English terms for some trees, such as hornbeam.)
bekommen to get to become
Dogge mastiff dog
drehen to turn to throw cf. to throw (make) a pot by turning it on a wheel
ernten to harvest to earn
fahren to drive to fare O.E. faran "to journey, to make one's way," from P.Gmc. *faranan (cf. Goth. faran, Ger. fahren), from PIE *por- "going, passage"
fechten to fence (sport) to fight
Gift poison gift the original meaning of Gift in German can still be seen in the German deflection Mitgift "dowry"
kaufen to buy cheap, chapman
Knabe (formal) boy knave
Knecht servant knight
nehmen to take numb sensation has been taken away; cf. German benommen, 'dazed'
raten to guess, to advise to read cf. riddle, akin to German Rätsel
ritzen to scratch to write
Schmerz pain smart The verb smart retains this meaning
schlecht bad slight Sense of Ger. cognate schlecht developed from "smooth, plain, simple" to "bad," and as it did it was replaced in the original senses by schlicht, a back-formation from schlichten "to smooth, to plane," a derivative of schlecht in the old sense.
sich rächen to take revenge to wreak (havoc)
Tisch table dish, desk Latin discus
Vieh cattle fee from O.E. 'feoh' money, property, cattle
Wald forest wold cf. English placename "Cotswold(s)"
werden to become weird see wyrd
wer who where see below
wo where who see above
Zeit time tide the root is re-used in German Gezeiten as Tiden ('tides')

German and English also share many borrowings from other languages, especially Latin, French and Greek. Most of these words have the same meaning, while a few have subtle differences in meaning. As many of these words have been borrowed by numerous languages, not only German and English, they are called internationalisms in German linguistics. For reference, a good number of these borrowed words are of the neuter gender.

German Meaning of German word language of origin
Armee army French
Arrangement arrangement French
Chance opportunity French
Courage courage French
Disposition disposition Latin
Feuilleton feuilleton French
Futur future tense Latin
Boje buoy Dutch
Genre genre French
Mikroskop microscope Greek
Partei political party French
Position position Latin
positiv positive Latin
Prestige prestige French
Psychologie psychology Greek
Religion religion Latin
Restaurant restaurant French
Tabu taboo Tongan
Zigarre cigar Spanish
Zucker sugar Sanskrit, via Arabic

Words borrowed by English

For a list of German loanwords in English, see German loanwords
In the English language, there are also many words taken from German without any letter change, e.g.:
German word English cognate Meaning of German word
Abseilen abseiling to abseil
Angst angst fear / angst
Anschluss anschluss connection / access
Automat automat automation / machine / automat
Bildungsroman bildungsroman novel of personal development
Blitz blitz flash / lightning
Delikatessen delikatessen/delicatessen delicate, resp. delicious food items
Doppelgänger doppelgänger spectral look-alike of somebody
Edelweiß edelweiss edelweiss
Gedankenexperiment Gedankenexperiment Thought experiment
Hinterland hinterland interior / backwoods
Kindergarten kindergarten literally "Children's Garden" - nursery or preschool
Kraut kraut cabbage
Poltergeist poltergeist poltergeist
Realpolitik realpolitik diplomacy based on practical objectives rather than ideals
Rucksack rucksack backpack
Schadenfreude schadenfreude taking pleasure in someone else's misfortune
Waldsterben waldsterben floral dying environment
Wanderlust wanderlust desire, pleasure, or inclination to travel, or walk
Weltanschauung weltanschauung worldview
Zeitgeist zeitgeist the spirit of the age/decade; the trend at that time

Names for German in other languages

See also: Deutsch, Dutch, Deitsch, Dietsch, Teuton, Teutonic, Allemanic, Alleman, Theodisca

The names that countries have for the language differ from region to region.

In Italian the sole name for German is still tedesco, from the Latin theodiscus, meaning "vernacular".

A possible explanation for the use of words meaning "mute" (e.g., nemoj in Russian, němý in Czech, nem in Serbian) to refer to German (and also to Germans) in Slavic languages is that Germans were the first people Slavic tribes encountered with whom they could not communicate.

Romanian used to use the Slavonic term "nemţeşte", but "germană" is now widely used. Hungarian "német" is also of Slavonic origin. The Arabic name for Austria, النمسا ("an-namsa"), is derived from the Slavonic term.

Note also that though the Russian term for the language is немецкий (nemetskij), the country is Германия (Germania). However, in certain other Slavic languages, such as Czech, the country name (Německo) is similar to the name of the language, německý (jazyk).

Finns and Estonians use the term saksa, originally from the Saxon tribe.

Scandinavians use derivatives of the word Tyskland/Þýskaland (from Theodisca) for the country and tysk(a)/þýska for the language.

Hebrew traditionally (nowadays this is not the case) used the Biblical term אַשְׁכֲּנָז (Ashkenaz) (Genesis 10:3) to refer to Germany, or to certain parts of it, and the Ashkenazi Jews are those who originate from Germany and Eastern Europe and formerly spoke Yiddish as their native language, derived from Middle High German. Modern Hebrew uses גֶּרְמָנִי germaní (Or גֶּרְמָנִית germanít for the language).

The French term is allemand, the Spanish term is alemán, the Catalan term is alemany, and the Portuguese term is alemão; all derive from the ancient Alamanni tribal alliance, meaning literally "All Men".

The Latvian term vācu possibly comes from the German word Volk (folk, people).

The Scottish Gaelic term for the German language, Gearmailtis, is formed in the standard way of adding -(a)is to the end of the country name.

See Names for Germany for further details on the origins of these and other terms.

See also



General references

  • Edmund Remys, Comprehensive Review of Modern German (2007).

External links

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