German
BackThey Speak German Here
Official Language
- Austria
- Belgium (German-speaking Community of Belgium)
- Germany
- Liechtenstein
- Luxembourg
- Switzerland
Recognized Minority Language
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Brazil
- Croatia
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Hungary
- Italy (South Tyrol only)
- Kazakhstan
- Namibia
- Poland
- Romania
- Russia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- South Africa
- Ukraine
- Vatican City (administrative and commanding language of the Swiss Guard)
- Venezuela (Colonia Tovar)
German Origins
There are two principal divisions of the German language: High German, or Hochdeutsch, and Low German, or Plattdeutsch. One of the most striking differences between them is the result of a consonant shift (usually referred to as the second, or High German, sound shift) that took place before the 8th century A.D. in certain West Germanic dialects. This sound shift affected the southern areas, which are more elevated and hence referred to as the High German region, whereas it left untouched the Low German prevalent in the lowland regions of the North. In a broader and purely linguistic sense, the term Low German can also be extended to cover all the West Germanic languages in which the second sound shift did not take place, such as Dutch, Frisian, and English.
As Germany was divided into many different states, the only force working for a unification or standardisation of German during a period of several hundred years was the general preference of writers trying to write in a way that could be understood in the largest possible area. According to the Guinness Book of Records, there are more written translations into and from German than any other language.
Source: Wikipedia.org, Answers.com
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