German language

German , pronounced listen is a West Germanic language of a Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Central Europe. this is the the most widely spoken & official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, as well as the Italian province of South Tyrol. it is for also a co-official language of Luxembourg and Belgium, as well as a national language in Namibia. German is near similar to other languages within the West Germanic language branch, including Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German, Luxembourgish, Scots, and Yiddish. It also containssimilarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group, such(a) as Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. German is themost widely spoken Germanic language after English.

German is one of the major languages of the world. It is the most spoken native language within the European Union. German is also widely taught as a foreign language, especially in continental Europe, where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French, and the United States. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is themost normally used scientific language and among the most widely used languages on websites. The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of any books including e-books in the world being published in German.

German is an inflected language, with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives nominative, accusative, genitive, dative; three genders masculine, feminine, neuter; and two numbers singular, plural. It has strong and weak verbs. The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share is partly derived from Latin and Greek, along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English.

German is a pluricentric language; the three standardized variants are German, Austrian, and Swiss Standard High German. It is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties create become recognized and protected by regional or national governments.

Classification

German is an Indo-European language and belongs to the West Germanic companies of the Germanic languages. The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches, North Germanic, East Germanic, and West Germanic. The number one of these branches survives in contemporary Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Icelandic, any of which are descended from Old Norse. The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic is the only language in this branch which survives in statement texts. The West Germanic languages, however, draw undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such(a) as English, German, Dutch, Yiddish, Afrikaans, and others.

Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen grouping running through Düsseldorf-Benrath and Krefeld-Uerdingen, respectively serve to distinguish the Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift south of Benrath from those that were not north of Uerdingen. The various regional dialects spoken south of these an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular form figure or combination. are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German/Low Saxon and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been featured to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic, Ingvaeonic, and Istvaeonic, respectively. This mark indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by the Irminones also call as the Elbe group, Ingvaeones or North Sea Germanic group, and Istvaeones or Weser-Rhine group.

Upper Franconian dialects and Lorraine Franconian Central Franconian.

After these High German dialects, standard German is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects e.g. Dutch and Afrikaans, Low German or Low Saxon dialects spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark, neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect rank is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are the Frisian languages—North Frisian spoken in Nordfriesland, Saterland Frisian spoken in Saterland, and West Frisian spoken in Friesland—as alive as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did non take component in the High German consonant shift.