history and some interesting facts
A (very) short history of the German language
The German language's history is long and complex and like most languages of the world underwent many changes and has many regional dialects. But here's the nutshell:
Around the 6th century AD, Old High German developed in the highlands of modern day southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
This was the earliest form of German, evolved from a single parent language called Proto-Germanic, which dates back to the beginnings of the Indo-European language family.
Old High German would evolve into Middle High German around the turn of the first millennium and then, by the 17th century, into the earliest form of Hochdeutsch (Standard High German) that we know today.
An important standardisation of the German language was accomplished by Konrad Duden, (born January 3, 1829, † August 1, 1911) who was a Prussian high school teacher and emerged as a philologist and lexicographer and the author of "Der Duden".
The Duden was created as a spelling dictionary for the German language. The work was first published on July 7, 1880 by Konrad Duden as a complete orthographic dictionary of the German language and became the basis for uniform German orthography in the following decades. In the Federal Republic of Germany, the Duden was authoritative in cases of doubt about German spelling from the end of 1955 until the spelling reform in 1996. Until it was incorporated into the Cornelsen publishing house in 2022, it was created by Dudenverlag “on the basis of the current official spelling rules” of the Council for German Spelling.
Due to its long-standing dominant position, Duden was also used as a generic brand name for German spelling dictionaries.
Notable characteristics of German
Alphabet: German today (see my blog post on the original German fonts here) uses the Latin alphabet, like English, French and all other European languages. However, there are a few symbols that English does not have, such as the letter ß (pronounced as an “s” and called "Eszett" or "scharfes S") and the dots on certain vowels called Umlaute: ä (="ai" in "air"), ö (similar to "o" in "worm") and "ü" (formed by saying "eeee" and while producing that sound pursing one's limps into a kiss)
Phonetics: German is stereotyped as a harsh-sounding language, likely because consonants are used at a relatively high frequency (unlike many Romance languages such as Italian and Spanish which use vowel sounds more frequently).German also has some sounds that don’t exist in English—like the ch sound, as in ich (I) and hoch (high) and pf as in Kopf (head) or Pferd (horse) and other letter combinations pronounces in a certain way.
Grammar:
German has noun inflections (called cases) that cause articles and other words attached to nouns to change their endings depending on their role in a sentence (subject or object). See my previous blog posts on Akkusative and Dativ for details.
Compared to English verb conjugation is more complex and corresponds with other continental-european languges.
There are also three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter). Combined with the case-declensions that makes for quite a few ways to say “the" and "a" and pretty much triples if not quardruples everything.
Add to that that many gender-sensitivities ripple through almost all grammar issues, there's no wonder that German is considered a difficult language to master.
Vocabulary: German also has a reputation for complex word-building, leading to very long words. The language has the ability to continue to combine or add elements to a single word, modifying and adding complexity to the original meaning.This sometimes gives us words that are quite a mouthful, such as Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften (legal protection insurance companies). Rather than seperating each noun by a space German creates composita, as the example shows. But learners don't dispair: these words make for great social media curiosities and a good laugh about the complicated Germans, but in real life you'll not find many of these at all.
Similarities between German and English
Because of its parent language, Proto-Germanic, German has a lot in common with its sibling languages. English and German are both West Germanic languages, making them rather close linguistically. Many words have German roots, even though a shift in meaning may have occured over time. Examples are:
the word "Koffer". In modern German it means simply "suitcase" while "coffer" in English means "a chest holding valuables"
the German word "Kloster" translates to "monestary" in English, but the English word "cloisters" means a covered walk in a convent, monastery, college, or cathedral, typically with a colonnade open to a quadrangle on one side.
Linguists estimate about 70% of everyday English is derived from German. Only once all of the English language is considered the percentage comes down to about 30% due to all Latin and Greek influences.
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