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German Language: Difference between revisions
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{{Useful Notes}}
{{quote|Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache.<ref>"German language, tough language."</ref>|German saying}}
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A West Germanic language, German is the language of [[Germany]], [[Austria]], [[Switzerland]], [[Liechtenstein]] and [[Luxembourg]] as well as parts of [[Belgium]], [[France]] and [[Italy]]. It is specifically the chief representative of the High German branch of the family (the minor one being [[Yiddish as a Second Language|Yiddish]]); this is as opposed to [[Dutch Language|Dutch]], which is Low Franconian or Low German (depending on whom one asks), and English, which is Anglo-Frisian with a lot of French admixture. In the European Union, German is the most spoken mother tongue and the second most used language after English. See also [[German Literature]].
German has many different dialects; see [[German Dialects]] for more details. Aside from that, the article refers to Standard German unless otherwise noted.
=== Noun: ===
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In the past, there were even more forms of address:
* "Ihr" (2nd Person Plural) - a very polite form directed at one person of higher rank, especially ruling monarchs. In fiction, this is used liberally to indicate historical settings.
* "Er" (3rd Person Singular male) / "Sie" (3rd Person Singular female) - for talking with people of lower ranks. Typical example: The Imperial Prussian officer asking some guy "Hat Er gedient?" ("Did he serve?" - in the army, that is.) The officer from ''[[Woyzeck]]'' also does this to the protagonist. Note: This form of speech is extremely condescending and should not be used in modern times. It is equivalent to saying "I'm not even talking to you, I'm talking about you and I happen to know that you can hear me."
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(Standard) German spelling vs pronunciation is in general more consistent that in English, and is generally of the [[What You See Is What You Get]] variety. (People have been lobbying for an English spelling reform for over a century for a reason; on the other hand, German got a recent 'reform' that was unneeded, totally redundant, and didn't really change anything except confuse people and muddle things up.) German vowels all have their own 'clean'/'Latin' value, and letters and letter combinations have a consistent pronunciation instead of the nowadays seemingly random pronunciation of English which is often a matter of learning it by heart beforehand. Note that the pronunciation of consonants and vowels is also dependent on their position in a morpheme. Very few letters always have the same pronunciation. Always consider the morpheme as a whole. (For example: "ch" has two pronunciations, depending on the antecedent consonant or vowel and the morpheme as a whole ("ch" is a voiceless palatal fricative (in standard german!) in the diminutive suffix "chen", if it is an initial sound (unless it is pronounced as "K"), in an ablaut ("-ig") and after ''e'', ''i'',''ü'',''ö'' and ''ä'', and a voiceless velar fricative after ''a'',''o'',''u''); "s" can be voiced and unvoiced; and so on. See ''consonants'' below)
German has four special characters, ä, ö, ü and ß (a ligature of ss or sz). The last one was subject to a German spelling reform in 1996, appearing less often in words nowadays, but not everyone has adopted the new spelling method. It is only used when not categorised anyway. Despite this, the ß is far from extinct. In fact recently a capitalized version has been introduced (none had existed because it was never used at the beginning of a word. But the increasingly frequent practice of writing in ALL CAPS led to a perceived need for a capitalized form of the ligature). Because of the restrictions of some keyboards and character encodings, these special letters are rendered ae, oe, ue and ss or sz if the correct characters aren't available.
==== Vowels ====
All vowels exist in a long and a short version. If a vowel is duplicated, or there's an H behind it (or the special case of IE), it is (very likely) long. If there's more than one consonant behind it (except for the aforementioned H), is it probably a short one.
* A: The short version sounds similar as the English U in "butler", but more open. The long version sounds as in "bar".
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==== Languages influencing German ====
On the other hand, [[Gratuitous English]] has bled into German through its use in the media, with the usual adaption of names and terms, but also with correct and [[Bite the Wax Tadpole|incorrect use]] of English and [[As Long as It Sounds Foreign|pseudo-English]] used as names and in marketing, etc. Another fact is the spreading of English 'spellings' for German, which are either simply incorrect for German, or [[Did Not Do the Research|would't even be correct for English half of the time]].
Most jarring among this is the "idiot's apostrophe", which is used all over the place, as in German the apostrophe is only used to signify an omission of letters. Its least offensive misuse is to separate the genitive-S from a noun, which was valid in German over a hundred years ago but not in its contemporary use. Sadly, it doesn't stop there, but some people also adapt the misspellings of some native speakers to put apostrophes in every conceivable and some inconceivable place, resulting in [[Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma|apostrophed plural's and apo'strophe's in the middle of word's]].
Another feature of this is the treatment of compound words, which in German would have to be either written without spaces or with hyphens, which are now increasingly written as separate words. (Which is especially bothersome due to German grammar, because like this only half of the word is declined, and the other word half ''technically'' doesn't have its connection to the other words clarified.)
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:German Language]]
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