Language Centre Resources

An Indo-European language and a member of the West Germanic group of languages. German is the official language or one of the official languages in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland. In these countries there are approximately 90 million users. German is spoken in 40 countries worldwide: e.g. Denmark, France (Alsace-Lorraine), Belgium, Italy (South Tyrol), Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovakia, Romania, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan. Other German speaking communities are found in Africa, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Canada and the USA. The total German-speaking population is around 100,000,000 first-language speakers; and 128,000,000 second-language speakers (1999).

Three main three dialect bands span Central Europe (going from north to south), each of which include sub-groups of dialects: Niederdeutsch (Plattdeutsch, Low German), Mitteldeutsch (Middle German) and Oberdeutsch (Upper German). There are also varieties of German that have developed among settlements through emigration (e.g. in the Americas, Australia, Namibia and South Africa).

The oldest literary fragment written in German is the epic Hildebrandslied, dating from the 9th century. By 1600 the literary language was fully established, largely through Martin Luther's (1483-1546) work, the most important segment of it being his translation of the Bible into German.

An Indo-European language and a member of the West Germanic group, spoken by c. 5 million people mainly in the region of Alsace-Lorraine (northeastern France), as well as in Switzerland, Austria and southern Germany; also known as Schwyzerdütsch (in Switzerland) and Allemannisch (in Austria and parts of Germany).

Alsatian belongs to the variety of Alemannic (Upper German) dialects many of which are unintelligible with each other. The main dialectal varieties spoken in Alsace and in the region of Basel are classified as Low Alemannic. They vary considerably from Standard German in phonology, grammar and vocabulary. Most speakers of Alsatian are bilingual in French, but they do not necessarily know standard German.

The language is spelt in the Roman alphabet.

Known as Schwyzerdütsch, (one of the Alemannic dialects) Swiss German refers to a group of dialects spoken primarily in Switzerland but with significant numbers of speakers in areas of Northern Italy, Liechenstein, France and Austria.

Approximately 5 million speakers (72% of Switzerland speaks Schwyzerdütsch daily (1990 census)).

Although resembling High German, the considerable differences in pronunciation and phraseology make spoken Swiss German largely unintelligible to many Standard German speakers.