Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Low German, which is often considered to be a distinct language from both German and Dutch, was the historical language of most of northern Germany. While Old Saxon and Middle Low German are totally recognized as Independent languages, the status of modern Low German is not that clear, because it is no Ausbaulanguage.
Latin words were already imported into the predecessor of the German language during the Roman Empire and underwent all the characteristic phonetic changes in German. Their origin is thus no longer recognizable for most speakers (e.g. Pforte, Tafel, Mauer, Käse, Köln from Latin porta, tabula, murus, caseus, Colonia).
German is a language of Austria, Belgium, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland; it also has regional status in Italy, Poland, Namibia and Denmark. German also continues to be spoken as a minority language by immigrant communities in North America, South America, Central America, Mexico and Australia.
Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to Modern Standard German. [181] The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , [ 181 ] and promoted the development of non-local forms of language ...
Old High German (OHG; German: Althochdeutsch (Ahdt., Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous West Germanic dialects that had undergone the set of consonantal ...
German is the native language of most Germans, and historically many northern Germans spoke the closely related language Low German. The German language is the key marker of German ethnic identity. [7] [17] German and Low German are West Germanic languages closely related to Dutch, Frisian languages (in particular North Frisian and Saterland ...
The evolution of Proto-Germanic from its ancestral forms, beginning with its ancestor Proto-Indo-European, began with the development of a separate common way of speech among some geographically nearby speakers of a prior language and ended with the dispersion of the proto-language speakers into distinct populations with mostly independent ...
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 16 January 2025. West Germanic language family This article is about the family of regional language varieties. For the Standard High German language, see Standard German. High German Geographic distribution German-speaking Europe, United States, Canada, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Colonia Tovar ...