German
(German:
Deutsch
) is a
West Germanic language
. It is spoken in
Germany
,
Austria
,
Switzerland
,
Liechtenstein
and
Luxembourg
; natively by around 100 million people. It is the most widely spoken
mother tongue
in the
first language
. There are some people who speak German in
Belgium
, the
Netherlands
,
France
and Northern
Italy
. There are people who speak German in many countries, including the
United States
and
Canada
, where many people emigrated from Germany. It is also spoken in
Eastern Europe
,
Bulgaria
,
Romania
, and
Russia
.
German is a part of the
West Germanic
language family
and is much like
English
and
Dutch
. Much of the
vocabulary
in German is related to English, but the
grammar
is more complicated.
[4]
German has a system of
cases
, and when helping verbs are used, the main part of the verb must be moved to the end of the sentence. For example, "Someone has stolen my car" is
Jemand hat mein Auto gestohlen
("Someone has my car stolen"), and "Someone called me last night" is
Jemand hat mich letzte Nacht angerufen
("Someone has me last night called").
In writing, every
noun
must start with a
capital letter
. German is the only language that still has that rule, but Danish and English did so a long time ago.
Standard German is an official language in Switzerland, but the Swiss dialect of German is difficult to understand for native speakers from Germany and even for Swiss who are not native to speaking German.
[5]
One reason that the dialects are still so different today is that even if Switzerland adopted Standard German, mostly as a written standard, German Swiss in
World War II
wanted to separate themselves from the
Nazis
by choosing to speak dialect over the Standard German.
[6]
Swiss German
also has some differences in
spelling
, for example, the letter
ß
, which is used only in German, is replaced by
ss
.
German numbers are similar to their English counterparts. Like most languages, the German number system is based mainly on the first 10 numbers. They will pop up over and over throughout all the higher numbers.
English
|
German
|
1
|
Eins
|
2
|
Zwei
|
3
|
Drei
|
4
|
Vier
|
5
|
Funf
|
6
|
Sechs
|
7
|
Sieben
|
8
|
Acht
|
9
|
Neun
|
10
|
Zehn
|
Notes
- ↑
The status of Low German as a German variety or separate language is subject to discussion.
- ↑
The status of Luxembourgish as a German variety or separate language is subject to discussion.
[2]
- ↑
The status of Plautdietsch as a German variety or separate language is subject to discussion.