German is a language, the official language of Germany and Austria, and one of the four official languages of Switzerland. It belongs to the west Germanic language under the Germanic language family of Indo-European language family. The formation of German common standard language can be traced back to Martin Luther's Bible translation. German is the mother tongue of more than 65438+ billion people (about 1. 1 billion people in total). It was first discovered in Germany, Austria (? Sterreich), northern Switzerland (Nordschweiz), Liechtenstein (Lichtenstein), Luxembourg (Luxemburg), South Tyrol, Italy (Südtirol, Italien), a small part of Belgium (Belgium), a part of Poland (Poland) and a part of Alsace, France (Elsa? , Frankreich) area. In addition, in these countries' colonies (Kolonie), such as Namibia, there is a large German-speaking population (Deutsche Sprach IGEBEV? Lkerungen), in some countries in Eastern Europe (Osteuropa), there are also a few German-speaking minorities (Deutsch sprachige Minderheiten). In addition, German is spoken by a few people in German immigrant areas in countries such as the Soviet Union and Romania, and in Pennsylvania, USA.

Attachment: In the following countries, German is a minority language (als Sprache der Minderheiten) (in order of number):

Denmark (d? Nemak)

France (Germany)

Russia (Russia)

Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan)

Poland (Poland)

Romania (rum? Nian beast)

Togo (Togo)

Namibia (Namibia)

Paraguay (Paraguay)

Hungary

Czech Republic and Slovakia

Netherlands (Netherlands)

Ukraine (Ukraine)

Croatia (Croatia)

Moldova (Moldova)

Latvia (Netherlands)

Estonia (Estelin)

Lithuania (Lithuania)

German classification

German is divided into Hochdeutsch and Plattdeutsch. Highland German is a lingua franca, adopting some pronunciation rules of Low German, which sounds more like English and Dutch. The common written language is based on Highland German. There are great differences between dialects. The language dividing line between high German and low German starts from Aachen in the northwest of Germany, passes eastward through Benras, Kassel and magdeburg in the Rhine, and reaches Fort Fausten in the Oder. This line has high and low German in the south and low German in the north.

Hochdeutsch is a West Germanic language, which is mainly used in Germany and Austria. Sterreich), Liechtenstein (Lichtenstein), Switzerland (Schweiz) and Luxembourg (Luxemburg) are also used in some nearby areas, and they are the main body of modern German. Highland refers to the Alps and nearby mountains in southern Germany. In Switzerland and Luxembourg, "Highland German" refers to standard German.

Lower Germany is usually divided into three systems:

Ostniederdeutsch, including East and West Prussian German (Ost- und Westpreu? Isch) is an eastern low German.

Low Saxon (Nieder? Chsisch), such as Mennonite Plautdietsch, is a low German spoken by the German-speaking group in Pesivania, North America, and is used in Bremen and Dusseldorf in most cities of westfalen-North Rhine, Netherlands-Sassen and Schleswig-Holstein, as well as some provinces in the southeast of the Netherlands.

● Frankish (Niederfr? Nkisch), including standard Dutch (Niederl? Ndisch), Friesisch in Belgium (not the difference between dialect and standard language, but the difference between "national language" in Taiwan Province Province and mainland Mandarin, such as "software" in Chinese mainland and "software", "information" and "information" in Taiwan Province Province, that is, although Freund and Dutch use different words, the corresponding words are pronounced the same). Generally, linguists think that Low German is some independent languages, not some dialects of German. In the past century, low German has been greatly impacted by standard German. Low German is still widely used in northern Germany today. Low German retains some original elements of Germanic language, which is closer to Dutch and old English than various high German. Various low German pronunciations are usually softer, with more E: sounds and more long sounds.

Swiss German (Swiss German)

General linguists believe that Swiss German is a dialect of German, similar to Schwaben dialect (Schw? Bisch) is closer. However, the pronunciation of Swiss German is far from that of standard German, and ordinary Germans can't understand it. The orthography of Swiss German is exactly the same as that of standard German. Although some people in Switzerland use the pronunciation of Swiss German to write, this writing method is not officially recognized.

Bureaucratic German (Beamtendeutsch)

Bureaucratic German is a German organ (Beh? Rden), the court (Gerichte), etc. Theoretically, it is the most standard standard German. However, because bureaucratic German sentences are often very complicated (clauses are set with clauses and so on). ), there are many abbreviations (Abkürzung) used by organs and courts, laws and regulations (Gesetze) and bulletins (Amtstexte), and there are also many special words in Mandarin (for example, in bureaucratic German, the word Brand is not used by ordinary people, while the wordy Feuerereignis is, fire accident).

Modern German dialects are divided into two parts: Mitteldeutsch and Oberdeutsch, and standard German is based on Middle German. The dialects of Austria and Switzerland (? Sterreichsche und schweizer Deutsche dialekte) belongs to Upper German. There are many dialects in the south of German-speaking areas, such as Austrian dialect (? Sterreichischer Dialekt), Schwaben dialect (Schw? Bisch), Bavarian dialect (Bairisch), Hessian dialect (Hessisch), Cologne dialect (K? Lnisch), Berlin dialect (Berliner Dialekt), etc. Generally speaking, the stronger the pronunciation of southern dialects, the shorter the pronunciation and the more A sounds.

Hochdeutsch

German history

From the 5th to 8th century, the phonetic changes of Germanic language (also called the phonetic changes of Highland German) separated German from ordinary Germanic language and gradually developed into an independent language. As well as the German translation of the Bible by Martin Luther, a religious reformer, and the spread of his other works, a common written language began to take shape.

The word German first appeared in the early Middle Ages. Its root comes from the Germanic word "thiodisk", which means the language used by ordinary people. Latein was widely used by Frank's senior class at that time, and later French (Franz? Sisch). At that time, German was not a unified language, but a general term for many local dialects. During the Middle Ages, the development of German dialects was very different because of the feudal lords' separatist regime and inconvenient transportation. Although there are attempts to establish a common language, they are generally confined to one area and only used by a certain class. For example, in the heyday of the Hanseatic League, German in North Germany became the common language of local businesses in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.

From 12 to16th century, with the development of German economy, politics and culture, Martin? Martin Luther translated the Bible into German, which played a very important role in the unification of Germany. Through the religious reform, the German dialect used in Luther's Bible was widely popularized and became the basis of later standard German.

178 1 year John? Christopher. John Adelung published the first German dictionary (das erste gro? e W？ Rterbuch). Starting from 1852, Jacob? Green and William? Jacob and william green brothers began to edit their largest German dictionary? Rterbuch). This work was not completed until 1960.

Modern German standard pronunciation didn't come into being until19th century, and Conrad? Conrad duden published his dictionary of german whole-body writing (das Orthographische W? Deutsche Bahn. After minor changes in 190 1 year, this dictionary became the only formal work in standard German. The rule was not modified until 1998. The modification of 1998 mainly improves some very irregular grammars and simplifies some rules. In addition, some common folk characters that were wrong according to the orthography in the past were recognized as correct. After the implementation of the revision, the old writing method was considered as "outdated, but not wrong".

Basic common sense

Besides these 26 Latin letters, there are four other German letters:? ? u

Swiss German has been officially abolished? , all use SS; X and y are only used to spell foreign words; Before 1930s, cursive letters were always used in German, and later ordinary Latin letters were widely used.

German alphabet:

Answer? B C D E F G H I J K L M N O？ P Q R S T U？ V W X Y Z

Answer? b c d e f g h i j k l m n o？ p q r s？ tüv w x y z

German has five single vowels: A, E, I, O, U, and three inflected vowels:? 、? , ü, these eight vowels are long and short; There are three compound vowels: ei(ai, ey, ay), au, eu(u). The difference of vowel length is an important feature of German pronunciation. Long vowels and short vowels have distinguishing functions, such as Staat (country) and Stadt (city). The spelling marks of long vowels can be vowels overlapping aa, ee, oo, ie, or vowels followed by H as long vowel symbols, such as ah, eh, ih, oh, uh,? H, is it? H, üh, or you can add a consonant letter after the vowel, such as Bad and gut. Short vowels are marked by overlapping consonants or more than two consonants after vowels, such as Bett and Bild. Vowel e is mostly weakened in unstressed syllables and prefixes, and completely weakened in suffixes and suffixes. Consonants are characterized by seven pairs of voiced consonants. The voiced consonants B, D, G play a role in clarification at the end of words. For example, the consonants at the end of lieb, Feld and Tag are pronounced as [p], [t] and [k] respectively. The vibrato can be pronounced with the tip of the tongue [r] or small tongue [R].

German words are classified into 10 categories according to grammatical functions: articles, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, numerals, verbs, conjunctions, prepositions, adverbs and interjections. The first six categories have morphological changes and are called variable parts of speech; The last four categories have no morphological changes and are called invariant parts of speech. The first letter of a noun in German must be capitalized. This rule is also derived from Martin? Martin Luther began. Especially when using gerund, this rule often leads to mistakes, so when discussing the revision of orthography in the 1990 s, someone proposed to abolish this rule. Although this proposal was supported by some famous linguists and some authoritative newspapers and TV programs, it was opposed by most people, so it was not adopted. There are three genders of German nouns (masculine, feminine and neuter), and the genders of other words are often irregular except for the rules of gender comparison of nouns directly to people. German also has four cases (nominative, accusative and possessive) and two numbers (singular and plural). In use, apart from some changes of nouns themselves, the nature, number and case of nouns in sentences are mainly expressed by the changes of articles, pronouns, adjectives and some numerals before nouns. Verb inflections include person, number and time: including present tense (pr? Sens), past tense (Pr? Terium), future tense (Futur I), present perfect tense (Perfekt), past perfect tense (Plusquamperfekt) and future perfect tense (Futur II), voice (active voice, passive voice) and modality (direct expression, imperative mood, subjunctive mood).

The endings of infinitives are mostly en, and a few are eln and ern. According to the different endings when the basic forms (infinitive, past tense, second participle) change and whether the root vowels change, they can be divided into weak verbs, strong verbs and irregular verbs. Verbs in the future perfect tense are rarely used in modern German.

Structural features of German sentences: Verb predicate is the core of a sentence, which needs the object of each case or preposition object and various complements. In ordinary declarative sentences, when the subject or other sentence components are at the beginning of the sentence, the predicate verb always takes the second place. If the predicate consists of two parts, namely, the changeable part (time auxiliary verb or modal auxiliary verb) and the immutable part (infinitive or verb second participle), the changeable part takes the second place (in some sentences, it takes the first place), and the immutable part takes the end of the sentence, which is a unique predicate "frame structure" in German. Another feature of syntax is that the verb predicate is located at the end of the sentence, and the order of sentence components is: conjunction or relative pronoun-subject and other components of the sentence-verb predicate.

The vocabulary of German is estimated to be 300,000-500,000. According to its origin, it can be divided into three types: 1, inherited words, referring to words handed down from Indo-European and Germanic languages, their derivatives and compound words; 2. Loanwords refer to words absorbed from foreign languages in history and assimilated by German; 3. Loanwords refer to words that are absorbed from foreign languages but still retain their original features. The stress of inherited words and borrowed words is mostly on the first syllable, and the stress of foreign words is on the last syllable or the penultimate or third syllable. Word formation is characterized by the extensive use of derivative and compound means, and compound word formation is the most common in German word formation. More than two words of different parts of speech can be combined into a new word. Capitalize all the first letters of nouns.

German has made great contributions to world culture. The New Testament translated by Martin Luther played an important role in the formation of modern German common language. Inspired by him, the New Testament translated in Nordic languages also played a normative role in China. /kloc-German philosophy in the 0 th and 9 th centuries provided concepts and terms that inspired people's thoughts. Until today, when people talk about philosophical issues, they still have to use the original words in German to clarify their original intention. Germany has long been a leader in the fields of medicine and chemistry, which also makes German a language that researchers in these disciplines must learn.

The word German has many different forms in other languages, such as deutsch in German, alemán in Spanish, tedesco in Italian and tysk in Scandinavian.

The language that has the greatest influence on German is the late period. As an academic and advanced language in the Middle Ages, many academic concepts or words expressing abstract concepts in German today still come from Latein or Greek. These words have become German today.

Germany is located in the center of Europe, which is the main road of communication between east, west, north and south, and also the place where medieval princes competed with each other. German contains many words from other European languages (such as French Franz? Loanwords from sisch, Polnisch in Poland, Italienisch in Italy, Spanish Spanish, Russian Russisch, Jewish Jüdisch, etc. (Fremdw？ Many of these loanwords have rter absorbed without any changes in spelling and pronunciation.

After World War II, English had the greatest influence on German. English is sometimes called "New Standard German". According to the statistics of the German Institute in Mannheim in early 2004, in the past 10 years, there were about 700 new words in German, of which more than 40% came directly from English or English-German mixed language. The influence of English on German comes from the following three aspects:

Many new technical terms (Neue Wissenschaft Liche und Technische Begriffe) are directly introduced into German from English. Although some terms also have corresponding German words, the original English words are widely used and accepted (such as Computer/Rechner, DNA/DNS, etc.). ).

Many international companies (even German multinational companies) use English as their working language (Arbeitssprache).