German language

**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 spoken first language within European Union. 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.

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. 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.

Swiss German also has some differences in spelling, for example, the letter _ß_, which is used only in German, is replaced by _ss_.

## Dialects

- Alsatian
- Bavarian dialect
- Franconian Dialect
- Kölsch
- Low Saxon
- Swiss dialect
- Mannheimerisch dialect
- Palatinate German
- Russian (Siberian) dialect

## German numbers

German numbers are similar to their English counterparts. Like most languages, the German number system is based mainly on the first 10 numbers. They occur over and over throughout all the higher numbers.  However, there is one big difference. Numbers like 21, 45 and 98 have the single digit first, with _und_  ("and") connecting it to the tens as individual words, for example, _einundzwanzig, fünfundvierzig und achtundneunzig_ (literally, one-and-twenty, five-and-forty, and eight-and-ninety)_._
|English|German|||
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
|1|Eins|||
|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|2|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|Zwei|
|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|3|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|Drei|
|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|4|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|Vier|
|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|5|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|Fünf|
|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|6|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|Sechs|
|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|7|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|Sieben|
|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|8|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|Acht|
|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|9|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|Neun|
|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|10|colspan="1" rowspan="1"|Zehn|

## References

**Notes**

## Other websites

- Online German Language Course An online German language course that includes lessons covering pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.
- German phrasebook at Wikivoyage
- Learn to Speak German  Student Resource
- Free German Language Course
- German Thesaurus

## Infobox (language)

- **name**: German
- **states**: Primarily German-speaking Europe, also in the worldwide German as a minority language, German-speaking diaspora
- **speakers**: million (2010) to 95 million
- **date**: 2014
- **speakers2**: Second language, L2 speakers: 10–15 million (2014)
- **familycolor**: Indo-European
- **fam2**: Germanic languages, Germanic
- **fam3**: West Germanic languages, West Germanic
- **fam4**: High German languages, High German
- **ancestor**: Old High German
- **ancestor2**: Middle High German
- **stand1**: Standard German
- **stand2**: Swiss Standard German
- **stand3**: Austrian German, Austrian Standard German
- **script**: Latin script, Latin (German alphabet)
German Braille
- **sign**: Signed German, LBG
_( / )_
- **nation**:

List of territorial entities where German is an official language#International institutions, Several international institutions
- **agency**: _No official regulation_

(German orthography regulated by the Council for German Orthography).
- **iso1**: de
- **iso2b**: ger
- **iso2t**: deu
- **lc1**: deu
- **ld1**: Standard German, German
- **lc2**: gmh
- **ld2**: Middle High German
- **lc3**: goh
- **ld3**: Old High German
- **lc4**: gct
- **ld4**: Colonia Tovar dialect, Colonia Tovar German
- **lc5**: bar
- **ld5**: Bavarian language, Bavarian
- **lc6**: cim
- **ld6**: Cimbrian language, Cimbrian
- **lc7**: geh
- **ld7**: Hutterite German
- **lc8**: ksh
- **ld8**: Colognian dialect, Kölsch
- **lc9**: nds
- **ld9**: Low German
- **lc10**: sli
- **ld10**: Silesian German, Lower Silesian
- **lc11**: ltz
- **ld11**: Luxembourgish language, Luxembourgish
- **lc12**: vmf
- **ld12**: Main-Franconian dialects, Mainfränkisch
- **lc13**: mhn
- **ld13**: Mòcheno language, Mócheno
- **lc14**: pfl
- **ld14**: Palatine German language, Palatinate German
- **lc15**: pdc
- **ld15**: Pennsylvania German language, Pennsylvania German
- **lc16**: pdt
- **ld16**: Plautdietsch language, Plautdietsch
- **lc17**: swg
- **ld17**: Swabian German
- **lc18**: gsw
- **ld18**: Swiss German
- **lc19**: uln
- **ld19**: Unserdeutsch language, Unserdeutsch
- **lc20**: sxu
- **ld20**: Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon
- **lc21**: wae
- **ld21**: Walser German
- **lc22**: wep
- **ld22**: Westphalian language, Westphalian
- **lc23**: hrx
- **ld23**: Riograndenser Hunsrückisch German, Riograndenser Hunsrückisch
- **lc24**: yec
- **ld24**: Yenish language, Yenish
- **glotto**: high1287
- **glottoname**: High Franconian
- **glotto2**: uppe1397
- **glottoname2**: Upper German
- **lingua**: 52-AC (Continental West Germanic)
> 52-ACB (Deutsch & Dutch)
> 52-ACB-d (Central German incl. 52-ACB–dl & -dm Standard German, Standard/Generalised High German)
+ 52-ACB-e & -f (Upper German & Swiss German)
+ 52-ACB-h (German diaspora, émigré German varieties incl. 52-ACB-hc Hutterite German & 52-ACB-he Pennsylvania German language, Pennsylvania German etc.)
+ 52-ACB-i (Yeniche language, Yenish);
Totalling 285 varieties: 52-ACB-daa to 52-ACB-i
- **map**: Legal statuses of German in the world.svg
- **mapcaption**:
- **notice**: IPA
- **ethnicity**: Germans