Talk:German language/Archive 1

message: Newspaper article:
Shakespeares deutsche Vorfahren
von T.d. Freese
Wenn Briten oder Amerikaner Deutsch lernen, bemerken sie meist schnell, dass ihre Muttersprache sehr mit dem Deutschen verwandt ist und davon direkt abstammt.
Im fünften Jahrhundert nach Christus wanderten die Stämme der Angeln und Sachsen aus dem heutigen Schleswig-Holstein und Niedersachsen auf die britische Insel. Auch heute noch gibt es die Region Angeln in Schleswig-Holstein. Die Vorfahren der heutigen Angeln hatten für die Auswanderung verschiedene Gründe. Zum einen gab es im dritten und vierten Jahrhundert n. Chr. in ihrer Heimat oft Kriege, zum anderen wurde die Lebensgrundlage der Angeln, die vor allem von der Landwirtschaft lebten, von klimatischen Veränderungen bedroht. Die Briten, die nach dem Abzug der römischen Heere ohne Schutz vor den kriegerischen Kelten waren, baten die Angeln und Sachsen, als Schutztruppen nach Britannien zu kommen. Die germanischen Söldner ließen sich hier bald nieder und vermischten sich, was zu dem Begriff der Angelsachsen führte. Die Kelten wurden in die äußeren Teile des Landes, nach Wales, Schottland und Cornwall, verdrängt. Die Angeln und Sachsen teilten das eingenommene Land nach und nach in kleine Königreiche auf, die später zu einem wurden. Ihnen gelang innerhalb eines Zeitraums von weniger als 300 Jahren, woran die Römer vor ihnen gescheitert waren: Es fand ein Sprachwechsel vom Keltischen zum Angelsächsischen bzw. Plattdeutschen statt. Ein anderes Wort für Angelsächsisch ist englisc, heute englisch. So bekam das Land den Namen England. Ein Grund für die Dominanz der angelsächsischen oder plattdeutschen Sprache könnte sein, dass die Germanen über einen längeren Zeitraum die Insel besiedelten, das Land selbst bestellten und sich endgültig niederließen. Auch wenn sich im Laufe der Zeit die englische Sprache immer wieder veränderte und auch durch die Wikinger und Franzosen beeinflusst wurde, finden sich noch heute viele tausend Wörter aus dem Angelsächsischen im modernen Englisch wieder. Diese Wörter weisen erstaunliche Ähnlichkeit mit dem heutigen Plattdeutsch auf. Beispiele sind Messer (englisch = knife, plattdeutsch = Kniv), Fuß (englisch und plattdeutsch = foot), Wasser (englisch und plattdeutsch = water) oder Sonnenschein (englisch = sunshine, plattdeutsch = Sünnschien), aber auch Zahlen (zehn: englisch = ten, plattdeutsch = tein) oder Pronomen (er: englisch und plattdeutsch = he). Sogar die deutsche Mehrzahl auf -en wurde bei vielen Wörtern beibehalten, wie bei ox, oxen (Ochse, Ochsen), child, children (Kind, Kinder) oder man, men (Mann, Männer).
Selbst in Bestsellern wie JRR Tolkiens „Herr der Ringe“ lebt die angelsächsische Sprache noch. So lässt der deutschstämmige Tolkien, Professor der angelsächsischen Sprache, im Roman das Volk der Rohan einen angelsächsischen Dialekt des fünften Jahrhunderts sprechen.
Auch in den englischen Wochentagen lässt sich erkennen, dass noch heute die germanischen Ursprünge aus der Sprache nicht wegzudenken sind. So stammt der Tuesday vom germanischen Gott Tiu (Tyr), der Wednesday (Mittwoch) von Wotan und der Thursday (Donnerstag) wie bei uns von Donar (Thor), dem Gott des Donners.
The Germanic tribes of the angles and saxons spoke a languages that was germanic. Of course todays English language was heavily influenced by the language of the saxons. But, neither German nor English existed back then. So it can't be the the origin of English. Both languages of course have predecessors and Low German is still more closely related to English than Standard German, like bottle -> buddel -> flasche or cow -> cow - > kuh. But German isn't the predecessor of English. Saxon might be one of the roots of English, but only one. Low German retained many of the Saxon roots. Much more than German has, which also was heavily influnced by Franconian languages. Thats why Low German and English have many similarities in the vocabulary.
Nicht alles was man so liest, stimmt auch.
--Lucius1976 17:40, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Link between English an German

message: The following table was in the article under the headline 'Cognates with English':
I   	Ich
You 	Du
He  	Er
She 	Sie
it  	Es
We  	Wir  (pl)
You 	Ihr  (pl)
They	Sie (pl)
Why I removed it:
I don't think that 'you' is a cognate of 'du'. Rather, 'thou' is (th > d is a common sound change in the history of the German language). Also, 'you' (pl.---but it's of course the same word!) is not a cognate of 'ihr', but a cognate of Low German 'ji'/Dutch 'jullie'/Afrikaans 'julle'. I understand that English came to use the plural pronoun for the singular as well after it had split from the continental dialects. And obviously 'he' and 'er' are not cognates; again, cognates can be found in the above-mentioned Low Germanic languages (L.G. 'he'/Du. 'hij'/Af. 'hy'). German as understood in this article doesn't use that word, 'er' being an unrelated (albeit Germanic) word. There was even a compromise form 'her' or similar where speakers of Low and High German dialects met. I'm not giving sources here, but I think most of the info can be found in Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik by Paul et al. The rest of the table could be put back into the article, although it'd perhaps go better with some comments.
Corrections/annotations are welcome.
---The Wikipedian without an Internet persona
---------
it might be appropriate to mention that kitchener, ontario used to be called berlin (in the geographic distribution section) 64.69.92.225 06:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed table of personal pronouns

message: Hi 200.180.187.44 , could you please state, why you deleted this text? If there is a reason, it is ok. Please let me know, Thanks :-) Fantasy 16:02, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Deleting things

message: Germany approx. 82 m
Austria approx. 7 m
Switzerland approx 5 m
Belgium, Denmark, Italy and Luxemburg 1 m
France approx. 1 m
Poland approx. 1 m
Russia approx. 2 m
Together approx. 99 m
http://www.detlev-mahnert.de/deutsch_in_europa.html
states around 100 million native speakers and 140 million total (only in europe).
http://www.rom.diplo.de/de/kultur/deutsch_lernen/dt-sprachenverbreitung.html
" Die Zahl der in- und ausländischen Staatsbürger im In- und Ausland, die Deutsch als Muttersprache in Wort und Schrift beherrschen liegt bei ca. 91- 92 Millionen (Schätzung anhand der Einwohnerzahl deutschsprachiger Gebiete). Die Zahl derjenigen, die Deutsch als Fremdsprache beherrschen, wird zwischen 25 und 55 Millionen geschätzt. Deutsch ist die meistgesprochene Muttersprache in der Europäischen Union"
Where do the other 20 m German-speaking people live ?
Do you want to include foreign-language speakers ?
62.104.210.101 15:35, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: German speakers

message: Is this section necessary? I think it would be better to have these translations in the Wiktionary. --Bkell 03:28, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I meant to say the Habsburg Empire. I agree Prague used to be Czech, and was later Czech, so the German character was an "interuption" of sorts, but according to my figures, in 1815 there were 50,000 German speakers in Prague, only 15,000 Czech speakers. (A.J.P. Taylor, The Habsburg Monarchy 1809-1918, p. 24.) By 1848 there were more Czechs, but German was still the primary language of public discourse. Lets not forget that Prague was called Prag at the time.
However, I was too categorical in my paragraph, and am more than wiling to see it rewritten to reflect some moderation.
Peregrine981 13:27, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Names of German language in other languages 

message: Removed
: Many dialects aren't understandable for someone who knows standard German.
as (poorly stated) and redundant to
: Only the neighbouring dialects are mutually understandable.
Someone better informed may be able to effect a more accurate harmonization.
--Jerzy(t) 18:24, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)
:I've more or less reverted your edit and added some explanations. I hope it isn't redundant any more. J. 'mach' wust 10:26, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mutual Intelligibility 

message: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages) requires "German language" instead of "German (language)", and the rule is followed for hundreds of other language, so I'm at a loss as to why this article has been moved. Stan 05:33, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right, the "German language" form is standard. I don't know why it was moved, either. I've moved it back. Kwertii 17:43, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  language vs (language) 

message: Under grammar>noun inflection, the author has made a false friend: Sommerzeit doesn't mean what it sounds like. It means daylight savings time.
:Sommerzeit can mean either daylight saving time or summertime. I think just the one meaning is enough here as it isn't really relevant to the article. Saintswithin 09:24, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: True enough, it is not relevant here, but nevertheless it should be stated that these days Sommerzeit is almost exclusively used to mean daylight savings. Try Google - the results where "Sommerzeit" correctly translates as "summer time" are few and far between. --Thorsten1 19:54, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. The example was mine, and I picked the two words because (a) the English compound is joined, and (b) the German equivalent is very close (in spelling) to the English one, so that the example can be read and understood by people who don't speak German very well. I am, of course, completely aware of the various meanings of the word, but I didn't feel the danger of forming a false friend had any relevance to the example. (And it isn't even a false friend -- it's a translation of an English word into a German one that also has another meaning.) However, since there are now already two objections, I stand corrected. The example has to be changed. An easy way out would be to use the word "Sommerszeit", which avoids the double meaning according to my Duden. But it's not really a good example because of the joining 's'. If anybody can think of other English joined compounds that have an easily understood German equivalent then by all means replace Sommerzeit. Arbor 20:59, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally, I think the example is acceptable for the reasons you gave - even if the word is on its way to becoming a false friend as a result of the usage shift that occured after daylight saving time was imposed in Germany in 1980. I just felt that the original poster's comment shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. --Thorsten1 21:39, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sommerzeit 

message: In the article, it says, "German is the third most popular foreign language taught worldwide, and the second most popular in Europe (after English) and the fourth in the USA (after Spanish and French)." Now shouldn't it be either the third most popular foreign language taught in the U.S. or the fourth, with the third most popular--whichever it may be--added to the list? --ThorstenNY 20:49, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Third or fourth most popular foreign language taught in the U.S.? 

message: I'm sorry that "internationalism" is a usual linguistical term. Of course it doesn't mean that the corresponding word is used in all the languages of the world, and it surely is somewhat Eurocentristic, but that doesn't stop it from being a usual linguistical term.
As to the origin of "sozial": Dudenredaktion (Hrsg.): Duden, Herkunftswörterbuch, Etymologie der deutschen Sprache, 3., völlig neu bearbeitete und erweiterte Auflage, Dudenverlag: Mannheim, Leipzig, Wien, Zürich 2001 (the latest edition):
"Das Adjektiv wurde im 18. Jh. — wohl unter dem Einfluss von entsprechend frz. social — aus gleichbed. lat. socialis entlehnt." J. 'mach' wust 08:15, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess Duden online is less complete than the paper version then. About "internationalism", I am removing, because, as you say it yourself, this is a highly Eurocentric concept, and it is quite a shaky disputed concept. Here at Wikipedia, we intend to write for the whole world, not just for Europe. Hardouin 11:08, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Cognates with English

message: According to our article, there "are somewhere around 150 million Russian speakers in Europe". As Russia has less than 150 million inhabitants in total, this must be wrong. How many native Russian speakers are there in Europe?
:Russian is actually spoken outside Russia as well, you know. Ever hear of, say, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine?  All of these are European countries, they are relatively densely populated (at least if compared to the non-European part of Russia), and they all have a considerable percentage of native speakers of Russian. So the figure of 150 million speakers is not totally unrealistic.--Thorsten1 22:21, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Russian

message: I would like to see a source for the claim that "German is the third most popular foreign language taught worldwide".  Naïvely, I would have guessed at a ranking like English, French, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, and then German.  The original source for this statement, inserted by Nico, was http://flabs.emich.edu/mzinggeler/topten.html, which makes the more specific and dubious claim that the the top three are English, Japanese, and German.  I would be very pleased but slightly surprised if figures for a worldwide ranking were available that accurately treated the world outside of Europe and North America.  China in particular seems likely to contribute much larger counts to Japanese, Russian, and possibly Spanish, than to German.  — Pekinensis 23:36, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ranking again 

message: German speakers who can speak English are generally able to read Dutch, even if some may find the spoken language amusing, due to a widespread opinion in Germany that after all "Dutch is just a German dialect".
I am sure that this opinion is not widespread in Germany.
In the 23 years that I have lived here, I have never heard it.
It is true though that Dutch sounds funny to many native speakers of German. --zeno 28 June 2005 10:51 (UTC)
:Linguistically Dutch is a Low German language, and thus one of the forms of German.
::Are there any linguists that say so? I doubt it. Sources, please. -- j. 'mach' wust ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x 5 July 2005 19:17 (UTC)
:::If you doubt facts it's your problem. I don't believe there are any linguists who say Dutch is not a Low German language. I suggest you start reading Dutch language (check genetic classification) and Low German languages.
::::I'm sorry I didn't know that Low German languages is a genetic classification term. So Nederlands really is a Low German language.
::::However, this does not make it a form of the German language. German language is not a genetic classification term, but the name of the language spoken in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland (etc.).
::::By important and usual criteria to distinguish between dialects and standard languages, Nederlands is a standard language of its own: it is standardized in writing and to a certain degree in speaking (Ausbausprache), and it is employed as the standard language behind the dialects spoken in Netherlands and Flanders (etc.) for all written language purposes (Dachsprache). -- j. 'mach' wust ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x 7 July 2005 10:00 (UTC)
:::::From the linguistical point of view, 'German' may refer to both High and Low German languages, and there are a large number of them. Standard High German as used in Germany and other countries is only one of many German languages. Many other German languages, including Low German languages which are more closely associated with Dutch than High German, are also spoken in Germany. So 'German' has two meanings: one linguistical and one common usage form (short for Standard High German, which this article is dealing with).
Or is German in fact a dialect of Dutch?  Not a terribly meaningful discussion.  --Doric Loon 6 July 2005 10:06 (UTC)
:Don't be so bloody silly. That is like saying Germanic if a form of German instead of German a form of Germanic, i.e. turning everything around.
No, if you are going to play the game of saying that one is more original than the other then you can do it either way.  But my point was precisely that this game is silly.  --Doric Loon 7 July 2005 10:40 (UTC)
:I don't know which game you are playing. It's an established fact that Dutch is a Low German language. German couldn't possibly be a form of its own subset (note: I'm not referring to High German, which is also a subset of German, just like Dutch is).
I challenge those categories.  West Germanic diffused into a series of dialects, out of which two equally valid standard languages crystalised.  If you want to call the whole group "German" then you can make it look as though German is more original than Dutch, but that is an entirely arbitrary construct.  My point was that you could as easily (and as wrongly) call the whole group "Dutch" and give the impression that German developed out of that.  But this is just not the way linguists think.  I am not happy with calling Dutch "a Low German language".  It's as good as any other convention if we are clear about what we mean, but this discussion proves that it is widely misunderstood.  At any rate, it is just not true to say that ALL linguists use this terminology.  By the way, get yourself a username if you want people to talk to you.  --Doric Loon 8 July 2005 09:47 (UTC)
:On Wikipedia, the term West Germanic languages is appearently being used for the whole group, which seems to be a fair choice. Since I'm not familiar with the Engish terminology, I can't tell how common the use of the term Low German as a denomination for the northern West Germanic languages is. At the German article Westgermanische Sprachen, the northern group is called niederdeutsche Sprachen, and within this group, Dutch is situated in the sub-group niederfränkische Sprachen. At the Dutch article West-Germaanse talen, the northern group is called Nederduits, and within this group, Dutch is situated in the sub-group Nederfrankisch. -- j. 'mach' wust ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x 8 July 2005 12:40 (UTC)
===Relationship between German and Dutch===
Very simplified, the structure would be something like this:
*German languages
**High German
***Standard High German (the subject of this article)
**Low German
***Low Franconian
****Dutch
****Afrikaans
****Limburgish
***Low Saxon
***East Low German
:::Fair enough as a model, but you put your finger on it when you say it is very much simplified.  Remember that we historical linguists have long since abandoned the idea of a stemma (family tree) as a way of indicating relationships between language forms which are very close to one another.  It is fine for showing that, for example, English and German are "sister languages" whereas English and French are "cousins", but it only really works after languages have become mutually incomprehensible and therefore develop separately and influence each other only in limited ways.  For related dialects, this kind of chart never really works.  For example, this one implies that first High and Low German split, and then these two hermetically sealed languages subdivided.  That doesn't account for the fact that they were still mutually intelligible and fashions in language (idioms, neologisms, semantic changes, later shound sifts) crossed the Benrath line as though it wasn't there.  A low and a high German dialect which were a couple of miles apart on opposite sides of the line could be much more similar to each other than two Low German dialects which were more remote from each other.  This is why it is misleading to present this high/low split as though it were an absolute set of categories for defining relationships.  It's a part of the story.  --Doric Loon 8 July 2005 14:32 (UTC)
::::You are entitled to hold an opinion and to deny the existance of Low German languages, but this is the mainstream version accepted by most linguists. Check out Germanic languages. When I said the structure was simplified, it was because I omitted details which were not relevant in this context where the point only was to show roughly the relationship between Standard High German and Dutch. The real tree is far more complicated.
:::I'm not denying the existence of anything.  I SAID it's part of the story.  But "mainstream linguistics" is very sceptical about the usefulness of this kind of table.  The Wiki articles on language are full of them, and that is understandable, because they are probably the best way of making certain kinds of information visible for lay people, but somewhere in Wikipedia we need a clear statement of their limitations.
:::Coming back to Low German, possibly the phrase "the Low German / Dutch continuum" which I have used elsewhere (e.g. in High German consonant shift) is less confusing than trying to use the term "Low German" on two levels (sometimes including Dutch and sometimes not).
:::BTW - you REALLY need to get a username; without it a discussion like this gets very difficult for people to follow.  --Doric Loon 8 July 2005 17:26 (UTC)
Dutch as a language of its own evolved in the 16th or 17th century, until then it was considered simply (Low) German. The traditional name of the language is Dietsch, meaning the same as Deutsch.
::But a more precise way of saying it would be that as Dutch and German drifted apart that would be the date at which you (quite subjectively) would see them as having become separate langugages.  Whether Dietsch meant the same as Deutsch, is rather begging the question.  It depends to whom.  To some it may have meant something more like Dutch.--Doric Loon 8 July 2005 14:32 (UTC)
====State of Low German====
I notice sometimes that people get sensitive and think that "Low German" sounds as if it's a lower (i.e. worse) form of German. It's a bit late to change hundreds of years of linguistic writings however, so people will have to learn that the terms "low" and "high" are only geographical in origin ("near the ocean" and "in the hills"). But I think it might be helpful if we use "German" when refering to "Modern High German" and use "Germanic" (with "-IC") when refering to families of languages or ancient languages that we try to construct. Does that suggestion help at all? Of course there's no problem in German with "Plattdeutsch" ("low" or "flat" German), although I think Germans sometimes feel they are superior because they speak "Hochdeutsch" ("high (and mighty?)" German). ******User: Phil Ology 26 Sept 2005.
It would seem that what everyone is encountering here are the multiple uses of the phrase "Low German" which is both a linguistics term, used by linguists, and essentially a translation of the German word Plattdeutsch which is used in contrast to Hochdeutsch--the origins of which do in fact relate to topography, although there is likely a stigma now associated with anything not considered High German. It should be known that the dialects spoken in the northern regions of Germany are more similar in overall phonology to Dutch. Genetically Dutch is more closely related to these Low German dialects than it is to High German. It should also be noted, as alluded to in the article, that High German was only made the standard dialect when Martin Luther translated the Vulgate Bible. To delve into logical and historical falacy for the sake of argument, one could say that were the Netherlands part of the Holy Roman Empire when Luther translated the Bible, they would be speaking High German in the schools there as well while they spoke Dutch in their homes. Additionally, Low German is considered a subdivision of the Western Germanic languages. Therefore Low German did not evovle from High German, rather, Dutch, Plattdeutsch and High German are all sister languages (or dialects) of a common root langauge--most likely the unattested and reconstructed Western Germanic. Usually the distinction between this linguistic subdivision and the northern dialects is not necessary because of the context; however, perhaps there could be some simple fix in Wikipedia so as to disambiguate the terms. (NB: I currently have no online sources for my information, but can provide ISBNs--I'm still learning how to format edits.)Kaibab 06:59, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You'll be surprised to know that the Netherlands indeed were a part of the Holy Roman Empire when Luther translated the Bible. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 18:59, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I'm not that surprised that the Netherlands were part of the Holy Roman Empire at that time--my history is rusty. However, the Union of Utrecht didn't come that far behind the full publication of Martin Luther's Bible  (from the dates I can find it looks like only about 45 years--a very short time in terms of a fledgling religion). I suspect that the Netherlands were into their independence by the time the Lutheran church got on its feet. So, I think my point still stands.Kaibab 04:51, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough (their formal independence came with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648). The genealogical view on the subdivisions of German is subject to servere restrictions, however. If the northern German regional varieties were historically closer to Dutch, they are not any more nowadays, that is to say, most speakers of Plattdüütsch will understand standard German more easily than Dutch. And whatever the politics may decide, the linguists will continue debating whether Plattdüütsch is a language or a dialect. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 08:56, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Two items: One, how do you know Plattdeutsch speakers understand High German better than Dutch? And do you know for certain that they don't understand Hochdeutsch better than Dutch because of their schooling? Two, if Plattdeutsch speakers understand Hochdeutsch better than Dutch regardless of their schooling, then I contend that it is due to modern Plattdeutsch having been heavily influenced by Hochdeutsch (i.e., through borrowing and the like) whereas Dutch would have been allowed to evovle in its own way. That is to say, that the politics have caused the languages to diverge. In fact, strictly genetically speaking, Plattdeutsch is more related to English, than it is to High German; moreover, some of the sound changes that distinguish High German from other West Germanic languages, are still not heard in Plattdeutsch dialects, making them sound eerily close to their English cognates. But, and I'm speaking theoretically, since I have very limited experience with Plattdeauth, I would suppose that if someone speaking High German today, were to go to northern Germany and only encounter Plattdeutsch, they would pick up more than someone speaking English--which is to say we all should bear in mind that genetic classification has more to do with history and origins of a language than it does with one or another's ability to understand a related language. High German split from the Wester Germanic around 500 ADKaibab 03:05, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly: The genetic classifications may diverge from the present interrelations of languages! The reason why a German Plattdeutsch speaker will understand German much easier than Dutch is that German Plattdeutsch speakers have standard German newspapers, watch standard German television, listen standard German broadcast, have standard German burocracy and legislation, and yes, also because they attend standard German schools, and all this for several hundreds of years. Well, another reason is that Dutch has had some vowel shifts of its own, but I consider this is a minor point. On the other hands, Plattdeutsch speakers in the Netherlands understand Dutch much easier than standard German for exactly the same reasons. From what I understand, the opposition between speakers from the Netherlands and from Germany is a quite serious problem on the Plattdeutsch Wikipedia, since either are used to transcribe Plattdeutsch according to the spelling of their respective standard languages Netherlands and standard German (see :nds:Wikipedia:Spraak för de Artikels). -- j. 'mach' wust | ✍ 12:48, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  German views on Dutch 

message: Very simplified, the structure would be something like this:
*German languages
**High German
***Standard High German (the subject of this article)
**Low German
***Low Franconian
****Dutch
****Afrikaans
****Limburgish
***Low Saxon
***East Low German
:::Fair enough as a model, but you put your finger on it when you say it is very much simplified.  Remember that we historical linguists have long since abandoned the idea of a stemma (family tree) as a way of indicating relationships between language forms which are very close to one another.  It is fine for showing that, for example, English and German are "sister languages" whereas English and French are "cousins", but it only really works after languages have become mutually incomprehensible and therefore develop separately and influence each other only in limited ways.  For related dialects, this kind of chart never really works.  For example, this one implies that first High and Low German split, and then these two hermetically sealed languages subdivided.  That doesn't account for the fact that they were still mutually intelligible and fashions in language (idioms, neologisms, semantic changes, later shound sifts) crossed the Benrath line as though it wasn't there.  A low and a high German dialect which were a couple of miles apart on opposite sides of the line could be much more similar to each other than two Low German dialects which were more remote from each other.  This is why it is misleading to present this high/low split as though it were an absolute set of categories for defining relationships.  It's a part of the story.  --Doric Loon 8 July 2005 14:32 (UTC)
::::You are entitled to hold an opinion and to deny the existance of Low German languages, but this is the mainstream version accepted by most linguists. Check out Germanic languages. When I said the structure was simplified, it was because I omitted details which were not relevant in this context where the point only was to show roughly the relationship between Standard High German and Dutch. The real tree is far more complicated.
:::I'm not denying the existence of anything.  I SAID it's part of the story.  But "mainstream linguistics" is very sceptical about the usefulness of this kind of table.  The Wiki articles on language are full of them, and that is understandable, because they are probably the best way of making certain kinds of information visible for lay people, but somewhere in Wikipedia we need a clear statement of their limitations.
:::Coming back to Low German, possibly the phrase "the Low German / Dutch continuum" which I have used elsewhere (e.g. in High German consonant shift) is less confusing than trying to use the term "Low German" on two levels (sometimes including Dutch and sometimes not).
:::BTW - you REALLY need to get a username; without it a discussion like this gets very difficult for people to follow.  --Doric Loon 8 July 2005 17:26 (UTC)
Dutch as a language of its own evolved in the 16th or 17th century, until then it was considered simply (Low) German. The traditional name of the language is Dietsch, meaning the same as Deutsch.
::But a more precise way of saying it would be that as Dutch and German drifted apart that would be the date at which you (quite subjectively) would see them as having become separate langugages.  Whether Dietsch meant the same as Deutsch, is rather begging the question.  It depends to whom.  To some it may have meant something more like Dutch.--Doric Loon 8 July 2005 14:32 (UTC)
====State of Low German====
I notice sometimes that people get sensitive and think that "Low German" sounds as if it's a lower (i.e. worse) form of German. It's a bit late to change hundreds of years of linguistic writings however, so people will have to learn that the terms "low" and "high" are only geographical in origin ("near the ocean" and "in the hills"). But I think it might be helpful if we use "German" when refering to "Modern High German" and use "Germanic" (with "-IC") when refering to families of languages or ancient languages that we try to construct. Does that suggestion help at all? Of course there's no problem in German with "Plattdeutsch" ("low" or "flat" German), although I think Germans sometimes feel they are superior because they speak "Hochdeutsch" ("high (and mighty?)" German). ******User: Phil Ology 26 Sept 2005.
It would seem that what everyone is encountering here are the multiple uses of the phrase "Low German" which is both a linguistics term, used by linguists, and essentially a translation of the German word Plattdeutsch which is used in contrast to Hochdeutsch--the origins of which do in fact relate to topography, although there is likely a stigma now associated with anything not considered High German. It should be known that the dialects spoken in the northern regions of Germany are more similar in overall phonology to Dutch. Genetically Dutch is more closely related to these Low German dialects than it is to High German. It should also be noted, as alluded to in the article, that High German was only made the standard dialect when Martin Luther translated the Vulgate Bible. To delve into logical and historical falacy for the sake of argument, one could say that were the Netherlands part of the Holy Roman Empire when Luther translated the Bible, they would be speaking High German in the schools there as well while they spoke Dutch in their homes. Additionally, Low German is considered a subdivision of the Western Germanic languages. Therefore Low German did not evovle from High German, rather, Dutch, Plattdeutsch and High German are all sister languages (or dialects) of a common root langauge--most likely the unattested and reconstructed Western Germanic. Usually the distinction between this linguistic subdivision and the northern dialects is not necessary because of the context; however, perhaps there could be some simple fix in Wikipedia so as to disambiguate the terms. (NB: I currently have no online sources for my information, but can provide ISBNs--I'm still learning how to format edits.)Kaibab 06:59, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You'll be surprised to know that the Netherlands indeed were a part of the Holy Roman Empire when Luther translated the Bible. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 18:59, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I'm not that surprised that the Netherlands were part of the Holy Roman Empire at that time--my history is rusty. However, the Union of Utrecht didn't come that far behind the full publication of Martin Luther's Bible  (from the dates I can find it looks like only about 45 years--a very short time in terms of a fledgling religion). I suspect that the Netherlands were into their independence by the time the Lutheran church got on its feet. So, I think my point still stands.Kaibab 04:51, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough (their formal independence came with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648). The genealogical view on the subdivisions of German is subject to servere restrictions, however. If the northern German regional varieties were historically closer to Dutch, they are not any more nowadays, that is to say, most speakers of Plattdüütsch will understand standard German more easily than Dutch. And whatever the politics may decide, the linguists will continue debating whether Plattdüütsch is a language or a dialect. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 08:56, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Two items: One, how do you know Plattdeutsch speakers understand High German better than Dutch? And do you know for certain that they don't understand Hochdeutsch better than Dutch because of their schooling? Two, if Plattdeutsch speakers understand Hochdeutsch better than Dutch regardless of their schooling, then I contend that it is due to modern Plattdeutsch having been heavily influenced by Hochdeutsch (i.e., through borrowing and the like) whereas Dutch would have been allowed to evovle in its own way. That is to say, that the politics have caused the languages to diverge. In fact, strictly genetically speaking, Plattdeutsch is more related to English, than it is to High German; moreover, some of the sound changes that distinguish High German from other West Germanic languages, are still not heard in Plattdeutsch dialects, making them sound eerily close to their English cognates. But, and I'm speaking theoretically, since I have very limited experience with Plattdeauth, I would suppose that if someone speaking High German today, were to go to northern Germany and only encounter Plattdeutsch, they would pick up more than someone speaking English--which is to say we all should bear in mind that genetic classification has more to do with history and origins of a language than it does with one or another's ability to understand a related language. High German split from the Wester Germanic around 500 ADKaibab 03:05, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly: The genetic classifications may diverge from the present interrelations of languages! The reason why a German Plattdeutsch speaker will understand German much easier than Dutch is that German Plattdeutsch speakers have standard German newspapers, watch standard German television, listen standard German broadcast, have standard German burocracy and legislation, and yes, also because they attend standard German schools, and all this for several hundreds of years. Well, another reason is that Dutch has had some vowel shifts of its own, but I consider this is a minor point. On the other hands, Plattdeutsch speakers in the Netherlands understand Dutch much easier than standard German for exactly the same reasons. From what I understand, the opposition between speakers from the Netherlands and from Germany is a quite serious problem on the Plattdeutsch Wikipedia, since either are used to transcribe Plattdeutsch according to the spelling of their respective standard languages Netherlands and standard German (see :nds:Wikipedia:Spraak för de Artikels). -- j. 'mach' wust | ✍ 12:48, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Relationship between German and Dutch

message: I notice sometimes that people get sensitive and think that "Low German" sounds as if it's a lower (i.e. worse) form of German. It's a bit late to change hundreds of years of linguistic writings however, so people will have to learn that the terms "low" and "high" are only geographical in origin ("near the ocean" and "in the hills"). But I think it might be helpful if we use "German" when refering to "Modern High German" and use "Germanic" (with "-IC") when refering to families of languages or ancient languages that we try to construct. Does that suggestion help at all? Of course there's no problem in German with "Plattdeutsch" ("low" or "flat" German), although I think Germans sometimes feel they are superior because they speak "Hochdeutsch" ("high (and mighty?)" German). ******User: Phil Ology 26 Sept 2005.
It would seem that what everyone is encountering here are the multiple uses of the phrase "Low German" which is both a linguistics term, used by linguists, and essentially a translation of the German word Plattdeutsch which is used in contrast to Hochdeutsch--the origins of which do in fact relate to topography, although there is likely a stigma now associated with anything not considered High German. It should be known that the dialects spoken in the northern regions of Germany are more similar in overall phonology to Dutch. Genetically Dutch is more closely related to these Low German dialects than it is to High German. It should also be noted, as alluded to in the article, that High German was only made the standard dialect when Martin Luther translated the Vulgate Bible. To delve into logical and historical falacy for the sake of argument, one could say that were the Netherlands part of the Holy Roman Empire when Luther translated the Bible, they would be speaking High German in the schools there as well while they spoke Dutch in their homes. Additionally, Low German is considered a subdivision of the Western Germanic languages. Therefore Low German did not evovle from High German, rather, Dutch, Plattdeutsch and High German are all sister languages (or dialects) of a common root langauge--most likely the unattested and reconstructed Western Germanic. Usually the distinction between this linguistic subdivision and the northern dialects is not necessary because of the context; however, perhaps there could be some simple fix in Wikipedia so as to disambiguate the terms. (NB: I currently have no online sources for my information, but can provide ISBNs--I'm still learning how to format edits.)Kaibab 06:59, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You'll be surprised to know that the Netherlands indeed were a part of the Holy Roman Empire when Luther translated the Bible. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 18:59, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I'm not that surprised that the Netherlands were part of the Holy Roman Empire at that time--my history is rusty. However, the Union of Utrecht didn't come that far behind the full publication of Martin Luther's Bible  (from the dates I can find it looks like only about 45 years--a very short time in terms of a fledgling religion). I suspect that the Netherlands were into their independence by the time the Lutheran church got on its feet. So, I think my point still stands.Kaibab 04:51, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough (their formal independence came with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648). The genealogical view on the subdivisions of German is subject to servere restrictions, however. If the northern German regional varieties were historically closer to Dutch, they are not any more nowadays, that is to say, most speakers of Plattdüütsch will understand standard German more easily than Dutch. And whatever the politics may decide, the linguists will continue debating whether Plattdüütsch is a language or a dialect. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 08:56, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Two items: One, how do you know Plattdeutsch speakers understand High German better than Dutch? And do you know for certain that they don't understand Hochdeutsch better than Dutch because of their schooling? Two, if Plattdeutsch speakers understand Hochdeutsch better than Dutch regardless of their schooling, then I contend that it is due to modern Plattdeutsch having been heavily influenced by Hochdeutsch (i.e., through borrowing and the like) whereas Dutch would have been allowed to evovle in its own way. That is to say, that the politics have caused the languages to diverge. In fact, strictly genetically speaking, Plattdeutsch is more related to English, than it is to High German; moreover, some of the sound changes that distinguish High German from other West Germanic languages, are still not heard in Plattdeutsch dialects, making them sound eerily close to their English cognates. But, and I'm speaking theoretically, since I have very limited experience with Plattdeauth, I would suppose that if someone speaking High German today, were to go to northern Germany and only encounter Plattdeutsch, they would pick up more than someone speaking English--which is to say we all should bear in mind that genetic classification has more to do with history and origins of a language than it does with one or another's ability to understand a related language. High German split from the Wester Germanic around 500 ADKaibab 03:05, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly: The genetic classifications may diverge from the present interrelations of languages! The reason why a German Plattdeutsch speaker will understand German much easier than Dutch is that German Plattdeutsch speakers have standard German newspapers, watch standard German television, listen standard German broadcast, have standard German burocracy and legislation, and yes, also because they attend standard German schools, and all this for several hundreds of years. Well, another reason is that Dutch has had some vowel shifts of its own, but I consider this is a minor point. On the other hands, Plattdeutsch speakers in the Netherlands understand Dutch much easier than standard German for exactly the same reasons. From what I understand, the opposition between speakers from the Netherlands and from Germany is a quite serious problem on the Plattdeutsch Wikipedia, since either are used to transcribe Plattdeutsch according to the spelling of their respective standard languages Netherlands and standard German (see :nds:Wikipedia:Spraak för de Artikels). -- j. 'mach' wust | ✍ 12:48, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: State of Low German

message: I removed the older forms of German from the infobox, since this is really just a matter of older forms of (High) German, not language groups.
Peter Isotalo 20:42, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Older forms are not classifications 

message: I'm okay with speaking of "German..." as 'historical-geographical region'. However, I consider we should do the same with "Alemann..." and "Sax.." then. All three names referred first to the people, but came later to refer to the regions they inhabitated. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 19:55, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: about "German...": tribes vs. regions

message: "German speakers who can speak Low German or English are generally able to read Dutch"
Shouldn't it be added that a German who knows Low German better understands Dutch due to similarities on account of regional closeness within the Germanic languages of Dutch and Low German and those who know English better understand Dutch due to French Vocabulary borrowed into both of the languages?
:Hmmm, there's some French vocabulary borrowed into German, as well, though, and certain words that exist in English and Dutch, but not German (such as "ham"), I don't know if an Englishman generally would understand Dutch better than German, though... 81.232.72.148 17:28, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If you can speak English and German you can follow Dutch quite well... often it looks /sounds like a mix of english and german with german grammar and sentence construction...IsarSteve 18:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I'd say that most of the Dutch vocabulary is similar to German, and other continental West Germanic languages, but the pronunciation is quite different, and I especially doubt that an Englishman would understand much without prior learning. A Low German speaker might catch more, probably. 81.232.72.148 22:33, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text:  An English speaker who hasn´t mastered German won´t understand Dutch.. but if he has a good understanding of German, he´ll be able to read dutch and be able to follow a conversationIsarSteve 21:08, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intelligibility of Dutch to speakers of German 

message: Is Frisian really not intelligible to the surrounding dialects? -- j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 13:18, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In a word, no. I speak perfect German and Danish, and passable Low German. But Frisian (spoken) is impossible, and Frisian (written) is harder for me than written Dutch. However, I do believe that written Frisian should be quite easy to learn (just as written Dutch). So let's say "as hard as Dutch" instead of "not intelligible". Certainly easier then French, Thai, or Klingon. Arbor 12:06, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Intelligibility of Frisian

message: What's the source for German being the second language of the Internet? It has been pointed out that this seems not to be in accordance with . ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 11:24, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Source for German on the net

message: I am removing the last paragraph of the "history" section here, which states that German replaced Latin as the dominant language in all European and North American universities during the nineteenth century.  While it is true that German replaced Latin in Germanophone countries at this time, and also true that Stanford University chose to express its motto in German, there has never been a time when German was preferred to English in British, Canadian, or United States universities.  There was a time when a knowledge of the German language was darned near necessary to work as a research scholar in the sciences or the humanities, but that's very different from "predominating."Dave1898 12:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  German in North American universities 

message: I'm somewhat sceptical of these terms used in the dialect section. My feeling is they should be replaced by Low German and High German. Reasons:
1. The only use I can find of German equivalents to these (Niedergermanisch/Hochgermanisch) is in the work of one linguist, Theo Venneman, where they apply to a controversial theory of the development of Germanic, not to the development of German.
2. They don't seem to make much sense outside Vennemann's theory - High and Low German are immediate subsets of continental West Germanic, not of Germanic as a whole, as the introductory sentence makes clear.
Is there anything in favour of these terms? Pfold 20:49, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Low Germanic / High Germanic 

message: It's 11, not 9 or 10.
Count for yourself
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers#100_million_native_speakers_or_more
Sandertje 12:43, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of speakers ranking 

message: Any comments/objections ? Post them here or forever hold your piece.
Sandertje 19:32, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Pun intended?  Adam Mathias 21:43, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updating *classification/related language* section. 

message: In the article, the following is stated;
:German is the main language of about 100 million people in Europe (as of 2004), or 13.3% of all Europeans, being the most spoken language in Europe excluding Russia, above French (66.5 million speakers in Europe in 2004) and English (64.2 million speakers in Europe in 2004). German is the third most taught foreign language worldwide, also in the USA (after Spanish and French); it is the second most known foreign language in the EU (after English; see [1]) It is one of the official languages of the European Union, and one of the three working languages of the EU, along with English and French.
According to the Eurobarometer survey conducted May-June 2005 (published September, available on the EU website), German is the mother toungue of 18% of all Europeans and spoken by an additional 12% as a second language, for a total of 30%.  It also states that English, the mother toungue of 13% of European Union member citizens, is spoken by an additional 34% for a total of 47%, making it more commonly used than German.  Though the fact that it is the second most known foreign language to English is mentioned, the fact that overall it is spoken by less people in the EU25 than English is contradicted by this article.
The article states that German is the most commonly spoken language in Europe excluding Russia, which as we see here is not the case for at least the EU.  Even were German widely spoken in the Baltic states and Russia to make more than English in Europe, 47% of the EU population does not equal out to 64.2 million people.
Could someone, perhaps an actual qualified linguist or one of the authors of this segment, please explain what's going on here?  My apologies if I sounded a little annoyed, this is merely a subject of academic interest as the English-speaking numbers seemed rather low, a figure borne out by the EU survey I checked. Eurobarometer survey linked here, PDF
Thanks,
David Corbett 16:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Most common used language? 

message: Vandalism (and incomplete reverts) have plagued this article recently. Although I've reverted to a recent version, if you are familiar with this article, please remove all traces of vandalism - words like "penis" and "HUGE" probably should not be in it, and restore text that may have been deleted. Thank you - Tangotango 16:05, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: I'm planning on writing a revised version of the "dialect" section of this article. The current version is unclear, as it uses term as Low Germanic and High Germanic and poses them as subgroups of German, while the reality of course is that standard German is a subdivision of high germanic.
So stay tuned and be very welcome to add/expand and/or adapt.
Sander 21:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the reality is that this is a situation where a stemma (tree diagram) doesn't work.  Linguists don't use the phrases High and Low Germanic.  We use the phrases High and Low German to describe the German dialects of the south and north respectively, and it is entirely correct to call these subdivisions of German, with the standard German (which draws on both high and low, but mainly on high) above them both.  People who have problems with this are usually struggling to fit High and Low German into the same stemma as Dutch.  This forces them to give primacy to the High German consonant shift and place the ingveonic languages (including Low German and English) on one branch of the tree and High German on the other, and leaves them uable to account for the fact that the North German dialects are far closer to South German than they are to Dutch, let alone English.  Linguists abandoned stemmata in such dialect continuum situations 50 years ago, and the interrelationships of the West Germanic languages are the classic example of the reason why.  --Doric Loon 06:25, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coming soon 

message: Hmh, I've added a section on Mark Twain's satire of the German language which has vanished when Arbor restored an older version of this page. Pls. also restore this section.
Perhaps start a section: "Comments on the German Language", where quotes and references such as Mark Twain's might be compiled and later spun off to its own page whenever it's grown to more than a handful of comments. I think a section like that will give a nice background on the significance, history and challenges of the German Language and add much flavour and breadth to the topic (which otherwise be a bit dry and linguistic on its own).
What do you say?
-- DJ Vollkasko (a native speaker), March 22nd 2006.
:Well, currently it doesn't belong on this page. I readily concede that the current German language article isn't very entertaining (neither are the other language articles), and that this entire complex would benefit from a more light-hearted approach. For example, it would be possible to have a  Views about the German language article. But how to make that encyclopaedic and NPOV? I don't know. Currently, the language articles are strong on linguistics, and Mark Twain's ill-informed meanderings, while entertaining, add no information. (About German. They do add information about, say. the view of the German language in English-speaking countries, which may be a worthy subject). Arbor 13:15, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ETA: A simple solution would be to move the Twain quote to Wikiquote, and link to it from here. Actualy, I would be surprised if it isn't already there. Arbor 13:16, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please restore "The Awful German Language" section 

message: OK, I went to Bodrum in south Turkey, and a lot of the people there have German as a second language. As it is not a primary langauge and too small to make a new section, where should I state this fact, and can anyone confirm this?Kingfisherswift 18:29, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Turkey

message: The region in the infobox says Western Europe.  I think the region is more accurately characterized as Central Europe. KevinPuj 19:39, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I tend to agree. In the Germany article it says, "Located in Central Europe". On the other hand, Germany is also listed among the countries in the Western Europe article, along with Austria, Liechtenstein, and others. Despite this fact, I suggest changing the infobox data to Central Europe. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 19:48, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Infobox Region

message: Removed:
:Lao is unique in that both under the influence of English "German" (through Thai "yeraman") and French (the colonial language) "Allemand", it chose a name in between: ພາສາເຢຍລະມັນ (phaxa yeylaman), which could be ranked both under category 2 and category 5.
Another, much more likely explanation of "yeylaman" is simply that it's because Lao has no "r". --Ptcamn 21:00, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lao name 

message: Are you sure about that? What are the sources and how many people in Denmark speak German? --Comanche cph 12:20, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a German national minority in Denmark, just north of the border. With German-speaking schools, for example. See South Jutland County. Arbor 12:30, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  German in Denmark? 

message: The article has no phonology section, yet it has several sections which are non-standard for major language articles which are of questionable merit and still take up a very large proportion of the article. "Cognates with English" should really be removed altogether or at least brutally condensed and joined with, for example, "Classification and related languages". Huge tables make poor reading and the amount of examples is really exaggerated for an encyclopedic summary. "Name of the German language in other languages" is definetely not appropriate here.
Peter Isotalo 08:12, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prioritizing 

message: I've transwikied the long list of translations of German where it belongs; German over at the English wiktionary. I am skeptical to the section as a whole as it is focused entirely on etymology of the word "German (language)" in other languages rather than German, which this article is supposed to be about, but I've left the info for now. Please consider transwikiying it as etymological information to our various wiktionaries and try to avoid filling wikipedia articles with rather unencyclopedic, if interesting information.
Peter Isotalo 11:44, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translation list moved 

message: "Needles to say"
:Thanks for pointing that out! Please don't forget that anyone can edit articles and also correct mistakes. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 18:34, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Typo 

message: i was reading the portuguese version of this article, and couldnt help but notice that the image of where German is spoken is different in this two articles. {See pt.wikipedia map and en.wikipedia map}. Then i moved to the german wikipedia, and found a third map... de.wikipedia map. Which one of this three is right ? I know that all two additional dots in Brazil southern region are right, since i live there and know that these regions have several communities created by German immigrants. But what about Namibia, Venezuela and that square near Minnesota ? --Hagnat 18:24, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Image:German Speaking World