History of the German Language German is a member of the western branch of the Germanic family of languages, which in turn is part of the Indo-European language family. There are 90 -120 million native German speakers around the world and, according to Guinness book of world records, most translations performed in the world are into and from German. 32% of the EU-15 countries say they can converse in it. The language is closely related to English and Dutch, as is explained in the History of English section. 20 million people around the world speak it as their non-native language, creating such interesting varieties as Pennsylvania Dutch (a west central German variety), Texas German, and Aleman Coloniero in Venezuela, depending on the dialect spoken of the Germans who first moved there or colonised the area. German is the third most taught foreign language in the world and apparently 7.7% of webpages are written in the German language (second to English), with 12% of google surfers using its German interface. The recorded history of the language begins between the 6th and 8th century when a major consonant shift took place, while various dialects seemed to form across the many states and regions of the German lands. Writers had a habit of merging the various dialects in hopes that their works would be readable across the greatest population possible, and this approach was applied by Martin Luther when he translated the bible in 1522, although his translation had many subnotes translating various terms into local dialects. The Catholic church put out its own version, while the protestant and Catholic renditions, although not that much different, battled it out until an acceptable standard was agreed upon in the middle of the 18th century. Up to the middle of the 19th century, the language became the medium of commerce of the Habsburg empire, covering a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Local languages remained, but German was the language of merchants from as far as Milan, Zagreb and Bratislava.
This standard or high German which was developed to encompass a broader region was often learned and considered as a foreign language by the various dialects, and frequently was not even uttered until early school, although television and the media are now reaching to preschool levels. The first dictionary of the Brothers Grimm, written in 1860, remains the most comprehensive guide to this created language. The language underwent a spelling reform in 1996, but which led to much controversy, primarily over the issue whether a language should represent its regional cultures or whether it should be a means to facilitate communication. The battle went as far as the Supreme Court, until the federal government intervened to officially adopt a new standard just in time for the 2006 school year. The German language is composed of three main dialects. Not only does the German speaking area encompass a large region of many varied dialects, whose speakers frequently do not even understand each other, and not only does the adopted standard or high German also differ across regions, the way surrounding countries call Germans is also quite varied. For example, the Slavic countries apply some rendition of the word mute ("nemoj" in Russian), signifying that the Germans were the first peoples the Slavs came across who they could not communicate with. [In Italian the sole name for German is still tedesco, from the Latin theodiscum, meaning "vernacular".]
上一页 1 2 下一页 |
