German language

German (Deutsch) is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by about 80 million non-native speakers around the world. Standard German is widely taught in schools, universities and Goethe Institutes worldwide. It is also one of the 23 official languages of the European Union.

German is spoken primarily in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. German is also spoken by the majority of the population of Liechtenstein. Other European German-speaking communities are found in Northern Italy, East Cantons of Belgium, French Alsace region and in some border villages of the former South Jutland County of Denmark.

Standard German is the only official language in Liechtenstein; it shares official status in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg. It is used as a local official language in Italy (Province of Bolzano-Bozen), as well as in the cities of Sopron (Hungary), Krahule (Slovakia) and several cities in Romania.

German has an officially recognized status as regional or auxiliary language in Denmark (South Jutland region), France (Alsace and Moselle regions), Italy (Gressoney valley), Namibia, Poland (Opole region), and Russia (Asowo and Halbstadt).

Outside of Europe, the largest German-speaking communities are found in the United States, Canada, Brazil and in Argentina. German-speaking communities can also be found in the former German colony of Namibia, as well as in the other countries of German emigration such as Canada, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, South Africa, and Australia.

German is a member of the western branch of the Germanic family of languages, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. The German dialect continuum is traditionally divided into High German and Low German. The variation among the German dialects is considerable, with only the neighboring dialects being mutually intelligible.

German is written in the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with Umlaut, namely ä, ö and ü, as well as ß, the Eszett or scharfes 's' (sharp s).

German nouns inflect into one of four cases (nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative), one of three genders (masculine, feminine, or neutral), and two numbers (singular and plural).

Although German is known as an outstanding example of a highly inflected language, the degree of inflection is considerably less than in Old German or in other old Indo-European languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek, or Sanskrit, or, for instance, in modern Icelandic or Russian.

Standard German verbs inflect into one of two conjugation classes (weak and strong), three persons (first, second, and third), two numbers (singular and plural), three moods (indicative, imperative, and subjunctive), two voices (active and passive), two non-composed tenses (present, preterite) and four composed tenses (perfect, pluperfect, future and future perfect).

There are two common word orders in German: one is for main clauses and another for subordinate clauses. In normal affirmative sentences the inflected verb always has position 2. In polar questions, exclamations and wishes it always has position 1. In subordinate clauses the verb is supposed to occur at the very end, but in speech this rule is often disregarded.

Information: Wikipedia