User:Sprachkind/German

German primer

 * Just a place for a variety of language issues. (Note that they may be more complicated if examined in full (as are all things), but here are reduced to the necessary and 'every-day' basics for brevity and usability.)

Spelling & special letters
The umlauts ä, ö, ü: they are proper sounds/letters on their own and cannot be exchanged for regular a, o, u without changing the word to either render it a different one or nonsensical. They developed from writing the vowel letter with an added e beside or above it, the latter which developed into the dots. If the version with the dots are not or cannot be used, umlauts can still be written as "vowel+e": ae, oe, ue (e.g. the name Goethe).

The ß (Eszett or 'sharp s') is historically a ligature of sz, but nowadays replaced by ss if the letter is not available. Generally, ß follows after long vowels and diphthongs, while ss marks short vowels.

All nouns are capitalised in German; this helps with faster and easier reading and less ambiguity (e.g. as some word may be identically written but have different meanings and pronunciations, e.g. long Weg vs. short weg: "a way" vs. "away"). Funnily enough, the Grimm brothers were against this way of capitalisation, promoting and themselves writing without capitalising nouns.

German language divisions and history

 * Since there sometimes seems to be a bit of confusion about the terms.

Internally the German language is split into varying dialectical regions. Approximately the nothern third of Germany is/was the region of Low German, while the lower two thirds are High German; the latter is split in half into the northern Middle German and southern Upper German. Standard German is a form of High German (which is often used as a synonym for Standard German).

High German language development is historically split into the following phases: Old High German (8-11th century), Middle High German (11-14th), Early New High German (14-17th), New High German (17th-today). The Grimms worked in the 19th century, and so spoke New High German, same language as today.