HISTORY OF GERMAN LANGUAGE

HISTORY OF GERMAN LANGUAGE

German language,(DEUTSCH) official language of both (GERMANY and AUSTRIA) and one of the

three official languages of SWITZERLAND. Altogether, German is the native language of more than

90 million speakers and thus ranks 6th in number of native speakers among other languages of the

world. German is widely studied as a foreign language and is one of the main cultural languages of

the western world.

Tracing back the history of German language, it belongs to the West-Germanic group of the Indo-

European family along with English, Flemish, Frisian and Dutch. The recorded history of German

begins with their speakers first contact with the Romans in the 1st century B.C. it was initially called

as ‘Germanic ‘with little or more than minor dialect differences. Only after the 6th century A. D, one

speak of variant of German as we use nowadays.

Many people find the language, German, the most difficult and complex in its own ways. The fact is

that, the language itself, constructed and used in a unique way. It is an inflected language with four

cases (NOMINATIVE, ACCUSATIVE, DATIVE AND GENITIVE), gender-specific , and the distinct

category of strong verbs and weak verbs. As written German language is quite uniform, As a spoken

language , however, German exists in many dialects ,most of which belongs to either High German

or Low German dialectical groups.( The main difference lies in the sound system, especially in the

consonants). High Geman(HOCH DEUTSCH) , the language of the Southern highlands of Germany, is

the official written language as we use nowadays.

German has become an indispensable language in the Modern era of communication. A language

essentially considered as the language of Poets and Thinkers (SPRACHEN der DICHTER und

DENKER),evolved into a major language find the space areas especially Business, Science and

Technology , Medicine and many other fields. It is language of the new era, widens hopes and

aspirations of many , learning German in an effective way enhances the skills and thereafter a prospective career in the current world.