The German language belongs to the great Indo-European family of languages which includes members as diverse as Welsh at the western end and Bengali at the eastern end of its distribution. It is a close cousin of English which also belongs to the West Germanic division of the Germanic branch. Together English and German account for the greatest number of modern Germanic speakers, both as first and second languages. Their closeness is still reflected in the relative ease with which English speakers learn to pronounce German compared with French – adequate speech rhythms and stress seem to come more naturally, reflecting the fact that Old English grew out of the confluence of Germanic languages spoken by the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings who settled the British Isles in such large numbers during and after the Age of Migrations, which was at its peak between the 4th and 6th centuries AD.

During the great period of migration Germanic tribes also spread southwest and south into what are now northern France and southern Germany, while others moved into Switzerland, Austria and northern Italy. These movements and the geographical separation they gave rise to consolidated variations in the original Germanic dialects spoken by the tribes in their places of origin. This process was reversed over time to the extent that a form of Standard German (Hochsprache) developed, based on the written language, taught in schools and universities, and used prominently in the media. This process may have begun during the period of relative political stability initiated by the emergence of the Frankish empire under Clovis (482-511), culminating in the crowning by the Pope of Charlemagne (768-814) as Emperor ‘Romanorum gubernans imperium’.

In the early modern period the growth of trade, increasing literacy and the invention of printing provided conditions which favoured linguistic conformity. With the Reformation came Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible. This tipped the balance in favour of the relatively uniform dialects spoken in the East Middle German area, where Luther (1483-1546) lived under the protection of the Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise. Luther translated the New Testament from the original Greek text in 1522, completing his translation of the Bible in 1534.

Over the next few centuries ‘High’ German became increasingly standardized and in its written form is substantially the same whether used in Germany itself, Austria or Switzerland. Despite this robust dialects thrive across the German-speaking region. These will be largely incomprehensible to the non-German armed only with Hochdeutsch, but fortunately native German-speakers all learn Hochdeutsch as a first or second language.

Recommended Reading :

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Germanic Languages.