Talk:German language/Archive 1

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Can someone please translate this portion into English for the English Wikisource? Thank you. [Kann jemand diesen Teil ins Englische für das englische Wikisource bitte übersetzen? Danke.]

Gesetz betreffend die Verfassung des Deutschen Reiches.

vom 16. April

Wir Wilhelm, von Gottes Gnaden Deutscher Kaiser, König von Preußen etc. verordnen hiermit im Namen des Deutschen Reichs, nach erfolgter Zustimmung des Bundesrathes und des Reichstages, was folgt:

§ 1

An die Stelle der zwischen dem Norddeutschen Bunde und den Großherzogthümern Baden und Hessen vereinbarten Verfassung des Deutschen Bundes (Bundesgesetzblatt vom Jahre 1870, S. 627 ff.), sowie der mit den Königreichen Bayern und Württemberg über den Beitritt zu dieser Verfassung geschlossenen Verträge vom 23. und 25. November 1870 (Bundesgesetzblatt 1871, S. 9 ff. und vom Jahre 1870, S. 654 ff.) tritt die beigefügte

Verfassung-Urkunde für das Deutsche Reich

§ 2

Die Bestimmungen in Artikel 80 der in § 1 gedachten Verfassung des Deutschen Bundes, unter III. § 8 des Vertrages mit Bayern vom 23. November 1870, in Artikel 2 Nr. 6 des Vertrages mit Württemberg vom 25. November 1870 über die Einführung der im Norddeutschen Bunde ergangenen Gesetze in diesen Staaten bleiben in Kraft.

Die dort bezeichneten Gesetze sind Reichsgesetze. Wo in denselben von dem Norddeutschen Bunde, dessen Verfassung, Gebiet, Mitgliedern oder Staaten, Indigenat, verfassungsmäßigen Organen, Angehörigen, Beamten, Flagge usw. die Rede ist, sind das Deutsche Reich und dessen entsprechende Beziehungen zu verstehen.

Dasselbe gilt von denjenigen im Norddeutschen Bunde ergangenen Gesetzen, welcher in der Folge in einem der genannten Staaten eingeführt werden.

§ 3

Die Vereinbarungen in dem zu Versailles am 15. November 1870 aufgenommenen Protokolle (Bundesgesetzblatt vom Jahre 1870, S. 650 ff.), in der Verhandlung zu Berlin vom 25. November 1870 (Bundesgesetzblatt vom Jahre 1870, S. 657), dem Schlußprotokolle vom 23. November 1870 (Bundesgesetzblatt vom Jahre 1871, S. 23 ff.), sowie unter IV. des Vertrages mit Bayern vom 23. November 1870 (aaO. S. 21 ff.) werden durch dieses Gesetz nicht berührt.

Urkundlich unter Unserer Höchsteigenhändigen Unterschrift und beigedrucktem Kaiserlichen Insiegel.

Gegeben Berlin, den 16. April 1871.

Wilhelm

Fürst v. Bismarck

Link between English an German

Newspaper article:

Shakespeares deutsche Vorfahren

von T.d. Freese

Wenn Briten oder Amerikaner Deutsch lernen, bemerken sie meist schnell, dass ihre Muttersprache sehr mit dem Deutschen verwandt ist und davon direkt abstammt.

Im fünften Jahrhundert nach Christus wanderten die Stämme der Angeln und Sachsen aus dem heutigen Schleswig-Holstein und Niedersachsen auf die britische Insel. Auch heute noch gibt es die Region Angeln in Schleswig-Holstein. Die Vorfahren der heutigen Angeln hatten für die Auswanderung verschiedene Gründe. Zum einen gab es im dritten und vierten Jahrhundert n. Chr. in ihrer Heimat oft Kriege, zum anderen wurde die Lebensgrundlage der Angeln, die vor allem von der Landwirtschaft lebten, von klimatischen Veränderungen bedroht. Die Briten, die nach dem Abzug der römischen Heere ohne Schutz vor den kriegerischen Kelten waren, baten die Angeln und Sachsen, als Schutztruppen nach Britannien zu kommen. Die germanischen Söldner ließen sich hier bald nieder und vermischten sich, was zu dem Begriff der Angelsachsen führte. Die Kelten wurden in die äußeren Teile des Landes, nach Wales, Schottland und Cornwall, verdrängt. Die Angeln und Sachsen teilten das eingenommene Land nach und nach in kleine Königreiche auf, die später zu einem wurden. Ihnen gelang innerhalb eines Zeitraums von weniger als 300 Jahren, woran die Römer vor ihnen gescheitert waren: Es fand ein Sprachwechsel vom Keltischen zum Angelsächsischen bzw. Plattdeutschen statt. Ein anderes Wort für Angelsächsisch ist englisc, heute englisch. So bekam das Land den Namen England. Ein Grund für die Dominanz der angelsächsischen oder plattdeutschen Sprache könnte sein, dass die Germanen über einen längeren Zeitraum die Insel besiedelten, das Land selbst bestellten und sich endgültig niederließen. Auch wenn sich im Laufe der Zeit die englische Sprache immer wieder veränderte und auch durch die Wikinger und Franzosen beeinflusst wurde, finden sich noch heute viele tausend Wörter aus dem Angelsächsischen im modernen Englisch wieder. Diese Wörter weisen erstaunliche Ähnlichkeit mit dem heutigen Plattdeutsch auf. Beispiele sind Messer (englisch = knife, plattdeutsch = Kniv), Fuß (englisch und plattdeutsch = foot), Wasser (englisch und plattdeutsch = water) oder Sonnenschein (englisch = sunshine, plattdeutsch = Sünnschien), aber auch Zahlen (zehn: englisch = ten, plattdeutsch = tein) oder Pronomen (er: englisch und plattdeutsch = he). Sogar die deutsche Mehrzahl auf -en wurde bei vielen Wörtern beibehalten, wie bei ox, oxen (Ochse, Ochsen), child, children (Kind, Kinder) oder man, men (Mann, Männer).

Selbst in Bestsellern wie JRR Tolkiens „Herr der Ringe“ lebt die angelsächsische Sprache noch. So lässt der deutschstämmige Tolkien, Professor der angelsächsischen Sprache, im Roman das Volk der Rohan einen angelsächsischen Dialekt des fünften Jahrhunderts sprechen. Auch in den englischen Wochentagen lässt sich erkennen, dass noch heute die germanischen Ursprünge aus der Sprache nicht wegzudenken sind. So stammt der Tuesday vom germanischen Gott Tiu (Tyr), der Wednesday (Mittwoch) von Wotan und der Thursday (Donnerstag) wie bei uns von Donar (Thor), dem Gott des Donners.

The Germanic tribes of the angles and saxons spoke a languages that was germanic. Of course todays English language was heavily influenced by the language of the saxons. But, neither German nor English existed back then. So it can't be the the origin of English. Both languages of course have predecessors and Low German is still more closely related to English than Standard German, like bottle -> buddel -> flasche or cow -> cow - > kuh. But German isn't the predecessor of English. Saxon might be one of the roots of English, but only one. Low German retained many of the Saxon roots. Much more than German has, which also was heavily influnced by Franconian languages. Thats why Low German and English have many similarities in the vocabulary. Nicht alles was man so liest, stimmt auch. --Lucius1976 17:40, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Removed table of personal pronouns

The following table was in the article under the headline 'Cognates with English':

I Ich
You Du
He Er
She Sie
it Es
We Wir (pl)
You Ihr (pl)
They Sie (pl)

Why I removed it: I don't think that 'you' is a cognate of 'du'. Rather, 'thou' is (th > d is a common sound change in the history of the German language). Also, 'you' (pl.---but it's of course the same word!) is not a cognate of 'ihr', but a cognate of Low German 'ji'/Dutch 'jullie'/Afrikaans 'julle'. I understand that English came to use the plural pronoun for the singular as well after it had split from the continental dialects. And obviously 'he' and 'er' are not cognates; again, cognates can be found in the above-mentioned Low Germanic languages (L.G. 'he'/Du. 'hij'/Af. 'hy'). German as understood in this article doesn't use that word, 'er' being an unrelated (albeit Germanic) word. There was even a compromise form 'her' or similar where speakers of Low and High German dialects met. I'm not giving sources here, but I think most of the info can be found in Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik by Paul et al. The rest of the table could be put back into the article, although it'd perhaps go better with some comments.

Corrections/annotations are welcome.

---The Wikipedian without an Internet persona

it might be appropriate to mention that kitchener, ontario used to be called berlin (in the geographic distribution section) 64.69.92.225 06:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

In German the correct writing of that yiddish word is "chuzpe" instead of chutzpe. See http://dict.leo.org/?lang=de&lp=ende.

I find it hard to believe that either German or French is more commonly taught in the United States than Spanish.

--Yeah, Spanish is #1 (has this been fixed?) User:Quackberry

I have changed (in the section verb inflection) "6 composed tenses" to "4 composed tenses" and deleted "futurum preterite I & II"): There are only four composed tenses, at least in Standard German, and futurum preterite is the same as future II. What is "futurum preterite II"? --85.72.177.201 18:16, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)--

imho South Tyrol is not an enclave region, as it has borders to Austria. --zeno 01:54 Jan 31, 2003 (UTC)

Deleting things

Hi 200.180.187.44 , could you please state, why you deleted this text? If there is a reason, it is ok. Please let me know, Thanks :-) Fantasy 16:02, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

German speakers

Germany approx. 82 m Austria approx. 7 m Switzerland approx 5 m Belgium, Denmark, Italy and Luxemburg 1 m France approx. 1 m Poland approx. 1 m Russia approx. 2 m

Together approx. 99 m

http://www.detlev-mahnert.de/deutsch_in_europa.html states around 100 million native speakers and 140 million total (only in europe).

http://www.rom.diplo.de/de/kultur/deutsch_lernen/dt-sprachenverbreitung.html " Die Zahl der in- und ausländischen Staatsbürger im In- und Ausland, die Deutsch als Muttersprache in Wort und Schrift beherrschen liegt bei ca. 91- 92 Millionen (Schätzung anhand der Einwohnerzahl deutschsprachiger Gebiete). Die Zahl derjenigen, die Deutsch als Fremdsprache beherrschen, wird zwischen 25 und 55 Millionen geschätzt. Deutsch ist die meistgesprochene Muttersprache in der Europäischen Union"

Where do the other 20 m German-speaking people live ? Do you want to include foreign-language speakers ? 62.104.210.101 15:35, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Most sources i know say approximately 100 million native speakers. Total is a little more difficult and could only be an educated guess.

Maybe this table can show it:

Frage: "Apart from your mother tongue, which of these languages can you speak well enough to take part in a conversation?" -

Dabei waren die 11 EU- Sprachen sowie die Antwortmöglichkeiten "other" und "none" vorgegeben)

In % Deutsch Französ. Englisch Spanisch Belgien 15,3 49,4 59,6 5,2 Dänemark 65,9 12,1 95,6 7,5 Deutschland 2,4* 17,7 70,3 2,3 

   - West                2,9*     19,9             74,2             2,7
   - Ost                  0,3*       8,8             53,7             0,7

Finnland 23,9 8,2 91,7 2,0 Frankreich 12,7 6,5* 63,3 24,7 Griechenland 5,3 10,6 67,2 1,1 Großbritannien 11,9 28,4 8,7* 4,1 Irland 15,7 44,3 32,6 2,7 Italien 4,7 28,8 52,8 3,7 Luxemburg 90,1 96,5 76,4 8,5 Niederlande 65,6 25,2 93,6 3,1 Österreich 0,2* 17,0 71,7 2,9 Portugal 2,5 34,0 53,0 13,0 Schweden 32,0 13,2 96,0 7,4 Spanien 1,3 9,3 39,9 15,9*


But. Around half of all danes and dutch speak german. This already is 12 million. Maybe anouter 10 million or so in eastern europe. Those who speak german as second language must be in the 25 to 55 million range. The highest estimate of 55 million minus the lowest estimate and you have around 40 million who speak it as a second language. Thats why i came up with the 140 million speakers total.

speaking of which...

no more "famous speakers of". sorry to those who slaved over the 12 people on the list. it was clearly started as a prank, has no equivalent on other pages, and should be maintained, if anywhere, as a list of "languages spoken by" the lists of famous people. (someone really adventurous could try to migrate the "famous" lists with all their various attributes to a table in wikisource, and then set up a dynamic page which would let you see lists of famous people by whatever characteristics you like. eventually, I am sure this will emerge...)

History

Copyedit partly from Standard language. Katholic = Roman Catholic is correct!

Names of German language in other languages

Is this section necessary? I think it would be better to have these translations in the Wiktionary. --Bkell 03:28, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I am removing (commenting) the Latvian entry because it seems highly improbable that vāciešū (or its Lithuanian cogante vokiečių) has anything to do, etymologically, with the Indo-European root of deutsch. They should probably be classified under a heading of their own. Any idea ? Philippe Magnabosco 16:14, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • I think it is one of the most interresting sections of the article, it should be expanded with a small text, explaining why these differences occur. -Pedro 17:13, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)


I object the paragraph beginning with reference to Austria-Hungary. First, it's a factual non-sense, as there was no such thing as Austria-Hungary in the mid nineteenth century.
Secondly, Prague was never primarily German, if not for the brief period of 18th century, and even for that time, its "primary Germanity" could be disputed. I suggest rephrasing the entire paragraph to something more easily maintainable as true. --Marcvs 07:32, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant to say the Habsburg Empire. I agree Prague used to be Czech, and was later Czech, so the German character was an "interuption" of sorts, but according to my figures, in 1815 there were 50,000 German speakers in Prague, only 15,000 Czech speakers. (A.J.P. Taylor, The Habsburg Monarchy 1809-1918, p. 24.) By 1848 there were more Czechs, but German was still the primary language of public discourse. Lets not forget that Prague was called Prag at the time.

However, I was too categorical in my paragraph, and am more than wiling to see it rewritten to reflect some moderation.

Peregrine981 13:27, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)


German is also the most commonly used language on the Internet after English.

First I dont know what precisely it should mean, second methodology of statistics which I had seen was not convincing. Wether German is second as stated in aticle or fifth as in [1] [2] or any other number from 2nd to lets say 10... it all doeas not make much sense. Wikimol 00:04, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

recently? gimme a laugh!

Until recently, however, German was printed in Gothic black letters (Fraktur, or Schwabacher) and written in Sütterlin.

This is true if recently means 70 to 90 years ago. :) -- Daniel FR 22:51, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Seems recent, in the life of a thousand- or so year-old language, but "recently" is fairly unencycopedic; the correction by User:J. 'mach' wust in response to the above comment by User: 217.186.189.246 is good for that reason. --Jerzy(t) 18:24, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

Mutual Intelligibility

Removed

Many dialects aren't understandable for someone who knows standard German.

as (poorly stated) and redundant to

Only the neighbouring dialects are mutually understandable.

Someone better informed may be able to effect a more accurate harmonization.
--Jerzy(t) 18:24, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

I've more or less reverted your edit and added some explanations. I hope it isn't redundant any more. J. 'mach' wust 10:26, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

language vs (language)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages) requires "German language" instead of "German (language)", and the rule is followed for hundreds of other language, so I'm at a loss as to why this article has been moved. Stan 05:33, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You're right, the "German language" form is standard. I don't know why it was moved, either. I've moved it back. Kwertii 17:43, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Spelling reform of 1996

I realised that an edit of mine concerning the Spelling reform of 1996 wasn't quite balanced (and quickly improved by Martg76). However, on second thoughts, the present article is not the place to duplicate an overview of a debate that is covered in larger detail in German spelling reform of 1996, so I referred the entire topic to that article.

composite words and genitiv case

I'm a German speaker and have no idea why the genitiv case is supposed to be waning. This is not the case. Everyone will still say: Das ist das Rathaus der Stadt (This is the council building of the town). Any possession would be expressed that way. On the other hand many dialects don't have a genetiv case, but that is not a new development. It has been decried lately that the dativ case is disappearing and often being merged with the akkusativ case. As to composite words, the example (Donaudampf...) is the one always given to state what a complicated language German is. The translation makes it purposely sound worse and could be done easier: service cap of a Danube steam shipping captain. It should also be stated, that such long composites are grammatically possible but not in use. After 1945 new words have hardly been created by composites. In my opinion the reason is the total loss of self esteem, understandably, of the scientific community and also, the preference of English for marketing reasons. The creation of new German words like Fernseher, Flugzeug, Sauerstoff, Stickstoff etc. instead of using Latin or Greek roots reflect a different state of mind at the time these things were invented or discovered.liebheit@t-online.de

I think the reason for the perceived decline of the genitive is that it is less used in ways other than to designate a relation of possession as in Peter's book. Examples are constructions such as wir gedenken des Papstes ("we commemorate the pope"), where a lot of people these days tend to say wir gedenken dem Papst, or wegen des... ("because of"), which is colloquially more often than not being replaced with wegen dem. Excessive use of von dem/von der rather than des/der may occur more frequently now than it once did, but is still regarded a symptom of a lack of lingual competence. --Thorsten1 19:50, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The cases where genitive is waning is primarily genitive as object, only to a lesser extent genitive as attribute. It also depends on the level of education/social level of the speaker.
  • Good points all. I changed the Donaudampf... after your example. (Next time you see something that can be improvee, just do it!) The entire section on compound nouns is bad, and focussed on "things that are funny to English speakers". It's also misleading (television is a compound noun just like Fernseher is, and Fernseher isn't actually a compound noun in the first place!), and downright wrong (after the reform, other compounds aren't joined. Actually, English has "instead of" while German now has "an Stelle von"). I urge you to rewrite that part, and give the rest of the page a much-needed look as well. Also, the section about philosophy ("many believe"...) probably isn't verifiable and needs to go (unless there is a source). Thore 12:58, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Especially since composition is also found in English. It works exactly the same way as in German. The only difference is that in German, the compound will be written as a single word, but in English as separate words. This is a mere question of orthography. Even the stress rules are identical. Compare English tree house to German Baumhaus. You may even translate Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftkapitänsmütze by Danube steem shipping company capitain cap (of course, nobody would use this in either language) J. 'mach' wust 13:26, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Nice changes. I edited some more, linking to a page about English compounds, and used the same terminology as that page. I also used some closed English compounds like summertime and doghouse to explain the concept.

I'm a native German speaker and i think the genitive case is supposed to be waning. It's right everyone says "das Rathaus der Stadt", but "Stadt" is feminine. Today, more people say instead of "das Dach des Hauses" (the roof of the house) "das Dach vom Haus" or instead of "das Bein des Hundes" (the leg of the dog)"das Beim vom/ von dem Hund" ("Haus" is neuter, "Hund" is masculine). Perhaps it takes too long to prononce the "-es". Please say what you think. 217.247.4.12

As a native speaker I have lived in several parts of Germany and I have found that the possessive genitive is still commonly used in northern and eastern Germany. It seems to be waning only in southern Germany, where the local dialects (Suebian, Bavarian, Franconian etc.) do not use the genitive. I is also indeed a question of education and the "false" genitive ("von dem/der") is often used as parody of southern or lower-class speech. At least in the North and East. megA, 15 Dec 2005
  • Joined compounds in German seem to have an undending fascination for English speakers. Now 84.56.237.28 has added a new one, after we removed the Donaudampfschiff.... (See discussion above.) Is the really important enough to be mentioned on this page? Words like that are just a curiosity, and virtually never used. To me, that means they shouldn't be used to explain German, just like [floccinaucinihilipilification] is a bad way to explain English. On the other hand, "interesting" stuff like "funny long words" does belong to an encyclopedia almost by definition, so there certainly is a place for these curiosities. I have no problem with the linked entry to [Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz] -- that's good stuff. (Even though I changed the claim that these things are "common" in German to them being "possible"). Maybe some wordsmithing in the current article all it takes... Arbor 07:56, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Nobody in German would say something like "Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz". It maybe occurs in written form, but I think it is rather unlikly as well. It would more be called "Gesetz zur Überwachung und Übertragung der Aufgaben zur Rindfleischettikettierung". Well maybe some stupid burocrat would write it together but no sane German would write, much less speak, that. --Lucius1976 23:36, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I second that, would like to point out that this makes German no different from English except in the purely written choice of whether to separate elements of a compound by a space, a dash, or nothing (actually historically somewhat of a grey area in both, though there are clearly tendencies). I think people love to have their stereotypes confirmed, so evidence that Spanish speakers speak fast and that German words are especially long tickles them the right way, but that's not really quality science. The stereotype probably started because of the lack of spaces, but saying German words are inherently long (which is basically what these examples are about) is like writing "network data processing module" as "networkdataprocessingmodule" and then sitting back to watch foreigners who can't parse it awed at the length of English words.

Adam Mathias 23:54, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Sommerzeit

Under grammar>noun inflection, the author has made a false friend: Sommerzeit doesn't mean what it sounds like. It means daylight savings time.

Sommerzeit can mean either daylight saving time or summertime. I think just the one meaning is enough here as it isn't really relevant to the article. Saintswithin 09:24, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
True enough, it is not relevant here, but nevertheless it should be stated that these days Sommerzeit is almost exclusively used to mean daylight savings. Try Google - the results where "Sommerzeit" correctly translates as "summer time" are few and far between. --Thorsten1 19:54, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
OK. The example was mine, and I picked the two words because (a) the English compound is joined, and (b) the German equivalent is very close (in spelling) to the English one, so that the example can be read and understood by people who don't speak German very well. I am, of course, completely aware of the various meanings of the word, but I didn't feel the danger of forming a false friend had any relevance to the example. (And it isn't even a false friend -- it's a translation of an English word into a German one that also has another meaning.) However, since there are now already two objections, I stand corrected. The example has to be changed. An easy way out would be to use the word "Sommerszeit", which avoids the double meaning according to my Duden. But it's not really a good example because of the joining 's'. If anybody can think of other English joined compounds that have an easily understood German equivalent then by all means replace Sommerzeit. Arbor 20:59, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I think the example is acceptable for the reasons you gave - even if the word is on its way to becoming a false friend as a result of the usage shift that occured after daylight saving time was imposed in Germany in 1980. I just felt that the original poster's comment shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. --Thorsten1 21:39, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Third or fourth most popular foreign language taught in the U.S.?

In the article, it says, "German is the third most popular foreign language taught worldwide, and the second most popular in Europe (after English) and the fourth in the USA (after Spanish and French)." Now shouldn't it be either the third most popular foreign language taught in the U.S. or the fourth, with the third most popular--whichever it may be--added to the list? --ThorstenNY 20:49, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Although I think German should be the most teached language in Europe (it is in fact very useful, even in southern European countries like mine is), I also believe it is the third, and far from English and French. -Pedro 17:20, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Some corrections, and some doubts

I have replaced the totally bogus claim of 120 million Europeans speaking German. They are only 96.75 million in 2004, and that's just 13.3% of Europeans (not 25% as what bombastically stated). Also, German is only the third most taught foreign language in Europe, not the second. French was forgotten. French is the most taught foreign language in the UK, Ireland, and Romania, and it is the second most taught foreign language in many European countries, including, for that matter, Germany itself.

Also, I find the figure of 120 million German speakers in the world quite dubious. There are only 96.75 of them in Europe. That would mean there would be 23.25 million German speakers in the Americas, in Australia, and in the south of Africa. That seems to me quite impossible. According to the 2000 US census, there were only 1,382,613 people age 5 y/o and over who spoke German at home in the US. The US is the largest pool of German speakers outside of Europe, so I don't see how the figures can add up to 120 million. Should we change the number? We can't know for sure the number of German speakers in the world, but I reckon a realistic estimate for the whole world would be approximately 100 million people whose main language is German (96.75 million in Europe, approx. 1.5 million in the US, approx. 1.5 million in Brazil, and the remaining few hundred thousands in Paraguay, Australia, South Africa, Namibia, and so on). Waiting for your comment before I change the figure. Hardouin 13:53, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • 1,5 million in Brazil yeah right.O_o. I think we need Fox Mulder to investigate that one. Actual German speaker are only found among some elderly, and I think it is not German, but some German dialect or language. This is due to restrictive language measures in a past nationalist and authoritive regime. 1,5 million is the accounted number for non-Portuguese native speakers in Brazil: mostly Italians, Spanish, Germans, Japanese, etc. and native South-Americans. -Pedro 00:05, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
German and dialects of German: What's the big difference? In the usual countings, there is no distinction. If there were one, then the number of (standard) German speakers in Germany itself would be surprisingly low. This would be as if only speakers of Received Pronunciation would count as English speakers. J. 'mach' wust 00:55, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I used the word dialect because I'm not sure it is a language, pllaadutch someting... It's a weird name. But, there is very few people actualy speaking it, numbers I cant tell.-Pedro 04:35, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It's Plattdeutsch (literally 'flat-German'), a popular term for the regional northern German varieties. Many insist it should be considered a language of its own, but it lacks a standardized version, an orthography and — an army! J. 'mach' wust 12:49, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
According to ethnologue.com, which is widely accepted as authoritative, there are "75,300,000 in Germany" (1990), "Population total all countries: 95,392,978.". That apparently exludes second language speakers resident in Germany, most of whom approach native speaker competence. The corresponding German article states a figure of 101 million native speakers. I assume this would include German speakers with a non-German ethnic background living in one of the German-speaking countries. Further, the article lists 120 million second language speakers, which I suppose probably includes people with a rudimentary memory of school German... As for the percentage of Europeans speaking German, that probably depends on who you count in as a European. I suppose the percentage given is based on the pre-2004 European Union. --Thorsten1 16:55, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Personally, I don't see nor accept Ethnologue has authoritive, but JUST has 'useful. It would be useful if some German would explore this issue, and see where German is actually spoken. Because using ancient emigration is duping. Some people that were descendant from emigrants to Germany, maybe have German has native language or his/hers parents language. We don't know, unless there is a study about that. -Pedro 17:39, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Germans in the former Soviet Union are often forgotten. According to Heinz Ingenhorst (1997): "Die Russlanddeutschen", in a census in the late 1979, 1.94 millions declared themselves as Russian Germans (of which 46.5 percents lived in Kazakhstan), though by 1989, only about half of them declared German as their native tongue. However, the community of Germans in Russia has been largely destroyed by the massive emigration to Germany from the late 90s up to the present day (more than a million). J. 'mach' wust 00:55, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As you may have noticed, the figures you provide for the Soviet Union are very old. As a matter of fact, when I calculated the figure of total German speakers in Europe, the 96.75 million figure that I put in the introduction, I did include German speakers in Russia. I even took the pain to look at the latest 2002 Russian census, which is available online only in Russian (!), and the result is: 500,000 people in Russia declared they were ethnically German. So I included the 500,000 people in the 96.75 million figure (although be aware that the majority of them is totally fluent in Russian, and probably uses more often Russian than German). The was majority of German speakers in Russia have left to Germany in the 1990s, so that now there are only 500,000 Germans left in Russia. Hardouin 23:44, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I would warn you against equating former Soviet Union ethnic Germans with German speakers. Although the Russian Germans did preserve their lingual heritage for a remarkably long time, the language was virtually stamped out in the second half of the 20th century - to the effect that only the oldest generation of ethnic Germans from Russia has any command of German today. In Germany, ethnic Germans native speakers of Russian are in fact notorious for their slow adaption to the German-speaking environment (as opposed, eg., to Russian Jews without any ethnic German background). Thus, these figures have to be handled with utmost care. --Thorsten1 19:28, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Could you provide the link to that? I do believe you, but I'd be very interested in having the source!
Kazakhstan and Sibiria, where the majority of the Russian Germans used to live, are not part of Europe, and Kazakhstan is a country of its own, independent from Russia. So for a counting of the Germans in the former Soviet Union (who call themselves Russian Germans no matter where they lived) we'd have to include data from Kazakhstan as well. J. 'mach' wust 08:13, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yes true, but remember that the vast majority of the Germans in Kazakhstan have left in the 1990s, either going back to Russia, or going to Germany. As for the link, it is: [3]. Carefull with Russian censuses though! They tend to under-report people, especially in big cities, and also there may be some ethnically German people who identified themselves just as Russian. If you look carefully online, you may also be able to find the Kazakhstan census, but I'll let you research that. Hardouin 11:12, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
So far, I've only found the CIA World Factbook entry on Kazakhstan which cites a 1999 census according to which 2.4 percent of the population are German. It provides no total number of population for the same date, but I guess that in 1999, it cannot have been much different from the current 15 million. This would mean that only some tens of thousends remained in Kazakhstan by that date, and it'll be fewer by now. There seem to be no numbers of speakers for either country. J. 'mach' wust 16:04, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That would mean 360,000 ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan. Like I said above, it is almost impossible to find out the exact number of German speakers in all the countries of the world, that's why I propose we put "approximately 100 million speakers" in the infobox, which is a much more credible figure than the 120 million that is written now. We should also put a little footnote saying that these 100 million speakers are both mother tongue speakers (the majority) and 2nd language speakers (immigrants who live in Germany, Austria, and German part of Switzerland), but that the 100 million figure does not include people across the world who learnt German as a foreign language, and may have some level of fluency in German (from very poor to fluent). What do you think? Hardouin 03:00, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Third most taught language in Europe - Vandalism

An anonymous user keeps deleting the reference to German being the third most taught foreign language in Europe, insisting on putting that it is the second most taught. I believe this is nationalist vandalism. The number of pupils studying foreign languages in Europe is particularly well documented, because the European Union conducts some surveys every year. People can check extensive data at www.eurydice.org. According to EU data, French is the second most taught foreign language in the EU (of 25 members), while German is only third. The latest data I saw showed that approximately 28% of junior high school (middle high school) students in the EU (of 25 members) study French as a foreign language, while only 20% study German as a foreign language. In high schools, about 29% study French as a foreign language, while 28% study German. Figures for English are around 90%, both in junior high schools and in high schools. Any new nationalist vandalism on that subject will be reported to some admins. Hardouin 16:35, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I will continue to revert your French nationalist vandalism. EUROPE IS NOT EU!!!! Europe is also Norway, Iceland as well as a large number of countries in Eastern Europe where German is the most important foreign language. Even Russia (where the highest number of German learners are located) is in fact a European country.
That's indeed a good point. So I see the situation as follows: There are second language acquisition rankings of the EU; there are none of all Europe (which'd also include Switzerland apart from Northern and Eastern European countries ;). So the safest thing to do while we have no statistics about the entire continent is to stick with what we have and provide only the EU ranking, but explicitly labelling it EU ranking and not Europe ranking. J. 'mach' wust 00:33, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Only a very small part of Russia is in Europe. The countries from Nothern Europeare fewly populated, main reason ice (iceland just the name gives a chill). Thought with this heat I would love a drink with lots of ice. just k/d! -Pedro 01:36, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Geographically, ie. based on the disputable convention that the Ural forms Europe's north eastern fringe, only a small part of Russia is a part of Europe. But this European part (which is small only in relation to Russia as a whole, but vast in relation to any other European country) happens to be most densely populated.--Thorsten1 09:16, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • (all)Russia: 143,420,309 (maybe 100 mi live in Europe, I don't know...)
  • Germany 82,431,390
  • France 60,656,178
  • United Kingdom 59,553,800
  • Italy 58,103,033
  • Ukraine 47,425,336
  • Spain 40,341,462
  • Poland 38,635,144
  • Romania 22,329,977
  • The Netherlands 16,407,491
  • Serbia and Montenegro 10,829,175
  • Greece 10,668,354
  • Portugal 10,566,212
  • Belgium 10,364,388
  • Czech Republic 10,241,138
  • Hungary 10,006,835
  • Sweden 9,001,774
  • Austria 8,184,691
  • Switzerland 7,489,370
  • Bulgaria 7,450,349

... Norway 4,593,041 ... Iceland 296,737 (a lot of people, it seems a Little China/India)-Pedro 10:39, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

According to http://www.eurydice.org, "German and French share second place as the second most taught language [in Europe]: German is more widespread in the countries of northern, central and eastern Europe and French in the southern and German-speaking countries." [4]

Actually, only thanks to the many Germans, who prefer to learn French, French is still somewhat important as a foreign language in Europe. Here in Scandinavia 60 % learn German and some 25-30 % learn French. Think about that, Hardouin.

the problem is that there are countries where German is learned by 0%. While there are always people around Europe learning French. Here in the Iberian Peninsula, French is learned by 10% (in Portugal almost 20%, English is a little more than French) while German is only in Portugal by 3%, 0%-0.5% (or less) in Spain, they prefer Italian. BTW I don't why why this fuss around this... In Portugal, English/French has the same level. While German is side by side with Latin, only teached to people of some areas between 16 and 18 yrs old. I never had the option to learn German, if i would had I would probably learned it, dispite not being among the most beautiful of the languages.-Pedro 20:15, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Some answers to what was said here. #1 I find the accusation of French nationalism quite ridiculous, given that I am not even French myself. But, whatever! #2 I like accuracy, and I certainly don't like edits by anonymous users who seem to be motivated by propaganda only and not by the acuracy of facts. #3 Eurydice actually DOES include the countries of Europe outside of the UE, if you have read in detail, with the exception of CIS countries (Russia, Ukraine, and Bielorussia). If (non CIS) European countries outside of the EU are included, then it skews results even more in favor of French. Romania is the most populated European country outside of the EU (and discounting CIS countries), its population amounts to a third of the total population of all the European countries not yet part of the EU, and in Romania Eurydice tells us that about 88% of pupils are learning French, whereas only 10% are learning German. In Switzerland, a state twice more populated than Norway, about 70% of pupils learn French, because it is mandatory in the curriculum, since French is one of the official languages of Switzerland, whereas only about 30% learn German (70% don't need to learn German, it's already their native tongue). Hardouin 02:31, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I suggest you read the Eurydice report: German and French share second place as the second most taught language [in Europe]: German is more widespread in the countries of northern, central and eastern Europe and French in the southern and German-speaking countries. [5]. Is Eurydice wrong?
There's no reason to doubt the Eurydice data. However, they have researched only the countries of the EU. I don't know of any figures that include all of Europe, and nobody has mentioned any. So instead of guessing what the most teached languages in all Europe are, we better don't say anything at all about them. Instead, we should use the Eurydice data on the EU. J. 'mach' wust • tskʃpræːx 12:15, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The quote from Eurydice that our anonymous user is putting here is just a general statement. If you read the tables in detail, you will find out that approximately 28% of junior high school (middle high school) students in the EU (of 25 members) study French as a foreign language, while only 20% study German as a foreign language. In high schools, about 29% study French as a foreign language, while 28% study German. Hardouin 12:21, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I haven't found it yet, the Eurydice site is quite labyrintical. Could you please point out the exact document (and page number if it is a pdf)? J. 'mach' wust • tskʃpræːx 14:04, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[6], page 4. Hardouin 14:47, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • I find very difficult to understand German having the same level of French in Europe. -Pedro 18:58, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Okay, so now both sources are on the table, and we can compare them. The source of 83.109.xxx.x is Key Data on Teaching Languages at School in Europe, the press release from February 2005. The source of Hardouin (who is not French) is Key Data on Teaching Languages at School in Europe, also from February 2005. This second source, however, is not only a press release, but provides more detailed numbers. Therefore, I think this document is more credible: German is the third taught second language in the EU after English and French.
What reasons does 83.109.xxx.x have to reject that second document? What sources does he have for his claims about entire Europe (he hasn't provided any so far). J. 'mach' wust • tskʃpræːx 16:41, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the Eurydice statement is a general statement. Any reason not to trust it? Let me repeat: "German and French share second place as the second most taught language [in Europe]: German is more widespread in the countries of northern, central and eastern Europe and French in the southern and German-speaking countries." If Eurydice say so, we can trust it.

Even if German and French indeed "share second place as the second most taught language [in Europe]," it is no reason to simply write that "German is the second most taught language in Europe" and completely disregard the fact that this place is shared with French. But again, the quote from the press release is just a general statement, and it does not correspond to the more eleborate data refered to earlier.

Hardouin provides data for the EU which is an organization with do not cover the entire Europe. Specifically, many of the countries where German is an important foreign language and French is less important (Eastern Europe incl. Russia (with the highest number of German learners in the world), as well as countries like Norway) are not included.

You're also providing "data for the EU which is an organization with do not cover the entire Europe": You're relying exactly on the same data as Hardouin, that is, on the Eurydice report, which provides only data for the EU (and occasionally for Norway, Island, Romania and Bulgaria). Why do you keep claiming wrongly you have provided wider data? You haven't yet. I want to see statistics, not an out of context quote from a press release which doesn't provide any numbers at all. The document you're basing your argumentation on is only a resume for those who don't bother about all the statistical details, and it's a resume of the very same document Hardouin referred to. Where have you learnt that Russia has the highest number of German learners in the world? That is the source you should provide! J. 'mach' wust • tskʃpræːx 01:11, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Cognates with English

I'm sorry that "internationalism" is a usual linguistical term. Of course it doesn't mean that the corresponding word is used in all the languages of the world, and it surely is somewhat Eurocentristic, but that doesn't stop it from being a usual linguistical term.

As to the origin of "sozial": Dudenredaktion (Hrsg.): Duden, Herkunftswörterbuch, Etymologie der deutschen Sprache, 3., völlig neu bearbeitete und erweiterte Auflage, Dudenverlag: Mannheim, Leipzig, Wien, Zürich 2001 (the latest edition):

"Das Adjektiv wurde im 18. Jh. — wohl unter dem Einfluss von entsprechend frz. social — aus gleichbed. lat. socialis entlehnt." J. 'mach' wust 08:15, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I guess Duden online is less complete than the paper version then. About "internationalism", I am removing, because, as you say it yourself, this is a highly Eurocentric concept, and it is quite a shaky disputed concept. Here at Wikipedia, we intend to write for the whole world, not just for Europe. Hardouin 11:08, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Russian

According to our article, there "are somewhere around 150 million Russian speakers in Europe". As Russia has less than 150 million inhabitants in total, this must be wrong. How many native Russian speakers are there in Europe?

Russian is actually spoken outside Russia as well, you know. Ever hear of, say, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine? All of these are European countries, they are relatively densely populated (at least if compared to the non-European part of Russia), and they all have a considerable percentage of native speakers of Russian. So the figure of 150 million speakers is not totally unrealistic.--Thorsten1 22:21, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ranking again

I would like to see a source for the claim that "German is the third most popular foreign language taught worldwide". Naïvely, I would have guessed at a ranking like English, French, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, and then German. The original source for this statement, inserted by Nico, was http://flabs.emich.edu/mzinggeler/topten.html, which makes the more specific and dubious claim that the the top three are English, Japanese, and German. I would be very pleased but slightly surprised if figures for a worldwide ranking were available that accurately treated the world outside of Europe and North America. China in particular seems likely to contribute much larger counts to Japanese, Russian, and possibly Spanish, than to German. — Pekinensis 23:36, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

I have removed the unsubstantiated claim. — Pekinensis 22:58, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

German views on Dutch

German speakers who can speak English are generally able to read Dutch, even if some may find the spoken language amusing, due to a widespread opinion in Germany that after all "Dutch is just a German dialect".

I am sure that this opinion is not widespread in Germany. In the 23 years that I have lived here, I have never heard it. It is true though that Dutch sounds funny to many native speakers of German. --zeno 28 June 2005 10:51 (UTC)

Linguistically Dutch is a Low German language, and thus one of the forms of German.
Are there any linguists that say so? I doubt it. Sources, please. -- j. 'mach' wust ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x 5 July 2005 19:17 (UTC)
If you doubt facts it's your problem. I don't believe there are any linguists who say Dutch is not a Low German language. I suggest you start reading Dutch language (check genetic classification) and Low German languages.
I'm sorry I didn't know that Low German languages is a genetic classification term. So Nederlands really is a Low German language.
However, this does not make it a form of the German language. German language is not a genetic classification term, but the name of the language spoken in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland (etc.).
By important and usual criteria to distinguish between dialects and standard languages, Nederlands is a standard language of its own: it is standardized in writing and to a certain degree in speaking (Ausbausprache), and it is employed as the standard language behind the dialects spoken in Netherlands and Flanders (etc.) for all written language purposes (Dachsprache). -- j. 'mach' wust ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x 7 July 2005 10:00 (UTC)
From the linguistical point of view, 'German' may refer to both High and Low German languages, and there are a large number of them. Standard High German as used in Germany and other countries is only one of many German languages. Many other German languages, including Low German languages which are more closely associated with Dutch than High German, are also spoken in Germany. So 'German' has two meanings: one linguistical and one common usage form (short for Standard High German, which this article is dealing with).

Or is German in fact a dialect of Dutch? Not a terribly meaningful discussion. --Doric Loon 6 July 2005 10:06 (UTC)

Don't be so bloody silly. That is like saying Germanic if a form of German instead of German a form of Germanic, i.e. turning everything around.

No, if you are going to play the game of saying that one is more original than the other then you can do it either way. But my point was precisely that this game is silly. --Doric Loon 7 July 2005 10:40 (UTC)

I don't know which game you are playing. It's an established fact that Dutch is a Low German language. German couldn't possibly be a form of its own subset (note: I'm not referring to High German, which is also a subset of German, just like Dutch is).

I challenge those categories. West Germanic diffused into a series of dialects, out of which two equally valid standard languages crystalised. If you want to call the whole group "German" then you can make it look as though German is more original than Dutch, but that is an entirely arbitrary construct. My point was that you could as easily (and as wrongly) call the whole group "Dutch" and give the impression that German developed out of that. But this is just not the way linguists think. I am not happy with calling Dutch "a Low German language". It's as good as any other convention if we are clear about what we mean, but this discussion proves that it is widely misunderstood. At any rate, it is just not true to say that ALL linguists use this terminology. By the way, get yourself a username if you want people to talk to you. --Doric Loon 8 July 2005 09:47 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, the term West Germanic languages is appearently being used for the whole group, which seems to be a fair choice. Since I'm not familiar with the Engish terminology, I can't tell how common the use of the term Low German as a denomination for the northern West Germanic languages is. At the German article Westgermanische Sprachen, the northern group is called niederdeutsche Sprachen, and within this group, Dutch is situated in the sub-group niederfränkische Sprachen. At the Dutch article West-Germaanse talen, the northern group is called Nederduits, and within this group, Dutch is situated in the sub-group Nederfrankisch. -- j. 'mach' wust ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x 8 July 2005 12:40 (UTC)

Relationship between German and Dutch

Very simplified, the structure would be something like this:

  • German languages
    • High German
      • Standard High German (the subject of this article)
    • Low German
      • Low Franconian
        • Dutch
        • Afrikaans
        • Limburgish
      • Low Saxon
      • East Low German


Fair enough as a model, but you put your finger on it when you say it is very much simplified. Remember that we historical linguists have long since abandoned the idea of a stemma (family tree) as a way of indicating relationships between language forms which are very close to one another. It is fine for showing that, for example, English and German are "sister languages" whereas English and French are "cousins", but it only really works after languages have become mutually incomprehensible and therefore develop separately and influence each other only in limited ways. For related dialects, this kind of chart never really works. For example, this one implies that first High and Low German split, and then these two hermetically sealed languages subdivided. That doesn't account for the fact that they were still mutually intelligible and fashions in language (idioms, neologisms, semantic changes, later shound sifts) crossed the Benrath line as though it wasn't there. A low and a high German dialect which were a couple of miles apart on opposite sides of the line could be much more similar to each other than two Low German dialects which were more remote from each other. This is why it is misleading to present this high/low split as though it were an absolute set of categories for defining relationships. It's a part of the story. --Doric Loon 8 July 2005 14:32 (UTC)
You are entitled to hold an opinion and to deny the existance of Low German languages, but this is the mainstream version accepted by most linguists. Check out Germanic languages. When I said the structure was simplified, it was because I omitted details which were not relevant in this context where the point only was to show roughly the relationship between Standard High German and Dutch. The real tree is far more complicated.
I'm not denying the existence of anything. I SAID it's part of the story. But "mainstream linguistics" is very sceptical about the usefulness of this kind of table. The Wiki articles on language are full of them, and that is understandable, because they are probably the best way of making certain kinds of information visible for lay people, but somewhere in Wikipedia we need a clear statement of their limitations.
Coming back to Low German, possibly the phrase "the Low German / Dutch continuum" which I have used elsewhere (e.g. in High German consonant shift) is less confusing than trying to use the term "Low German" on two levels (sometimes including Dutch and sometimes not).
BTW - you REALLY need to get a username; without it a discussion like this gets very difficult for people to follow. --Doric Loon 8 July 2005 17:26 (UTC)

Dutch as a language of its own evolved in the 16th or 17th century, until then it was considered simply (Low) German. The traditional name of the language is Dietsch, meaning the same as Deutsch.

But a more precise way of saying it would be that as Dutch and German drifted apart that would be the date at which you (quite subjectively) would see them as having become separate langugages. Whether Dietsch meant the same as Deutsch, is rather begging the question. It depends to whom. To some it may have meant something more like Dutch.--Doric Loon 8 July 2005 14:32 (UTC)

State of Low German

I notice sometimes that people get sensitive and think that "Low German" sounds as if it's a lower (i.e. worse) form of German. It's a bit late to change hundreds of years of linguistic writings however, so people will have to learn that the terms "low" and "high" are only geographical in origin ("near the ocean" and "in the hills"). But I think it might be helpful if we use "German" when refering to "Modern High German" and use "Germanic" (with "-IC") when refering to families of languages or ancient languages that we try to construct. Does that suggestion help at all? Of course there's no problem in German with "Plattdeutsch" ("low" or "flat" German), although I think Germans sometimes feel they are superior because they speak "Hochdeutsch" ("high (and mighty?)" German). ******User: Phil Ology 26 Sept 2005.

It would seem that what everyone is encountering here are the multiple uses of the phrase "Low German" which is both a linguistics term, used by linguists, and essentially a translation of the German word Plattdeutsch which is used in contrast to Hochdeutsch--the origins of which do in fact relate to topography, although there is likely a stigma now associated with anything not considered High German. It should be known that the dialects spoken in the northern regions of Germany are more similar in overall phonology to Dutch. Genetically Dutch is more closely related to these Low German dialects than it is to High German. It should also be noted, as alluded to in the article, that High German was only made the standard dialect when Martin Luther translated the Vulgate Bible. To delve into logical and historical falacy for the sake of argument, one could say that were the Netherlands part of the Holy Roman Empire when Luther translated the Bible, they would be speaking High German in the schools there as well while they spoke Dutch in their homes. Additionally, Low German is considered a subdivision of the Western Germanic languages. Therefore Low German did not evovle from High German, rather, Dutch, Plattdeutsch and High German are all sister languages (or dialects) of a common root langauge--most likely the unattested and reconstructed Western Germanic. Usually the distinction between this linguistic subdivision and the northern dialects is not necessary because of the context; however, perhaps there could be some simple fix in Wikipedia so as to disambiguate the terms. (NB: I currently have no online sources for my information, but can provide ISBNs--I'm still learning how to format edits.)Kaibab 06:59, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

You'll be surprised to know that the Netherlands indeed were a part of the Holy Roman Empire when Luther translated the Bible. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 18:59, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I'm not that surprised that the Netherlands were part of the Holy Roman Empire at that time--my history is rusty. However, the Union of Utrecht didn't come that far behind the full publication of Martin Luther's Bible (from the dates I can find it looks like only about 45 years--a very short time in terms of a fledgling religion). I suspect that the Netherlands were into their independence by the time the Lutheran church got on its feet. So, I think my point still stands.Kaibab 04:51, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Fair enough (their formal independence came with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648). The genealogical view on the subdivisions of German is subject to servere restrictions, however. If the northern German regional varieties were historically closer to Dutch, they are not any more nowadays, that is to say, most speakers of Plattdüütsch will understand standard German more easily than Dutch. And whatever the politics may decide, the linguists will continue debating whether Plattdüütsch is a language or a dialect. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 08:56, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Two items: One, how do you know Plattdeutsch speakers understand High German better than Dutch? And do you know for certain that they don't understand Hochdeutsch better than Dutch because of their schooling? Two, if Plattdeutsch speakers understand Hochdeutsch better than Dutch regardless of their schooling, then I contend that it is due to modern Plattdeutsch having been heavily influenced by Hochdeutsch (i.e., through borrowing and the like) whereas Dutch would have been allowed to evovle in its own way. That is to say, that the politics have caused the languages to diverge. In fact, strictly genetically speaking, Plattdeutsch is more related to English, than it is to High German; moreover, some of the sound changes that distinguish High German from other West Germanic languages, are still not heard in Plattdeutsch dialects, making them sound eerily close to their English cognates. But, and I'm speaking theoretically, since I have very limited experience with Plattdeauth, I would suppose that if someone speaking High German today, were to go to northern Germany and only encounter Plattdeutsch, they would pick up more than someone speaking English--which is to say we all should bear in mind that genetic classification has more to do with history and origins of a language than it does with one or another's ability to understand a related language. High German split from the Wester Germanic around 500 ADKaibab 03:05, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Certainly: The genetic classifications may diverge from the present interrelations of languages! The reason why a German Plattdeutsch speaker will understand German much easier than Dutch is that German Plattdeutsch speakers have standard German newspapers, watch standard German television, listen standard German broadcast, have standard German burocracy and legislation, and yes, also because they attend standard German schools, and all this for several hundreds of years. Well, another reason is that Dutch has had some vowel shifts of its own, but I consider this is a minor point. On the other hands, Plattdeutsch speakers in the Netherlands understand Dutch much easier than standard German for exactly the same reasons. From what I understand, the opposition between speakers from the Netherlands and from Germany is a quite serious problem on the Plattdeutsch Wikipedia, since either are used to transcribe Plattdeutsch according to the spelling of their respective standard languages Netherlands and standard German (see nds:Wikipedia:Spraak för de Artikels). -- j. 'mach' wust | ✍ 12:48, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

German in Belgium

German is the sole official language of the German speaking community in Belgium ([7] and [8]), and it has the same status in Belgium like French and Dutch. So it is not a proper regional language, as French and Dutch are not either. --Danutz

Expansion requests

{{expansion}} Found in HTML comments in the article:

  • Content should be added on:
    • Creoles and other languages that are derived from this language.
    • Description of the sound set of the language. Can include phoneme charts and example words for each phoneme like in French language. If there is significant discussion here, it is probably best to divide the section into vowels and consonants subsections.
    • Vowel chart and discussion of vowels.
    • Consonant chart and discussion of consonants.
    • Discussion of some major phonological processes, such as important allophones or assimilation rules.
    • Description of important sound changes in the history of the language. (Maybe this should go under history?)
    • German vocabulary. This section should contain a discussion of any special features of the vocabulary (or lexicon) of the language, like if it contains a large number of borrowed words or a different sets of words for different politeness levels, taboo groups, etc.

Third most taught language in EU - Please answer it at last, anonymous reverter 83.109.xxx !

The source of 83.109.xxx.x is Key Data on Teaching Languages at School in Europe, the press release from February 2005. The source Hardouin provided (who is not French) is Key Data on Teaching Languages at School in Europe, also from February 2005. Note the identical names? What's the difference then? The source of the anonymous user is nothing but a mere resume of the longer document, a press release intended for journalists who don't care about statistics.

What reasons does 83.109.xxx.x have to reject that second, more detailed document?

The second problem: What sources does he have for his claims about entire Europe, not only the EU (he hasn't provided any so far).

He has only provided data for the EU: He's relying exactly on the same data as Hardouin, that is, on the Eurydice report, which provides only data for the EU (and occasionally for Norway, Island, Romania and Bulgaria).

Why does he keep claiming wrongly he has answered this criticism? He hasn't, nor has he provided any wider data. I'm speaking statistics, not an out of context quote from a press release which doesn't provide any numbers at all. The document he's basing his argumentation on is only a resume for those who don't bother about statistical details, and it's a resume of the very same document Hardouin referred to. -- j. 'mach' wust ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x 9 July 2005 04:34 (UTC)

I tried to settle this argument yesterday by finding a turn of phrase which could include both figures, but possibly that's too cheap a compromise. There should be no statistical information given which is not verifiable. I think the onus is on our anonymous friend to prove his point. (That is partly because without a username he cannot develop a Wikipedia track-record which might incline me to trust him. People with usernames develop a reputation which gives them authority! For example, I know user:J. 'mach' wust from useful contributions elsewhere.) BTW, I did delete in passing the reference to German being 3rd most taught language in the World after French and Spanish. That would make English fourth? This must be an oversight. --Doric Loon 9 July 2005 12:07 (UTC)

Here is another source: the official EU statistical office 1 (cant get any more correct) and it is clear about German as second most tought 2nd language and French third 2nd language!

I suggest you reread the document you are refering to. In fact, it does not say that German is the second most taught second-language in the EU. It says it is the second most spoken one (only by 1%). Don't get confused!
Dont You worry me getting confused! Its a shame you need such hard work to get the facts: the report is very clear on German being a) the most spoken native tongue in the EU (every child knows that!) and b) has overtaken French as the second most taught second language!! Just for You two quotes from the report:
"In the EU, English (34%) is the most widely known language besides the mother tongue followed by German (12%) and French (11%). Spanish and Russian are spoken as a foreign language by 5%" and
"German has caught up French as the second most spoken foreign language in the EU due to its more widely spread use in the “new” Member States (21% versus 12%)."

These are data from Sep 2005; changing this article to outdated realities doesnt make French any more attractive!

Cognates

Werfen can also have a similiar meaning as to warp. Isn't Partei originally from the Latin word partes (meaning parts or party).

Arrangement in German has a broader meaning than arragement in music.

German-origin words in Tagalog

Check this out: tl:Wikang_Aleman. Do the words in the list near the bottom of the page really come from German?

Older forms are not classifications

I removed the older forms of German from the infobox, since this is really just a matter of older forms of (High) German, not language groups.

Peter Isotalo 20:42, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

about "German...": tribes vs. regions

I'm okay with speaking of "German..." as 'historical-geographical region'. However, I consider we should do the same with "Alemann..." and "Sax.." then. All three names referred first to the people, but came later to refer to the regions they inhabitated. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 19:55, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Dear Mach, I have reverted this again. The difference is that some peoples encountered Germans trough the Saxon tribe, and some through the Allemani tribe (or, in the case of the French, had to pick the second, as the Frankish parts were not useful to draw a distinction) - those people who use the word German however don't do so because they encountered a tribe called Germans or the whole of the Germanic peoples but rather because this people they wanted to refer to lived in the region that the Romans called Germania. Of course, the Romans didn't invent the term Germania but called the region after some (in fact Celtic) tribe they encountered somewhere in the Rhineland. But that is the complicated development:

Roman times: Celtic tribe "Germani" > region "Germania" (provinces and "free Germania) > umbrella term "Germanic" for a various peoples living there

Renaissance: region "Germania" > "Germans" referring to the inhabitants of that region (by Germand and foreign humanists)

Str1977 17:01, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Uniqueness of noun capitalization

The article said that the German orthography is the only one that has noun capitalization, but then, someone changed that into the following:

In the German orthography, like in some other West Germanic languages such as Alemannic and Saterland Frisian, nouns and most words with the syntactical function of nouns are capitalised.

This is not correct because neither Alemannic nor Saterland Frisian have proper orthographies. The German orthography is the only one that has noun capitalization. If Alemannic or Saterland Frisian are written, then they are most of the times written by people who speak and write fluently in German and therefore use the conventions of the German orthography for their transcription (for instance sch for /ʃ/, ä, ö, ü for /æ, ø, y/ or — noun capitalization). -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 20:42, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi J. 'mach' wust, it was me who wrote this; I was logged out without knowing it while edting. You could perfectly be right, but I had concluded that Alemannic and Saterland Frisian have capitalization because I had seen nl:Sjabloon:Gebruiker stq and Template:User als... So the spelling on these sources isn't correct? See also als:Houptsyte. Belgian man 15:06, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
In order to tell whether a spelling is correct, there needs to be a unified orthography to which it can be compared. However, neither Saterland Frisian nor Alemannic have their own orthographies, so there's no way to tell whether their spelling is correct or not. Most of the times, both languages are spelled according to the German orthography. That is to say, the samples you're referring to show basically German orthographies.
Exceptions may be found in the case of Alsatian (an Alemannic variety) which is sometimes spelled according to the French orthography, since the Alsace is a part of France and French is the standard language there. I also imagine that Saterland may occasionally be spelled according to the Dutch orthography or according to the orthographies of other Frisian varieties if there are any. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 17:16, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Strange... So all Saterland Frisian and Alemannic texts in Wikimedia have in fact incorrect spelling? Belgian man 15:40, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm trying to explain it yet another time: The only possible meaning of correct with respect to a spelling is ‘according to standard orthography’. Asking is this spelling correct? means the same as asking is this spelling according to standard orthography? Now if you replace “standard orthography” by “...” because neither Frisian nor Alemannic have a standard orthography, then the outcome is blatant nonsense: Is this spelling according to ...?
Perhaps an analogy can help you: Is it possible to tell whether the Cuban glaciers are threatened by global warming or not? — No, it's impossible because there are no Cuban glaciers. In the same way, it's impossible to tell whether the Alemannic orthography is correct or not, because there is no Alemannic orthography. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 17:08, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, I understand that. So in fact; the authors of als: may choose how to spell a word, they try to spell it a bit phonetic or a bit like in German isn't it? Belgian man 18:05, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Exactly! In fact, the two main tendencies in Alemannic spelling correspond to the two “bits” you've just mentioned: Either to spell as close as possible to German orthography or as close as possible to pronunciation (see for the former: Werner Marti, 1985: Bärndütschi Schrybwys. Bern: Francke. ISBN 3-7720-1597-2. See for the latter: Eugen Dieth, 1986: Schwiizertütschi Dialäktschrift. Aarau/Frankfurt am Main/Salzburg: Sauerländer. ISBN 3-7941-2832-X). -- j. 'mach' wust | ✍ 01:10, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, thanks for the information. It would be nice if there would be an institute for the regularisation of Alemannic... Belgian man 12:37, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Don't put too much hope in this, because this is very improbable. In German-speaking Switzerland, there is no agenda for reinforcing dialects because the problem is not a fading away of the dialects, but rather of the standard language which has been loosing more and more ground to the dialects. Additionally, official political support of the Swiss German dialects would be a major affront to the Romance population of Switzerland (French, Italian and Rumantsch). The situation is different in France and in Germany, where the dialects are loosing ground to the standard languages. In Mulhouse, France, the groupe d'études et de recherches interdisciplinaires sur le plurilinguisme en Alsace et en Europe has initiated a charte de la graphie harmonisée des parlers alsaciens (the site is not by themselves), though this seems not to have any official support but is a private initiative hosted by the Université de Haute Alsace. The Swiss Dieth proposition (originally from 1938) is comparable to that French proposition because it also suggests a "harmonized graphy" for a wide range of dialects and because it is a private initiative by an academic (though it is not the result of a consensus). However, it hasn't been widely accepted in the areas that already had an important dialect literature previous to that date, especially Basel German and Bernese German.
Another important point is that for those who consider the dialect the "good" language of their heart, but the standard language the "evil" language of school, it is an important feature of the dialect that it does not have any rules but allows total liberty (which of course is an illusion), and they believe that "evil" orthography is something that belongs uniquely to the "evil" standard language, but does not affect the "good" dialect. This view is widespread in German-speaking Switzerland (more on this for instance in Das Verhältnis von Mundarten und Standardsprache in der deutschsprachigen Schweiz by Beat Siebenhaar (pdf). -- j. 'mach' wust | ✍ 14:51, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
It is indeed rather improbable because much people see it as a dialect. Belgian man 10:35, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Intelligibility of Dutch to speakers of German

"German speakers who can speak Low German or English are generally able to read Dutch"

Shouldn't it be added that a German who knows Low German better understands Dutch due to similarities on account of regional closeness within the Germanic languages of Dutch and Low German and those who know English better understand Dutch due to French Vocabulary borrowed into both of the languages?

Hmmm, there's some French vocabulary borrowed into German, as well, though, and certain words that exist in English and Dutch, but not German (such as "ham"), I don't know if an Englishman generally would understand Dutch better than German, though... 81.232.72.148 17:28, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
If you can speak English and German you can follow Dutch quite well... often it looks /sounds like a mix of english and german with german grammar and sentence construction...IsarSteve 18:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, I'd say that most of the Dutch vocabulary is similar to German, and other continental West Germanic languages, but the pronunciation is quite different, and I especially doubt that an Englishman would understand much without prior learning. A Low German speaker might catch more, probably. 81.232.72.148 22:33, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
An English speaker who hasn´t mastered German won´t understand Dutch.. but if he has a good understanding of German, he´ll be able to read dutch and be able to follow a conversationIsarSteve 21:08, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I doubt that. Only if he knows also some old fashioned and less used German words like a native German does. Many words in Dutch are similar to older German words which are less used and some even obsolete. A native German knews also a amount of this less known or obsolete German words, so he can more easily grasp some Dutch words that are pronounced and/or written like this older/less frequent German ones.

What I meant to say is shouldn't reasons be given for the ease of understanding that certain speakers have of Dutch? That's all! Wasn't making a point about the intelligibility of English and Dutch

I can personally say that as a native speaker of English, and having recently learned intermediate German, that I can follow Dutch, a little bit better than I can follow Latin by being near fluent in French. Often, I read German wikipedia, and if I need info on the Netherlands, switch to Dutch wikipedia. Aericanwizard 22:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Intelligibility of Frisian

Is Frisian really not intelligible to the surrounding dialects? -- j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 13:18, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

In a word, no. I speak perfect German and Danish, and passable Low German. But Frisian (spoken) is impossible, and Frisian (written) is harder for me than written Dutch. However, I do believe that written Frisian should be quite easy to learn (just as written Dutch). So let's say "as hard as Dutch" instead of "not intelligible". Certainly easier then French, Thai, or Klingon. Arbor 12:06, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Source for German on the net

What's the source for German being the second language of the Internet? It has been pointed out that this seems not to be in accordance with [9]. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 11:24, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

It's the number of web pages in languages. The active participation in the Internet, not the passive one like number of users. It's true that according to the number of web pages, German is at the second place. Far behind English, but still. In the Wikipedia it the same way as well :-)

Minority language in Croatia

German is recognised as minority language in Croatia and in NO OTHER country of the former Yugoslavia. Also, there is an officially recognised German and Austrian minority that has a representative in Croatian parliament.

German in North American universities

I am removing the last paragraph of the "history" section here, which states that German replaced Latin as the dominant language in all European and North American universities during the nineteenth century. While it is true that German replaced Latin in Germanophone countries at this time, and also true that Stanford University chose to express its motto in German, there has never been a time when German was preferred to English in British, Canadian, or United States universities. There was a time when a knowledge of the German language was darned near necessary to work as a research scholar in the sciences or the humanities, but that's very different from "predominating."Dave1898 12:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Low Germanic / High Germanic

I'm somewhat sceptical of these terms used in the dialect section. My feeling is they should be replaced by Low German and High German. Reasons:

1. The only use I can find of German equivalents to these (Niedergermanisch/Hochgermanisch) is in the work of one linguist, Theo Venneman, where they apply to a controversial theory of the development of Germanic, not to the development of German.

2. They don't seem to make much sense outside Vennemann's theory - High and Low German are immediate subsets of continental West Germanic, not of Germanic as a whole, as the introductory sentence makes clear.

Is there anything in favour of these terms? Pfold 20:49, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I am, I'll try to explain my view a bit.

  • "Low German" , at least in English, is associated with/the same as "Platt/Low Saxon".
  • "Low & High German" might suggest that German is the ancestor of languages as Dutch and Afrikaans, which it of course isn't.
  • Strickly speaking "High German" just means Standard German, while "High Germanic" includes languages/dialects such as Allemanic and Luxembourgian.

Sandertje 21:35, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

  • But Old Low German is the ancestor of modern Dutch - the Dutch/German distinction doesn't really arise until the 16th/17th century.
  • "High German" does not just mean Standard German: it is a term which encompasses all the varieties south of the Benrath line throughout the history of German, of which the modern standard language is one. High German on its own is of course normally taken to mean the standrad language, but when it's follwoed by a list of dialects it's clear that it has the broader meaning.

The fact the Germans themselves do not make a terminological distinction between Hochdeutsch and *Hochgermanisch is surely significant. For example, the 4 volume "Lexikon der germanistischen Linguistik" which covers all varieties and periods of German does not even include the term in its index.

But above all, the fact that Low Germanic and High Germanic are just not the standard terms ought to be sufficient to exclude them. Pfold 23:43, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Old Low German is not the ancestor of Modern Dutch.Low Frankish/Franconian is, fact is that both Low German and Low Franconian are Low Germanic languages.

Dutch reached a separate identity before AD 600, therefore suggesting German and Dutch parted ways in the 16/17th century is preposterous really. (That would mean German became 'High' and Dutch became 'low' in the last 400 years... please.)

  • I know that, but does the average reader? High Germanic means about the same as High German, but Low German doesn't mean the same as Low Germanic languages.

I really don't get what you're fussing about ;-) 

Sandertje 12:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

It's simply about preferring the standard terms to non-standard (and rare) ones. Which should be used for preference on the main Wiki page on a subject?

Anyone else care to express a view here, to stop us just arguing between ourselves?! Pfold 19:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes standard terms are wrong.

Anyway I suggest to view the talk page on 'germanic languages'.

Number of speakers ranking

It's 11, not 9 or 10.

Count for yourself

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers#100_million_native_speakers_or_more

Sandertje 12:43, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi there - I get differing data from different sources;

And most importantly putting all sort of data together to establish a more relevant point of view:

10 Feb 2006 NYC

Updating *classification/related language* section.

Any comments/objections ? Post them here or forever hold your piece.

Sandertje 19:32, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Pun intended? Adam Mathias 21:43, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes

Sandertje 22:01, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Luther

The statement "The German translation of the Bible by Martin Luther in 1522 developed the first common standard for the German language, thus allowing ease of communication between the different dialects of German." is false on two counts: 1) Only the New Testament translation was published in 1522. 2) The old view that Luther created the first common standard has been entirely revised by the research of the last 40 years or so - you will not find any recent (scholarly) book on the German language which supports this idea. (Incidentally the statement lower down the page about "das gemaine deutsch" is misleading, since that predates Luther.) Pfold 13:19, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi, please cite a reference or references to back up your statement. Regards, Elf-friend 14:19, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
I'll see what I can do, though logically I think is up to Sam Spade to provide evidence for his positive assertion. But the German Wikipedia article on deutsche Sprache states what I regard as the current consensus:
"Es muss aber angemerkt werden, dass Luthers Bedeutung im Hinblick auf die Entstehung der Neuhochdeutschen Schriftsprache lange Zeit überschätzt wurde. Bereits seit dem 14. Jahrhundert bildete sich allmählich eine immer stärker überregional geprägte Schriftsprache heraus, die man auch als Frühneuhochdeutsch bezeichnet."
... and Elf-Friend's reference doesn't actually help: the page referred to quite correctly states that only the New Testment was published in 1522 and doesn't say anything about Luther and the development of a standard language. See Publication dates for the various Bible tranlations of Luther
OK, how about this, from R.E.Keller, The German Language (1977):
Luther found himself... using the already well-developed written language of Meissen which, with other regional written languages, was in a process of mutual adaptation and greater standardization. (p. 381)
Waterman, A History of the German Language (1976)
Luther's language... had by no means won universal acceptance. As of the year 1600, there were still three major literary dialects of German... (p. 135)
Pfold 17:53, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Since no one has come with any contrary authorities, I'm going to remove the Luther para again.

Most common used language?

In the article, the following is stated;

German is the main language of about 100 million people in Europe (as of 2004), or 13.3% of all Europeans, being the most spoken language in Europe excluding Russia, above French (66.5 million speakers in Europe in 2004) and English (64.2 million speakers in Europe in 2004). German is the third most taught foreign language worldwide, also in the USA (after Spanish and French); it is the second most known foreign language in the EU (after English; see [1]) It is one of the official languages of the European Union, and one of the three working languages of the EU, along with English and French.

According to the Eurobarometer survey conducted May-June 2005 (published September, available on the EU website), German is the mother toungue of 18% of all Europeans and spoken by an additional 12% as a second language, for a total of 30%. It also states that English, the mother toungue of 13% of European Union member citizens, is spoken by an additional 34% for a total of 47%, making it more commonly used than German. Though the fact that it is the second most known foreign language to English is mentioned, the fact that overall it is spoken by less people in the EU25 than English is contradicted by this article.

The article states that German is the most commonly spoken language in Europe excluding Russia, which as we see here is not the case for at least the EU. Even were German widely spoken in the Baltic states and Russia to make more than English in Europe, 47% of the EU population does not equal out to 64.2 million people.

Could someone, perhaps an actual qualified linguist or one of the authors of this segment, please explain what's going on here? My apologies if I sounded a little annoyed, this is merely a subject of academic interest as the English-speaking numbers seemed rather low, a figure borne out by the EU survey I checked. Eurobarometer survey linked here, PDF

Thanks,

David Corbett 16:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I am not a linguist. But, think I believe I can tell you what you want to know. The first paragraph is about native speakers. Guess the confusion is because native speaker isn't exactly mentioned. Just add in "native" and you are fine. Actually in a matter of speaking German is the most commonly spoken language in Europe, excluding Russia. Not just native but overall, in a matter of definition. While it is true that in the overall figure more are capable of speaking English than German, that doesn't actually mean it is most commonly, meaning frequently, spoken. The most language usage is surely by those who speak in a country where it is the national language. A high number of non-native speakers of English in Europe do speak it not very often, meaning in daily life. Some will speak it mostly or partially at workplace, but even less at home. So, in a matter of speaking, non-native speakers of English in Europe do not speak it very often. Even if they are quite capable to do so. Just because of a lack of opportunity. Of course that differs from country to country. In smaller countries it is more frequently spoken, at least in work place, as in bigger one. --Lucius1976 17:04, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

Vandalism (and incomplete reverts) have plagued this article recently. Although I've reverted to a recent version, if you are familiar with this article, please remove all traces of vandalism - words like "penis" and "HUGE" probably should not be in it, and restore text that may have been deleted. Thank you - Tangotango 16:05, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Coming soon

I'm planning on writing a revised version of the "dialect" section of this article. The current version is unclear, as it uses term as Low Germanic and High Germanic and poses them as subgroups of German, while the reality of course is that standard German is a subdivision of high germanic.

So stay tuned and be very welcome to add/expand and/or adapt. Sander 21:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


No, the reality is that this is a situation where a stemma (tree diagram) doesn't work. Linguists don't use the phrases High and Low Germanic. We use the phrases High and Low German to describe the German dialects of the south and north respectively, and it is entirely correct to call these subdivisions of German, with the standard German (which draws on both high and low, but mainly on high) above them both. People who have problems with this are usually struggling to fit High and Low German into the same stemma as Dutch. This forces them to give primacy to the High German consonant shift and place the ingveonic languages (including Low German and English) on one branch of the tree and High German on the other, and leaves them uable to account for the fact that the North German dialects are far closer to South German than they are to Dutch, let alone English. Linguists abandoned stemmata in such dialect continuum situations 50 years ago, and the interrelationships of the West Germanic languages are the classic example of the reason why. --Doric Loon 06:25, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm really really not trying to get a discussion started, I'm merely announcing. Sander 14:58, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Please restore "The Awful German Language" section

Hmh, I've added a section on Mark Twain's satire of the German language which has vanished when Arbor restored an older version of this page. Pls. also restore this section.

Perhaps start a section: "Comments on the German Language", where quotes and references such as Mark Twain's might be compiled and later spun off to its own page whenever it's grown to more than a handful of comments. I think a section like that will give a nice background on the significance, history and challenges of the German Language and add much flavour and breadth to the topic (which otherwise be a bit dry and linguistic on its own).

What do you say?

-- DJ Vollkasko (a native speaker), March 22nd 2006.

Well, currently it doesn't belong on this page. I readily concede that the current German language article isn't very entertaining (neither are the other language articles), and that this entire complex would benefit from a more light-hearted approach. For example, it would be possible to have a Views about the German language article. But how to make that encyclopaedic and NPOV? I don't know. Currently, the language articles are strong on linguistics, and Mark Twain's ill-informed meanderings, while entertaining, add no information. (About German. They do add information about, say. the view of the German language in English-speaking countries, which may be a worthy subject). Arbor 13:15, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
ETA: A simple solution would be to move the Twain quote to Wikiquote, and link to it from here. Actualy, I would be surprised if it isn't already there. Arbor 13:16, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Turkey

OK, I went to Bodrum in south Turkey, and a lot of the people there have German as a second language. As it is not a primary langauge and too small to make a new section, where should I state this fact, and can anyone confirm this?Kingfisherswift 18:29, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

You shouldn't state this ... what's the use of listing a village where people speak German but not as a primary language ( ie, they can but don't it) Sander 18:33, 25 March 2006 (UTC)


Infobox Region

The region in the infobox says Western Europe. I think the region is more accurately characterized as Central Europe. KevinPuj 19:39, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree. In the Germany article it says, "Located in Central Europe". On the other hand, Germany is also listed among the countries in the Western Europe article, along with Austria, Liechtenstein, and others. Despite this fact, I suggest changing the infobox data to Central Europe. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 19:48, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

The removed Maps

The maps of the distribution of german dialects pre and post WW-II:

The maps were removed by user User_talk:Molobo with reference to their unsourced status. Maybe you should ask the author to source the post-war map. The Maps author: de:Benutzer_Diskussion:Postmann_Michael

Meanwhile, as an effect of this dispute, and on my urging, he has provided extensive source for this image:

Unfortunately his english is not very good.

For the dispute, se Wikipedia talk:German-speaking Wikipedians' notice board and Wikipedia talk:Polish Wikipedians' notice board --Stor stark7 16:48, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I also noticed that the author has provided the following information in the German Wikipedia for the pre-war map that User Molobo also removed:

The simplest solution would be to insert the pre-war language map again, but to add the source information provided in the german Wikipedia for that same image --Stor stark7 17:05, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Instead of source we have a lengthy speach unconnected in several parts to the map and full of error's combined with attacks on Polish state. Not to mention the absurd usage of votes to indicate presence of Germans. It seems author doesn't know for example that hundreds of thousands of Germans were moved to Silesia in order to vote.And of course using data on presence of Germans in 1919 in Poznan when German Army was moved there isn't POV at all. --Molobo 17:18, 14 May 2006 (UTC) I thank the author for providing the rather long list of sources he used to construct the map. However, if this map was not simply drawn using data from a single reputable source, but was instead constructed by combining data from many books published over many decades, this really sounds to me like a perfect demonstration of original research, which is not allowed by Wikipedia policies (see Wikipedia:No original research).

Let me quote the key principle of the policy in full:

Articles may not contain any unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, or ideas; or any new analysis or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts, arguments, or ideas that serves to advance a position.

This map clearly falls under "synthesis of published data". Balcer 03:34, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

When refering to Wikipedia:No original research, you might want to take a look at the section WP:NOR#Original_images:
Wikipedia editors have always been encouraged to take photos or draw pictures and upload them [...] to illustrate articles. There are several reasons this is welcomed:
  • Pictures are generally used for illustration and do not propose unpublished ideas or arguments, the core reason behind the NOR, or no original research, policy.
  • Due to copyright law in a number of countries and its relationship to the work of building a free encyclopedia, there are relatively few publicly available images we can take and use. Wikipedia editors' pictures fill a needed role.
This states quite clearly that drawing your own maps is encouraged. Moreover, copyright law requires these drawings to be a synthesis of multiple sources, because otherwise it would still be copyright infringement.
I'm amazed how emotional an argument over a set of maps can become. Nationalists on both sides should perhaps note that this article is about the German language and its dialects. In the historical part, the Ex-German Eastern Territories shoud be included - not because of revisionism, but merely as a matter of historical completeness. It would be wrong for any German to claim any of these territories, just because there were once German-speaking people there, but it would be equally wrong to deny that there were in fact German-speaking people there.
I see nothing wrong with including some areas of Historical Eastern Germany in a historical map of German dialects, just as there would be nothing wrong with including a significant number of German cities in a map of the Turkish language. --Qualle (talk) 18:22, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I am quite supportive of maps. However not false ones as this map. but it would be equally wrong to deny that there were in fact German-speaking people there. Yes, about 100,000 in Pomorze for example compered to 1.000.000 Poles, yet they dominated the whole region on this map. --Molobo 18:43, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Dictionary links?

Where has the list of online German dictionaries gone? It was a very helpful list - and many other language pages have links to dictionaries on them as well, so it's not as if there's no precedent for their presence. I can understand cutting down on the number of dictionaries listed (I recall the list being quite long), but surely the list shouldn't be gone altogether. - Rfhall

Lao name

Removed:

Lao is unique in that both under the influence of English "German" (through Thai "yeraman") and French (the colonial language) "Allemand", it chose a name in between: ພາສາເຢຍລະມັນ (phaxa yeylaman), which could be ranked both under category 2 and category 5.

Another, much more likely explanation of "yeylaman" is simply that it's because Lao has no "r". --Ptcamn 21:00, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

German Tutorial

Perhaps this is not the best place to ask this, but after more than an hour on Wikipedia searching for an article, I am convinced someone can help me find it. I recently spent over six weeks in Graz, Austria. During this time I started a German tutorial for English speakers within an article on Wikipedia. I can no longer find this article. Can someone please post a link to the tutorial in the links of the main article? This tutorial is a good alternate to the mostely commerical sites listed in the external links. Learning written and conversional German will help me tremendously in my current career.

Thanks,

Jason G.

German in Denmark?

Are you sure about that? What are the sources and how many people in Denmark speak German? --Comanche cph 12:20, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

There is a German national minority in Denmark, just north of the border. With German-speaking schools, for example. See South Jutland County. Arbor 12:30, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Prioritizing

The article has no phonology section, yet it has several sections which are non-standard for major language articles which are of questionable merit and still take up a very large proportion of the article. "Cognates with English" should really be removed altogether or at least brutally condensed and joined with, for example, "Classification and related languages". Huge tables make poor reading and the amount of examples is really exaggerated for an encyclopedic summary. "Name of the German language in other languages" is definetely not appropriate here.

Peter Isotalo 08:12, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Translation list moved

I've transwikied the long list of translations of German where it belongs; German over at the English wiktionary. I am skeptical to the section as a whole as it is focused entirely on etymology of the word "German (language)" in other languages rather than German, which this article is supposed to be about, but I've left the info for now. Please consider transwikiying it as etymological information to our various wiktionaries and try to avoid filling wikipedia articles with rather unencyclopedic, if interesting information.

Peter Isotalo 11:44, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Image removal

Image:Deutsche Mundarten.PNG

File:Historygerman1.png
German c. 1930, before World War II and the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe.
The above file's purpose is being discussed and/or is being considered for deletion. See files for discussion to help reach a consensus on what to do.
File:Historygerman2.png
German and German dialects ca. 1930, before World War II and the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe.
The above file's purpose is being discussed and/or is being considered for deletion. See files for discussion to help reach a consensus on what to do.

This is an image created by Michael Postmann, a notorious German nationalist, who was mainly active on the German wikipedia where he has now been banned for his behaviour. All of the maps he created are inaccurated, biased and all are now considered for deletion on wikipedia commons.

This particular map, says Frisian and Dutch are German dialects, and greatly exaggerates the number of German speakers in Eastern Europe and that is why, Smith2006 I deleted that image.

Questions? Rex 11:45, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I think I'm going to have to stand up for Michael. The map, correctly labelled, could be accurate. Such maps are commonplace in German studies to show the distribution of German dialects. Linguists generally consider a language continuum to exist from Austria and Switzerland all the way up to (and including) the Netherlands (although I think they draw the line at Danish). In terms of intelligibility to an average German, Austrian German may even be further away from Hochdeutsch than standard Dutch is. The map does at least shade the Dutch-speaking areas separately, to indicate their difference. Nowhere does the image say that the German language was dominant is eastern Europe; nothing is said about numbers of speakers; it merely tries to represent what dialect was/is spoken by German speakers in those areas. It is difficult to be truly balanced about this subject (I've lived at both ends of the continuum, so I'll give it a go), but I don't think his bias is so much worse than yours. --Stemonitis 12:44, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Your claim, in which you say that certain Austrian German variations are "further away" from Standard German is ... ridiculous. This maps claims to portray German dialects, it doesn't so it is flawed and incorrect. No further debating should be neccesary.

Also, would you care to explain what my bias is?

Rex 13:17, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't be offended. Everyone has a bias. You are, judging from your user page and your contributions, Dutch, and interested in Dutch language and history, which is good, but necessarily imparts a bias. You are therefore pro-Dutch, and liable to be offended when Dutch is treated as a "dialect of German".
I only said Austrian German might be further in terms of intelligibility; it is of course closer in terms of grammar and written language; in terms of vocabulary, I couldn't say.
Which parts of the map in particular are inaccurate? In general, it seems about right: German dialects can be divided into three large types; they do (I should say "did", since the map represents the 1930s) follow boundaries that go roughly east-west; there was a small area of Middle German south of Kaliningrad in an otherwise Low Germa=speaking area, etc. Apart from its treatment of Dutch, Flemish, and Frisian, I can't see any real reason to complain about it. Could you be more specific, please?
Whether it adds anything to the article, of course, is another matter… --Stemonitis 13:31, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I am not offended because you said I had a bias, I am offended because you said my bias isn't much different from a banned German neo-nazi.

Main points: German as spoken in Eastern Europe exaggerated, there were never such amounts of German speakers in that area, not in 1000, 1500 or 1930 and of course it says 2 standard languages (Frisian/Dutch) are German dialects. Also, have you noticed that compared to the rest of the map, there are far less placenames in Eastern Europe, and that the placenames that are there are all in German? Rex 13:44, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

  • When I said your bias was no worse, I used the wrong word; I meant "no stronger". For that, I apologise.
  • Yes, as I mentioned Kaliningrad, I was aware that the caption on the map was Königsberg. The map's not perfect (vector graphics would be nice, for instance), but the use of German-language names for places in an article about the geographic variants of the German language is probably acceptable.
  • The argument about the number of place-names in Eastern Europe smacks of a conspiracy theory. There are fewer place-names outside the German Sprachraum, including most of France, which makes sense given the subject matter.
  • Even if the map's creator is a raving Nazi, that doesn't make the map wrong. See petitio ad personam. This is very important.
  • I repeat, the map doesn't show numbers, only areas. It does not imply that no other languages were spoken in those areas as well.
  • The argument about the two standard language being treated as dialects ignores the content at language continuum and standard usage among linguists, but this is nonetheless your strongest argument so far against the image. There is no good quantitative or qualititative difference between dialects and languages. So a "standard language" such as Dutch can in other contexts be treated as a dialect of a larger Germanic language-group.
--Stemonitis 14:00, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

For many Polish users it is not acceptable, just as many Walloons are offended by a Dutch map using Dutch names for the Francophone villages they live in. But that wasn't the point, the point was the way the creator uses these German variants in a way in which he leaves out placenames without a German equivalent. The map uses dark colours for huge areas of Eastern Europe to make it seem the German presence there was bigger than it was. Are you denying this? I will never deny Dutch is a Germanic dialect, as Germanic has no stronger affiliation with German than any other Germanic language, but that's not what this map portrays. Rex 14:09, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

So would you be happy with the same map, but with altered place-names (Bratislava, Kaliningrad, Łódź, etc.)? The colours represent dialects or dialect groups, not population density, so it's enough if there was one German speaker per pixel, assuming the map to be so precisely drawn. Yes, the image could be used to imply a larger German Reich extending into modern-day Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Czech Republic and so on, but that's not what it's being used for here, thankfully. As a map of dialects spoken by speakers of the West Germanic language continuum in the 1930s, it's fine. As anything else, it would be suspect. --Stemonitis 14:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Those colours suggest German was spoken in a far greater territory than it actually was, the title as wel as the legend is flawed. I am going to make a version of my own of that map, and show you how the map should look. Rex 15:01, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, but it doesn't show the dialects, which was the whole point of the diagram in the first place. I've checked in a book I had at home, and their maps look pretty similar to the one we've been arguing about (Werner König (2004). dtv-Atlas Deutsche Sprache (14 ed.). dtv. ISBN 3423030259.). They often cover the Netherlands and Belgium as well (not just Eupen), and extend out as far as "Königsberg", with a "Grenze des geschlossenen deutschen Sprachgebietes in 1920" following the edge of the solid area in the diagram above (more or less, but then one's 1920 and the other in the 1930s). What is the meaning of the hatched area in your diagram? Where does that information come from? I suppose you could, if you wanted, add the dialect information to your diagram (and re-instate the Dutch-speaking area as part of the language continuum), or you could just allow the existing diagram to be used, since it is not flawed in the ways you claimed. --Stemonitis 06:26, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course it is flawed in the ways I claimed. On what do you base it's not? Rex 10:29, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'll go over it again, dealing with each of your criticisms in turn:
  • "This particular map says Frisian and Dutch are German dialects."
That is also how they're treated by linguists when dealing with the whole language continuum.
  • "[It] greatly exaggerates the number of German speakers in Eastern Europe."
No, it says nothing about numbers of speakers.
  • "This maps claims to portray German dialects, it doesn't so it is flawed and incorrect."
Yes, it does, with different colours for different dialect groups.
  • "[T]here are far less placenames in Eastern Europe, and that the placenames that are there are all in German."
There are fewer place-names outside the area where German was spoken at that time, which is appropriate for a map dealing with the Germna-speaking area. The names being in German is also appropriate for a map dealing exclusively with speakers of German.
  • "He leaves out placenames without a German equivalent."
I see no evidence of this, and it would be difficult to prove. A cartographer adds what he or she considers to be enough detail to fulfil its purpose, and that choice will always be somewhat subjective.
  • "The map uses dark colours for huge areas of Eastern Europe to make it seem the German presence there was bigger than it was."
The extent of the area tallies with that published in other, reliable, sources (see the reference I gave above). The colour is chosen to contrast with the surrounding (grey) areas.
  • "Those colours suggest German was spoken in a far greater territory than it actually was."
See previous answer
  • "[T]he title as well as the legend is flawed"
No such text is included in the image. The reader does not see the filename, and the legend can be altered by any editor. Their failings do not consign the image to uselessness.
So, none of your criticisms stands up to scrutiny. --Stemonitis 10:44, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


Boy did you just make a mistake. I'vew added my commentary to your assumptions: ___________________________________________________________________________________

  • "This particular map says Frisian and Dutch are German dialects."
That is also how they're treated by linguists when dealing with the whole language continuum.

No, that's not how they are treated by linguists, I should know. Frisian, Dutch and German are West Germanic dialects. Germanic has as much to do with German as it has with Dutch, English, Norwegian, etc.

  • "[It] greatly exaggerates the number of German speakers in Eastern Europe."
No, it says nothing about numbers of speakers.

If you'd looked more closely at that map you'd have seen that the creator has added grey stripes to some areas with which he tries to imply that that area wasn't entirely German speaking. Northern Poland is therfore portrayed as completely German speaking, which is totally incorrect.

  • "This maps claims to portray German dialects, it doesn't so it is flawed and incorrect."
Yes, it does, with different colours for different dialect groups.

No it doesn't as Dutch and Frisian aren't German dialects.

  • "[T]here are far less placenames in Eastern Europe, and that the placenames that are there are all in German."
There are fewer place-names outside the area where German was spoken at that time, which is appropriate for a map dealing with the Germna-speaking area. The names being in German is also appropriate for a map dealing exclusively with speakers of German.

Ridiculous, in nearly entire Eastern Europe German speakers were a minority. But aparyt from that you missed my point on this matter, read again please.

  • "He leaves out placenames without a German equivalent."
I see no evidence of this, and it would be difficult to prove. A cartographer adds what he or she considers to be enough detail to fulfil its purpose, and that choice will always be somewhat subjective.

I suggest you read this

  • "The map uses dark colours for huge areas of Eastern Europe to make it seem the German presence there was bigger than it was."
The extent of the area tallies with that published in other, reliable, sources (see the reference I gave above). The colour is chosen to contrast with the surrounding (grey) areas.

Those sources prove nothing they are only (probably pre 1939) sources on the German speakers per country or per town and doesn't justify how the creator portayed it in this map.

  • "Those colours suggest German was spoken in a far greater territory than it actually was."
See previous answer

Idem.

  • "[T]he title as well as the legend is flawed"
No such text is included in the image. The reader does not see the filename, and the legend can be altered by any editor. Their failings do not consign the image to uselessness.

Image is called German dialects, which it doesn't portray. I can't get much more clear.

Rex 11:35, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

It's difficult to make a measured reply in the face of this onslaught; your shock and awe style of discourse (boldface, capital letters, etc.) prevents effective communication. Pointing people to a dictionary definition of obvious is most probably intended as an insult, and not as a helpful comment; this is a poor way of carrying on a discussion.
I have tried to explain the nature of the West Germanic language continuum, and the way it includes (or at least can be interpreted to include) Dutch and Frisian. I have tried to explain how the map tallies very well with other published sources (published in 2004, not pre-1939!), which cannot be suspected of the same bias that you are trying to ascribe to this map. I have tried to explain that the presence of German speakers does not imply the absence of speakers of any other language. I have answered every one of your criticisms, and you have ignored my answers. I have tried and tried, and it seems that you are not listening. Please read Wikipedia:No angry mastodons and come back only when you've calmed down. --Stemonitis 11:50, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Stemonitis, you really do not need to explain me about the West Germanic dialect continuum, or German dialects (I wrote the bigger part of it). The style of writing was simply meant to make my points easy to read, not to express "anger" on my side. The "come back when you've calmed down" comment made me laugh though, I'm as cool as can be right now. Its not some kind of mortal sinn to be mistaken Stemonitis, you don't need to attack me personally to compensate in some way. Cheers, Rex 12:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

But the point is that I can't see any criticism that you have made that I haven't been able to refute. I can't see that there are any great errors in the image. Your complaints that it is flawed and inaccurate seem not to be justified, so I see no reason for the image to be taken from the article. The only real problem you have with it seems to be that it includes Dutch, which no doubt irks a Dutchman such as yourself, but is academically justified. The map, in short, is fine. Unless some new complaint arises, I would say that the map can be returned to the article (albeit with an appropriate caption). --Stemonitis 12:08, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

<sigh> Really, this map is about German dialects not a west Germanic dialect continuum. A map about German dialects should not include Dutch or Frisian, not in any way. And again ... the German speakers in Eastern Europe are overly exaggerated. You might think you've made good points, but linguistically they aren't worth much. (no offence) Rex 12:14, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Rex, stel je niet zo aan. None of the three maps posted are entirely correct, the second and third maps by Rex Germanus underestimate the numbers of German speakers within the 1937 Borders of Germany by using shades for the formally German (according to Versailles!) areas east of the Oder-Neisse line as if those areas were actually not German or half Polish speaking (which is not true except for Masuria and Upper Silesia!), which seems quite POV to me. Only Masuria and Upper Silesia had a minority of non-German speakers, being of Polish language. I think the first one by Michael Postmann or whatever the guy is named is quite correct, if we note, that the spots and dots in Poland represent German minorities in those areas, not the majority of entire regions. Again, we must remind, that Torun, Gdansk and Poznan were primarily German-speaking before 1945, at least a majority of the population was. Just a notification would help the first map to be acceptable. Bashing this Michael Postmann guy has nothing to do with his map, which corresponds exactly to the maps I have (in DUTCH!) on the "West-Germaanse talen" West Germanic languages. One final note must be inserted: that Dutch and Frisian are totally separate languages, even though we must accept, that until 1945 German, and partly Dutch, linguistic sciences considered Duthc and German to be the same (as it considerd Austrian and Lower German to be of the same language group while in fact totally different).Smith2006 12:28, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Dutch has never been a part oF German or visa versa, it doesn't matter if linguists influenced by the wave of nationalism thought they were some 60 years ago, because it never was the case. As for the maps, thank you for admitting the map is incorrect, I already said my modified maps were far from perfect, but my main concern is the first map.Which is flawed. This map of course corresponds to West Germaanse (West Germanic) languages, it doesn't however in respect to German dialects. Rex 14:13, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

No, but Dutch, Plattdüütsch, Alemmanisch, Bayrisch, and a plethora of others are all part of the language continuum and that is the level at which the dialectology functions. Thus, dialectologists can draw maps showing the distribution of diminutive endings (for example), and see a band of "-ken" stretching from Flanders across to "Königsberg" (p. 157 of the above-cited book), with a band of "-chen" further south, followed by a broad band of "-(e)l(e)" across southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Dutch does form a part of this set of dialects, even if it is in every other sense a different language. Any map that included Plattdüütsch, Allemannic, Lëtzebuergesch and so on, but excluded Dutch would be guilty of gross inconsistency, since Dutch and Plattdüütsch are both Low Saxon-Low Franconian languages, which are only more distantly related to High German languages. Dutch has to be included, even in an article about German dialects, because dialects don't follow national boundaries in this case. This is not a question of nationalism on anyone's part. Any German dialect map that excluded Dutch would be worse than one that does include it. --Stemonitis 15:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid it's not quite getting through to you, but Dutch cannot be included in a map about German dialects. Rex 15:29, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Why "cannot"? It can; it often is. I see no good reason for leaving it out except the desire of Dutch people never to be labelled as "German". --Stemonitis 15:32, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

It is impossible. By definition and in practice. I quote from the Dutch article:

Dutch simply cannot be called a German dialect, on whatever level of analysis we choose to consider the matter. The Dutch standard language, by definition, cannot be a dialect of another standard language, in this case Standard German. The dialect group from which Dutch is largely derived, Low Franconian, belongs to the whole of continental West Germanic dialects. This whole is sometimes imprecisely indicated with the word "German", but it might as well be called "Dutch". Indeed the Low Franconian dialects and languages are morphologically closer to the original form of Western Germanic than the High German from which standard German is derived. No intrinsic quality of whole of the component dialects favours one standard over the other: both were rivals and historical contingency decided the range of their use. The state border does not reflect dialectal subdivisions. Only now that the dialect continuum of continental West Germanic has been broken by the 19th century introduction of mass education, the respective ranges have been fixed; in the 18th century standard Dutch was still used as the normal written standard in the Lower Rhine, the county of Bentheim and East Frisia, now all part of Germany.

whoop-dy-doo ... Rex 15:53, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

But Rex, you wrote that, so it hardly counts as independent verification. And, taking it at its word, Plattdüütsch could also not be included in the map. I've never seen a map without Low German presented as a map of German dialects, so that would probably count as original research. The kind of map you just took out of the article again, however, is commonly produced by competent linguists. If you don't like the caption I provided, then it would be better if you suggested an improvement, rather than just deleting the picture, which might otherwise be able to inform people about the geographical extent over which German was spoken before the war. Oh, I hope you don't mind that I toned your formatting down a bit. --Stemonitis 16:09, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Before you go tossing around accusations of original research, you should find out if a person actually wrote the piece in question. Which I didn't. Nor is it original research and any linguist will tell you this (assuming basic knowledge of Germanic language). The map in the article is not used by linguists nor wikipedia its a map created by a neo nazi and apart from that its incorrect.If you've never seen a map on german dialects without low German then thats your problem Dutch isn't low German.period. Rex 19:15, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I repeat, whether or not the map's creator is a neo-Nazi is completely irrelevant; we are discussing a map, not its creator.
Oh, and yes, you did write it: [12]. No earlier version that I can see begins "Dutch simply cannot be called…", but rather "The Dutch language, contrary to popular belief in some countries". I also note that it was immediately toned down by another editor, and that you engaged in edit-warring to maintain your preferred version.
I've got a published map in front of me. It includes Dutch. I think the onus is on you to find a new argument against the map above, since every one of your complaints has been refuted. The dogmatic stance that Dutch "cannot" be included is clearly false when applied to dialectology of the West Germanic language continuum, because Dutch is often included; this does not detract from the status of Dutch as a separate language, and in other circumstances portraying Dutch as a German dialect would of course be wrong. Here, it needn't be.
So far the consensus here is that, correctly captioned, the first map is acceptable (although with only three participants that's not much of a consensus). Your constant reversions therefore go against consensus. Please reconsider. --Stemonitis 06:48, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

First things first, as of the section of text on Dutch language; I recommend you to read the edit summary of that edit. You'll see that I wrote: "Inserting MWAKs part". The text itself isn't mine. Secondly, and hopefully for the last time; Dutch and Frisian cannot be included in a(n accurate) German dialectal map for the very simple fact that Dutch and Frisian aren't German dialects. West Germanic and German and two very different things, I hope you do know this. As for concensus be aware, and this is no threat just a fact, that the first map will never do. Rex 10:31, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

This is getting us nowhere. I have solved the problem a different way, so that we can both get on with more important things. --Stemonitis 10:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

If you call this "solving a problem" suit yourself ... I got what I wanted any way. Rex 10:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Rex's maps underestimate the numbers of German speakers in the east and seem to legitimate the post-1945 borders by showing a linguistic barriere that wasn't actually there. The western border isn't linguistically correct either, since you can't make that sharp a distinction between Dutch and German dialects. The map represents political statements, not linguistic facts. Image:Deutsche Mundarten.PNG corresponds with maps of the pre-1945 German language area that are present in some books I own. Känsterle 21:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

My maps are not meant to serve as replacements but at least they are better. Apart from that (AGAIN) Dutch nor its dialects are part of the German language, a distinction can most certainly be and is made. The books you own probably portray the (mostly late) West Germanic dialect continuum, not German dialects, if they do then you might as well burn them unless you want to keep them for histrorical interests. Rex 21:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so presently Dutch is no longer considered a German dialect, but Rex, it was before 1945, even in all Dutch classrooms, and certainly before 1800. I think the first map of Rex can be used, but only, if the light blue-ish on the 1930 map is changed to the normal blue everywhere. Only Upper Silesia should be "gearceerd", and Masuria (southern East Prussia) should be too in the very south. But all other parts of historical Eastern Germany were up from 95 to 100 % German-speaking. The dots in Poland are quite correct. In 1930 I agree, we could agree, that Dutch no longer WAS part of German itself, but eastern Germany (Schlesien, Pommern, Danzig, Ostpreussen, Sudetenland) must be taken seriously and coloured with the same shade of blue as the rest of Germany is. The Oder-Neisse line did not exist back then. You would have more Slavic influences at Cottbus back then, than in Breslau! Dus: Pommeren geheel donkerblauw, alleen de vlek in huidig Sachsen, Oppersilezië en zuidelijk Masuren gearceerd (wat betreft Masuren moeten er meer grijze stippen komen, die gebieden waren taalkundig vrij Pools hoor, evenzo in Oppersilezië). Dat zijn de deels-Slavische gebieden van toen (en wat betreft Saksen: nu nog). De andere waren niet minder Duitstalig dan Berlijn. Waarom je zuidelijk Southern Tyrol gearceerd neerzet snap ik niet (is behalve Bozen-Bolzano geheel Duits), maar goed. So, Rex, please correct the blue and insert it into the article.Smith2006 14:38, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

For the last time, it isn't and never was a dialect, not before 1945 not before 1800 never nooit niet. Hoe kan een standaardtaal met een geschreven geschiedenis ouder dan het Duits ooit een dialect zijn van een andere standaardtaal? Hoe het gezien werd in de hoogtijdagen van het nationalisme in Europa is niet belangrijk. Het is in zekere zin gelijk de apen. Apen werden na Darwin gezien als de voorouders van de mens, betekent dit dat apen voor Darwin geen voorouders van de mens waren? Natuurlijk niet. De kaarten, zijn bedoeld als verbetering niet als vervangers, van mij hoeft die kaart er niet eens in, als je er last van hebt voel je vrij om haar aan te passen, en daar bedoel ik niets mee. Rex 15:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

We hebben het niet alleen over standaardtalen, Rex. Anders mag je op je kaart alle gebieden schrappen waar niet iedereen algemeen Hoogduits sprak. Een volstrekt onhoudbaar criterium dus. Sommige dialecten in Nederland zijn tot het Duits te rekenen, sommige dialecten in Duitsland tot het Nederlands. De grens trekken bij de staatsgrens is politiek, geen taalkunde. Känsterle 14:52, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Your new map has a substantial error as well -- in many areas shaded lightly, German was the majority, if not -the- language ... many areas in lower Silesia, and the vast majority of Pommerania, German was -the- language, not -one of the-. Ameise -- chat 16:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

For the last time my map isn't meant as a replacement. It depicts certain improvements of a nationalistic map. Rex 16:22, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

The only 'improvement' I see is that all low Franconian errors (and mistakenly some low Saxon areas in eastern Netherlands) are erased, and among other errors again is that the entirety of Eastern Germany has German as minority languages; honestly, if you can't make a map like this properly, don't make any at all. Ameise -- chat 16:54, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not even going to waste my breath on this. One can explain this time and again, some people lack the capacity to understand what you're trying to say. Rex 17:18, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Very productive attitude; it's a wonder you've lasted this long. Ameise -- chat 17:23, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

What's there to produce here? As for lasting this long, a healthy view on the world helps. Rex 17:26, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Then please explain why the entire historical Eastern Germany is pale colored, hmm? Nothing in this article, except for other people complaining about it, explains this. Ameise -- chat 17:34, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Read the above discussion. Rex 17:44, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I did, can you point to anything in particular which I should reread? Ameise -- chat 17:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

If you'd actually read the discussion I woulnd't have to. Rex 17:55, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Fiiiiine, I will read it again; but this time I had better find something. Ameise -- chat 17:56, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Typo

"Needles to say"

Thanks for pointing that out! Please don't forget that anyone can edit articles and also correct mistakes. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 18:34, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Image:German Speaking World

i was reading the portuguese version of this article, and couldnt help but notice that the image of where German is spoken is different in this two articles. {See pt.wikipedia map and en.wikipedia map}. Then i moved to the german wikipedia, and found a third map... de.wikipedia map. Which one of this three is right ? I know that all two additional dots in Brazil southern region are right, since i live there and know that these regions have several communities created by German immigrants. But what about Namibia, Venezuela and that square near Minnesota ? --Hagnat 18:24, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

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