Name used by its speakers (Endonym): Deutsch
Native speakers (estimated): 95 million
Total speakers, including second-language (estimated): 180 million
Where it’s spoken: National language of Germany, Austria, and Liechtenstein; the most widely spoken of Switzerland’s four official languages (followed by French, Italian, and Romansh). Also a co-official language in Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Italian province of Alto Adige/South Tyrol. Significant German-speaking communities in other neighboring countries (France, Denmark, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania). German has the highest number of native speakers within the European Union. Outside Europe, also co-official in Namibia, a former colony.
Language family: Indo-European, Germanic branch. The second most widely spoken Germanic language (after English).
Related languages include: Dutch, English, Afrikaans, Yiddish, Pennsylvania Dutch (Pennsilfaanisch-Deitsch).
Writing and pronunciation tips: German uses the common Latin-based alphabet, but from roughly the 16th to early 20th centuries a Gothic writing and printing style called Fraktur was favored. Modern German uses the 26 standard English letters plus umlauts over three vowels (ä, ö, ü) which change their sounds, and which in languages lacking umlauts are rendered as ‘ae’, ‘oe’, and ‘ue’. Thus, the common German surname Müller typically becomes Mueller upon immigration to an English-speaking country. One distinct letter is used: the ß or eszett, which represents lower case ‘ss’. The letter J is pronounced Y, V is pronounced F, and W is pronounced V; thus the word ‘weiß’ (white) is pronounced “veiss”. Unlike English, German spelling and pronunciation follow standardized rules, and it is the only modern language in which all nouns are capitalized.
Words shared with English:
Same spelling: Finger, Hand, Butter, Ring, Name, warm, blind. Not the same, but close: Vater (‘fater’), Mutter, Gott, Feuer (‘fyer’), Silber, Buch, Brot, Wasser, Milch, Maus, Haus, Fisch, Apfel, gut, alt, kalt. “That smarts!”, meaning ‘that hurts’, comes from an Old English word that shares roots with the German Schmerz (‘pain’).
Words exported to English:
FOOD & DRINK: Schnitzel, sauerkraut, pumpernickel, frankfurter, hamburger. Modified from the original German spelling: noodle (Nudel), delicatessen (Delikatessen), gummi bear (Gummibär). Lager (meaning ‘warehouse’) refers to beer kept in cold storage before drinking. Budweiser is named for Budweis, the German name of Budějovice (now in the Czech Republic) where beer has been brewed since 1265.
SCIENCE & NATURE: Psychology: Angst (‘fear’); schadenfreude (‘harm-joy’). Chemistry: Wolfram (‘tungsten’, chemical abbreviation W); LSD (middle initial from Säure, ‘acid’, which is why we don’t call it LAD). Biology: Gesundheit (‘health’); EKG (Elektrokardiogramm); Dachshund (‘badger-dog’).
MISCELLANEOUS: Kindergarten (‘children-garden’); Doppelgänger (‘double-goer’, a look-alike); Kitsch (‘trash’); Volkswagen (‘people’s car’); Wanderlust (‘wander-desire’).
Culture & Pop Culture:
German has made great contributions to world culture especially in the fields of classical music (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Wagner), philosophy (Kant, Marx, Nietzsche), psychology (Freud, Jung) and science and engineering (Kepler, Einstein, Planck, Benz).
Literature: Two of the best-known authors in the German language were a pair of 17th-century multi-hyphenates, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (novelist-poet-philosopher-statesman-scientist-critic!) and his contemporary Friedrich Schiller (playwright-poet-philosopher-historian). Prominent writers of the early 20th century include German novelist and essayist Thomas Mann and German-Swiss novelist and poet Herman Hesse (“Steppenwolf”, “Siddartha”), both of whom received the Nobel Prize in Literature; German playwright Bertolt Brecht (“The Threepenny Opera”); and Erich Maria Remarque, a German WWI veteran (and eventually naturalized American) whose genre-defining novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” was based on his experience of that war. Franz Kafka, best known for provocative and existential works like “The Metamorphosis” and “The Trial”, was born in Prague (then part of the Austrian Empire) but wrote in German.
Modern music: Electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk; punk rocker Nina Hagen; Nena (best known for the 1983 pop hit “99 Luftballons”, re-recorded in English as “99 Red Balloons”). German metal band Scorpions found great success but sing almost entirely in English. Lip-syncing 80’s pop duo Milli Vanilli were from Munich, but the less said about that, the better.
Film and TV: German film has a long history, including classics like “The Blue Angel” (1930) starring Marlene Dietrich; submarine movie “Das Boot” (1981); Wim Wenders’ poetic “Wings Of Desire” (1988); and war drama “Europa Europa” (1990). Acclaimed recent movies include “All Quiet On The Western Front” (2022, the third film adaptation of the novel by Remarque) and “The Zone Of Interest” (2023), about living next to Auschwitz. Lest you think most German movies are about world wars, some are also about East Germany under Communism, like the comedy “Good Bye Lenin” (2003) and the drama “The Lives Of Others” (2006). In contrast, the thriller “Run Lola Run” (1998) was set in modern Berlin. Popular recent TV series in German include the sci-fi mystery “Dark”, the 80s-set spy comedy “Kleo”, and “The Empress”, a historical drama about the Austrian royalty (all on Netflix). (And speaking of Austria, “The Sound Of Music” is famously set there, but was a Hollywood movie made in English and either ignored or actively disliked by many actual Austrians.1)
Other fun facts:
Compared to just about every other country, there are many different names for Germany and the German language. The Germans call their own language ‘Deutsch’, which derives from the Old High German ‘diutisc’, which in turn came from a word meaning ‘of the people’. (Navajo and Inuktitut are named for similar reasons.) Scandinavian languages use variations of ‘tysk’, and Italians call German ‘tedesco’, which are all derived from the same Old German root word. The Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean words for German all derive from ‘Deutsch’ in one way or another. Meanwhile, French named the language ‘allemand’ after the Alemanni, one of the neighboring German tribes; Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Turkish (among others) follow this lead.
The Roman region of ‘Germania’ gave us the English word for the country and its language; both Italian and Russian also use ‘Germania’ for the country, though they each call the language and people by a different name. (Huh?) Speaking of which, the Russian word for German is ‘nemetsky’, from the Proto-Slavic word ‘nemets’ which means ‘strangers’ or ‘mutes’. (Really.2) Polish, Czech, Ukrainian and Hungarian follow this practice too. Just to be different, Finns and Estonians call the German language ‘saksa’, after the Saxon tribe (who presumably lived closer to them than the Alemanni). Finally—because none of the above five choices were satisfying?—the Latvians and Lithuanians have completely different names for the German language: ‘vāciski’ and ‘vokiškai’, respectively.
Two common hand signs for German (or Germany) derive from iconic national images: German Sign Language uses a hand in the middle of the forehead, index finger pointing straight up, evoking the Pickelhaube or old-fashioned Prussian spiked helmet. In addition to this sign, ASL also employs a sign with both hands crossed vertically at the wrist, fingers spread like feathers—this represents the eagle on the German coat of arms.
NOTES
1Puschitz, J.P. Theater, The Stranger.com, Dec. 2, 2015. As an Austrian, I Am Baffled by America’s Love for The Sound of Music – The Stranger
2Multiple sources, including Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/němьcь – Wiktionary, the free dictionary