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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"? --] 18:16, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)--
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== poor article contradicts itself in multiple ways ==
imho South Tyrol is not an enclave region, as it has borders to Austria. --] 01:54 Jan 31, 2003 (UTC)


* intro: "or more precisely High German" and table with "Language family ... High German" vs. ISO 639-3 in the talble: "nds – Low German"
==Deleting things==
*: Low German is not High German
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 :-) ] 16:02, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)
* nativename in the table: "{{lang|de|Deutsch}}" vs. bar – Bavarian etc. in the table
*: in the various dialects like Bavarian the term for German is different, e.g. in ksh – Kölsch it's ''Dütsch'' (cp. )
* WP speaks of "]" (plural), yet this is only "]" (singular). German is broader than High German, so it should be ''German language'''s''''', or German here is short for ] which already has a more proper article.
date=June 2023


I am moving this here ''sic erat'' from a ] posted by ]. ] (]) 20:56, 14 July 2023 (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


== Cluster ==
Together approx. 99 m
From the article:
:The ] dialects Nevertheless, topologically these dialects are structurally and phonologically far more similar to Dutch, than to German and form both the smallest and most divergent dialect cluster within the contemporary German language area.{{sfn|Niebaum|2011|p=98}}
:<references/>
:* {{cite book |last=Niebaum |first=Hermann |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eG0l63rBggsC |title=Einführung in die Dialektologie des Deutschen |date=2011 |publisher=Niemeyer |isbn=978-3-11-091654-6 |edition=2nd |location=Tübingen |language=de |trans-title=Introduction to the dialectology of German |chapter=Wege und Schwerpunkte der deutschen Dialektologie |trans-chapter=Ways and focuses of German dialectology }}
As for the source:
* That's not properly cited, as it lacks the other author Jürgen Macha and as the year or edition is wrong (1st 1999, 2nd 2006, 3rd 2014 - 2011 could only be a reprint or a re-release as e-book or something)
* Quoting from the 3rd ed. as here the text is (basically) the same and as this can still be viewed online:<br/>Hermann Niebaum, Jürgen Macha, ''Einführung in die Dialektologie des Deutschen'', 3rd ed., 2014, p. 104 ()): "Auf der Karte sind ebenfalls drei Hauptgebiete, erkennbar, die sich, wie Nerbonne/Siedle (2005:) festellen, „im Wesentlichen mit den Verteilungen des Nieder-, Ostmittel- und Oberdeutschen (Cluster 1, 4 und 5) nach traditioneller Einteilung decken, sowie ein heterogenes Gebiet im Westen, das in etwa Ripuarisch (Cluster 3) und Niederrheinisch-Westmünderländisch (Cluster 2) entspricht.“
Thus:
* The source doesn't state that Low Franconian is the smallest and most divergent cluster. It's stating that ''Ripuarisch + Niederrheinisch-Westmünsterländisch'' form a heterogeneous area. So both the dialect(s) and the ] (superlative vs. positive) aren't sourced.
* Article stated: "within the contemporary German language area". There's a difference between "in Germany" and "in the German language area". The German language area also comprehends Austria and Switzerland. As the source only considered Germany, the wording in the article wasn't correct.
-06:54, 29 August 2023 (UTC)


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


The German article on the Germanics https://de.wikipedia.org/Germanen says, that the concept can be defined historically outside the linguistic sphere. ] (]) 19:28, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
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"


:The very concept of ''Germanics'' is disputed by science in Germany, this German article says sourcedly. Furthermore, ''Germanics'' hardly is used as a concept for the present by Germans nowadays. ] (]) 08:16, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
Where do the other 20 m German-speaking people live ?
::One problem here is that "Germanics" is simply not a term found in the English-language literature, so arguing that there's something wrong with it is entirely beside the point. --] (]) 08:45, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
Do you want to include foreign-language speakers ?
:The word "Germanics" doesn't appear in the article, so why are you discussing this here? ] (]) 09:56, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
] 15:35, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
::12 pages link to ], a redirect to ].
::Maybe we should discuss this on another talk page. ] (]) 04:51, 26 April 2024 (UTC)


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


{{ping|KoreaJAP}} Luxembourgish is recognized as an independent language. You can't use its use in Luxembourg to argue that Luxembourgers are really speaking German. Furthermore, your changes have ignored that Luxembourg has three official languages. You can't claim that German is the "most widely spoken" when that is clearly Luxembourgish. Or else provide a source showing that Standard German is more widely spoken than Luxembourgish in Luxembourg.--] (]) 17:59, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
Maybe this table can show it:


:<s>I have corrected it. ] (]) 18:18, 12 October 2024 (UTC)</s>
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)


== Recognized minority language in Hungary ==
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*


The recognized minority languages are not restricted geographically to individual cities or counties and thus German is a recognized minority language in entire Hungary, not just Sopron. This includes for example giving German names to babies, etc. Please correct the lead and the infobox. ] (]) 10:43, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

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 ], 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 ]. 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. --] 03:28, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I am removing (commenting) the Latvian entry because it seems highly improbable that v&#257;cieš&#363; (or its Lithuanian cogante vokie&#269;i&#371;) 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 ? ] 16:14, 21 Oct 2004 (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.<BR>
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. --] 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. (], ''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.

] 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 or any other number from 2nd to lets say 10... it all doeas not make much sense. ] 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. :) -- ] 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 by ] in response to the by ] is good for that reason. --]] 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.<br>
--]] 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. ] 10:26, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

== language vs (language) ==

] 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. ] 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. ] 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 ], 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.]

* 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). ] 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) ] 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.

== 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. ] 09:24, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 10:43, 27 November 2024

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German language was a good article, but it was removed from the list as it no longer met the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.
Review: October 13, 2006.
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poor article contradicts itself in multiple ways

  • intro: "or more precisely High German" and table with "Language family ... High German" vs. ISO 639-3 in the talble: "nds – Low German"
    Low German is not High German
  • nativename in the table: "Deutsch" vs. bar – Bavarian etc. in the table
    in the various dialects like Bavarian the term for German is different, e.g. in ksh – Kölsch it's Dütsch (cp. WT)
  • WP speaks of "High German languages" (plural), yet this is only "German language" (singular). German is broader than High German, so it should be German languages, or German here is short for Standard German which already has a more proper article.

date=June 2023

I am moving this here sic erat from a cleanup hatnote posted by this anonymous user. Dylanvt (talk) 20:56, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Cluster

From the article:

The Low Franconian dialects Nevertheless, topologically these dialects are structurally and phonologically far more similar to Dutch, than to German and form both the smallest and most divergent dialect cluster within the contemporary German language area.
  1. Niebaum 2011, p. 98.

    2. As for the source:

    • That's not properly cited, as it lacks the other author Jürgen Macha and as the year or edition is wrong (1st 1999, 2nd 2006, 3rd 2014 - 2011 could only be a reprint or a re-release as e-book or something)
    • Quoting from the 3rd ed. as here the text is (basically) the same and as this can still be viewed online:
      Hermann Niebaum, Jürgen Macha, Einführung in die Dialektologie des Deutschen, 3rd ed., 2014, p. 104 ()): "Auf der Karte sind ebenfalls drei Hauptgebiete, erkennbar, die sich, wie Nerbonne/Siedle (2005:) festellen, „im Wesentlichen mit den Verteilungen des Nieder-, Ostmittel- und Oberdeutschen (Cluster 1, 4 und 5) nach traditioneller Einteilung decken, sowie ein heterogenes Gebiet im Westen, das in etwa Ripuarisch (Cluster 3) und Niederrheinisch-Westmünderländisch (Cluster 2) entspricht.“

    Thus:

    • The source doesn't state that Low Franconian is the smallest and most divergent cluster. It's stating that Ripuarisch + Niederrheinisch-Westmünsterländisch form a heterogeneous area. So both the dialect(s) and the degree of comparison (superlative vs. positive) aren't sourced.
    • Article stated: "within the contemporary German language area". There's a difference between "in Germany" and "in the German language area". The German language area also comprehends Austria and Switzerland. As the source only considered Germany, the wording in the article wasn't correct.

    -06:54, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

    Germanics

    The German article on the Germanics https://de.wikipedia.org/Germanen says, that the concept can be defined historically outside the linguistic sphere. Sarcelles (talk) 19:28, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

    The very concept of Germanics is disputed by science in Germany, this German article says sourcedly. Furthermore, Germanics hardly is used as a concept for the present by Germans nowadays. Sarcelles (talk) 08:16, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
    One problem here is that "Germanics" is simply not a term found in the English-language literature, so arguing that there's something wrong with it is entirely beside the point. --Pfold (talk) 08:45, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
    The word "Germanics" doesn't appear in the article, so why are you discussing this here? Largoplazo (talk) 09:56, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
    12 pages link to Germanics, a redirect to German peoples.
    Maybe we should discuss this on another talk page. Sarcelles (talk) 04:51, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

    Luxembourg

    @KoreaJAP: Luxembourgish is recognized as an independent language. You can't use its use in Luxembourg to argue that Luxembourgers are really speaking German. Furthermore, your changes have ignored that Luxembourg has three official languages. You can't claim that German is the "most widely spoken" when that is clearly Luxembourgish. Or else provide a source showing that Standard German is more widely spoken than Luxembourgish in Luxembourg.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:59, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

    I have corrected it. KoreaJAP (talk) 18:18, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

    Recognized minority language in Hungary

    The recognized minority languages are not restricted geographically to individual cities or counties and thus German is a recognized minority language in entire Hungary, not just Sopron. This includes for example giving German names to babies, etc. Please correct the lead and the infobox. 2001:4C4E:24A1:FE00:7A14:F228:7166:600D (talk) 10:43, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

    Categories: