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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Arbor (talk | contribs) at 07:56, 13 April 2005 (→composite words and genitiv case). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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

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 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 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)

Misplaced Pages: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

• 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

• 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 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 -- 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)

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)