German dialects

German is one of the world's major languages. When people speak of the "German language" today, they are likely thinking of the standard German that is the official language of Germany. What may not be understood by many non-Germans is that most people born in Germany today do not learn the official High German, or Hoch Deutsch, as their first language. Instead, families at home tend to speak one of the more than a dozen regional German dialects, such as Swabish, Saxon or Bavarian. Only when they begin public school are children forced to learn High German so that they may use it in public life.

There are approximately 16 regional dialects within modern Germany, and for practical purposes they are different languages since they are (by and large) not mutually comprehensible. High German was invented in the late nineteenth century after the different regions were finally united politically under the Kaiser. Since the dialects of neighboring regions differ less than regions physically far apart, the official High German was a compromise that drew most heavily on the dialects in the middle of what is now Germany, to minimize the amount of adaptation by the largest number of people. High German has been successful at encouraging a national identity and fostering inter-regional communications. However, native Germans can often tell from what region a person hails immediately from that person's high German accent, since many people do not lose all the traces of their original dialect. TV stations in Germany today still run some programming in the local dialect.

There are many other dialects of German which grew up in communities living outside of the country. For example, Yiddish--spoken by Jewish communities around the world--began as a dialect of German. Many Hebrew words were added to it, and vast regional differences also arose. Similar, in South Africa which was formerly a colony of Germany, a dialect of German called Afrikaans incorporated many new words and concepts from South African native tribes, but its basic grammar is still German-like. The Pennsylvania Dutch language in the United State may be considered as yet another dialect of German. Aside from the expanded, specialed vocabularies, these three German dialects--Yiddish, Afrikaans, and Pennsylvania Dutch--are only about as different from the official high German language as the other regional dialects within German.

In fact, although it is perhaps politically unpopular to say so, the Dutch language is "just another" regional dialect of German, hardly more distant from the official German than any other of the regional German dialects. But since Holland and its surrounding German-speaking areas were not permanently annexed into modern Germany in the late nineteenth century, Dutch speakers were not constrained to adopt official German, and indeed, due to the invasion of the Netherlands by Germany during World War II, Dutch is now fiercely claimed by its native speakers as a language completely distinct from German in an effort, perhaps, to underscore their complete separation as a people.

Modern German (and its many dialects) may be seen as languages whose grammar leads back either to Middle High German or Old German. There is a larger family of "Germanic" languages which includes English, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Germanic languages are Indo-European languages that share common underpinnings of grammar and vocabulary. Germanic languages all share, most especially, similarities in the 500 or so "core words", which are the words which children typically learn first as they acquire language. These include words such as mother, father, the parts of the human body, the names of everyday animals, and common actions such as walk, run, or sleep.

Although English is a Germanic language, it now differs from the German dialects in its extremely large vocabulary. The English vocabulary has been expanded by engulfing new words from many different languages such as French, Latin or Spanish. Translators trying to render foreign languages into English may find a dozen English synonyms, of only subtle (if any) difference in meaning, as compared to a single word in German. English is now equipped with the idea of a huge unabridged dictionary, but German does not have such a concept and does not need it.

Most vocabulary in German is in fact built up by compounding two or more of the core words together. The meaning of such words is generally obvious to children as they acquire language, and they do not need to look up words in a dictionary nearly as often as English-speaking children do. For example, in English we have the term "glove" but in German, that is HandSchuh (hand shoe). If children already know Hand and Schuh, the they don't have to be taught what HandSchuh means the first time they hear it. Building on this, in English we have the term "glove compartment" in reference to cars. In German, that is HandSchuhFach (hand shoe box), and in the context of a car, that is immediately clear in meaning, whereas English-speaking children must first learn the Latin-derived word "compartment" before "glove compartment" makes any sense.

Another example is the word "superficial" in English. It derives from Latin "super" (meaning "over"), and most English speakers must explicitly learn its meaning by looking it up or asking someone. But the German equivalent of superficial is Ueberflaechlich ("over" + "surfacely"), and its obvious meaning to Germans is "skimming over the surface".

In mathematics, English speakers must learn arcane terms like "apex", whereas German speakers encounter "Spitz" ("peak", the same word used for mountaintop). This reliance on building larger or broader concepts out of its core words has made German a particularly elegant language for mathematics, as little Latinized vocabulary need be learned.