Introduction to German
German has an officially recognized status as regional or auxiliary language in Denmark (South Jutland region), France (Alsace and Moselle regions), Italy (Gressoney valley), Namibia, Poland (Opole region), and Russia (Asowo and Halbstadt). German is one of the 23 official languages of the European Union. It is the language with the largest number of native speakers in the European Union, and, just behind English and ahead of French, the second-most spoken language in Europe. German as a foreign language
German is the third most taught foreign language in the English speaking world after French and Spanish. German is the main language of about 90–95 million people in Europe (as of 2004), or 13.3% of all Europeans, being the second most spoken native language in Europe after Russian, above French (66.5 million speakers in 2004) and English (64.2 million speakers in 2004). It is therefore the most spoken first language in the EU. It is the second most known foreign language in the EU. It is one of the official languages of the European Union, and one of the three working languages of the European Commission, along with English and French. Thirty-two percent of citizens of the EU-15 countries say they can converse in German (either as a mother tongue or as a second or foreign language). This is assisted by the widespread availability of German TV by cable or satellite. Dialects
The variation among the German dialects is considerable, with only the neighboring dialects being mutually intelligible. Some dialects are not intelligible to people who only know standard German. However, all German dialects belong to the dialect continuum of High German and Low Saxon languages.
German dialects versus varieties of standard German
The German dialects are the traditional local varieties. They are traditionally traced back to the different German tribes. Many of them are hardly understandable to someone who knows only standard German, since they often differ from standard German in lexicon, phonology and syntax. If a narrow definition of language based on mutual intelligibility is used, many German dialects are considered to be separate languages (for instance in the Ethnologue). However, such a point of view is unusual in German linguistics. The varieties of standard German refer to the different local varieties of the pluricentric standard German. They only differ slightly in lexicon and phonology. In certain regions, they have replaced the traditional German dialects, especially in Northern Germany. Grammar
German is an inflected language with three grammatical genders; as such, there can be a large number of words derived from the same root, albeit there are other languages that are much more inflected. Written texts in German are easily recognisable as such by distinguishing features such as umlauts and a unique orthography—German is the only major language that capitalizes all nouns—and the frequent occurrence of long compounds (the longest German word is made of 63 characters). Vowels
German vowels (excluding diphthongs; see below) come in short and long varieties, as detailed in the following table:
| | A | Ä | E | I | O | Ö | U | Ü |
| short | /a/ | /ɛ/ | /ɛ/, /ǝ/ | /ɪ/ | /ɔ/ | /œ/ | /ʊ/ | /ʏ/ |
| long | /aː/ | /ɛː/ | /eː/ | /iː/ | /oː/ | /øː/ | /uː/ | /yː/ |
Promotion of the German language
The use and learning of the German language are promoted by a number of organisations. The government-backed Goethe Institut (named after the famous German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) aims to enhance the knowledge of German culture and language within Europe and the rest of the world. This is done by holding exhibitions and conferences with German-related themes, and providing training and guidance in the learning and use of the German language. For example the Goethe Institut teaches the Goethe-Zertifikat German language qualification. The German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle is the equivalent of the British BBC World Service and provides radio and television broadcasts in German and a variety of other languages across the globe. Its German language services are tailored for German language learners by being spoken at slow speed
