High German
High German, or Hochdeutsch, is the name of the standard form of Modern German. It is a West Germanic and is related to Low German, Dutch, and Anglo-Saxon/Modern English. Today it is the official language of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.
| High German HochDeutsch | |
| Spoken in: | Germany, Switzerland, Austria (Deutschland, Schweiz, Österreich) |
| Conworld: | Real world |
| Total speakers: | 105 million |
| Genealogical classification: | Indo-European
|
| Basic word order: | SVO, OVS/V2 |
| Morphological type: | inflecting |
| Morphosyntactic alignment: | nominative-accusative |
| Writing system: | |
| Created by: | |
| unknown | 1800-Present C.E. |
Difference between High and Low German
High German differs from other West German languages such as Low German, English, and Dutch in that High German when through the High German Consonant Shift. The High German Consonant Shift (or HGCS) is the sound shift where;
- Non-geminated voicless stops became fricatives,
- Geminated and liquid-adjacent voiceless stops became affricates,
- Voiced stops became voiceless stops, and finally
- All interdental fricatives (/ð/ and /θ/) became the dental stop and/or Alveolar stop /d̻/ and /d/.
The last stage was shared by Low German and Dutch.
All of these stages occur in the Highest of High German dialects, but Standard High German does not have all of them. The shift of /k/>/kx/ in stage 2 did not occur in the standard, although it did in Upper German dialects, such as Bavarian. Also the only part of stage 3 which actually became part of standard High German was /d/>/t/. The other two happened only in the Highest of High German or Upper German dialects
Orthography
High German is written with the Latin alphabet. It has extra letters which represent some of the sounds of the German language, which are not otherwise found in the Latin alphabet. These include Ö ö, Ü ü, Ä ä, ß.
Phonology
Consonants
| Consonants | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Labiod. | Alveolar | Post-alv. | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||||||
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | k | g | ||||||||||
| Fricative | f | v | s | z | ʃ | (ʒ) | ç | x | h | |||||||
| Affricate | pf | ʦ | ʧ | (ʤ) | (kx) | |||||||||||
| Approximants | j | |||||||||||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||||||||||
| Lateral Approximant | l | |||||||||||||||
- The diagraph ch is /x/ after a back vowel, and /ç/ elsewhere.
- v and f are (usually) both pronounced /f/, and w is pronounced /v/.
- /ŋ/ occurs as ng and /ŋk/ is nk.
- sch is pronounced /ʃ/. tsch is pronounced /ʧ/.
- Initially s is pronounced /z/ before vowels, and /ʃ/ before a consonant (such as st and sp).
- j is pronounced /j/.
- The spellings tz and z are pronounced /ʦ/.
- ß and ss are pronounced /s/.
- German has final devoicing. This means that all voiced consonants with voiceless forms become those voiceless forms, at the end of the word.
Vowels
| Vowels | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Central | Back | ||||||||
| Unround | Rounded | Unrounded | Rounded | |||||||
| High | iː - ɪ | yː - ʏ | uː - ʊ | |||||||
| Mid | eː - ɛ | øː - œ | ə | oː - ɔ | ||||||
| Low | aː/a | |||||||||
| All entries are: Tense - Lax | ||||||||||
- In order to form the long version of a vowel, add -h after the vowel.
- Final e is pronounced /ə/.
- ü is pronounced /yː/, /ʏ/.
- ö is pronounced /øː/, /œ/.
- ä is pronounced /eː/, /ɛ/.
Diphthongs
- eu and äu are pronounced /oj/.
- ei and ai are pronounced /aj/.
- au is pronounced /aw/.
Grammar
The General Stuff
Gender and Number
Nouns, Adjectives, Articless, and to some extent Pronouns all affected by Gender and Number. There are three genders and two numbers in High German. The three genders are Masculine, Feminine, and Neuter, and the numbers are Singular and Plural. Usually all forms of the Plural are the same, when it comes to adjectives and articles.
Case
In German, there are four cases, Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, and Dative. These affect articles, pronouns, adjectives, and nouns. The prepositions of German also affect whether an phrase is genitive, dative, or accusative.
Articles
There are definite articles and indefinite articles in German as well as in English. Articles are affected by case, gender, and number. The plural is the same across the genders.
Definite
| Cases | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | Plural (all Genders) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | der | die | das | die |
| Genitive | des | der | des | der |
| Dative | dem | der | dem | den |
| Accusative | den | die | das | die |
Indefinite
| Cases | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | Plural (all Genders) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | ein | eine | ein | meine† |
| Genitive | eines | einer | eines | meinen |
| Dative | einem | einer | einem | meinen |
| Accusative | einen | eine | ein | meine |
† There is no plural form of ein, but there are other indefinite article-style words that do, such as mein which means my.
Nouns
Gender is arbitrary in German, but Nouns referring to living being usually are the gender of that being. The ending of a noun is usually helpful in figuring out which gender a noun is, although it is not always the case.
Genders of Nouns
- Masculine
- Nouns ending with -en are usually masculine.
- Nouns ending -erare usually masculine.
- Nouns ending with -ismus are masculine.
- Feminine
- To convert masculine nouns ending with -er to feminine, add -in to it.
- Most nouns ending with -e.
- Nouns ending with -ion, -ik, -ie, -unft, -tät, -ei, -heit, -keit, -schaft, and -ung are almost always feminine.
- Neuter
- Young living beings are Neuter.
- The ending -chen and -lein are diminutives and are always neuter.
- Metals and infinitive-nouns are always neuter.
