Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people [nb 1] mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, English, is also the world's most widely spoken language with an estimated 2 billion speakers.
The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. The German term Deutschland, originally diutisciu land ('the German lands'), is derived from deutsch (cf. Dutch), descended from Old High German diutisc 'of the people' (from diot or diota 'people'), originally used to distinguish the language of the ...
German ( Standard High German: Deutsch, pronounced [dɔʏ̯t͡ʃ] ⓘ) [10] is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol.
Yiddish ( ייִדיש, יידיש or אידיש, yidish or idish, pronounced [ˈ (j)ɪdɪʃ], lit. 'Jewish'; ייִדיש-טײַטש, historically also Yidish-Taytsh, lit. 'Judeo-German') [10] is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originates from the 9th century [11] : 2 Central Europe, providing the ...
History portal. v. t. e. The appearance of the German language begins in the Early Middle Ages with the High German consonant shift. Old High German, Middle High German, and Early New High German span the duration of the Holy Roman Empire. The 19th and 20th centuries saw the rise of Standard German and a decrease of dialectal variety.
Outline of German language. The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to German language : One of the major languages of the world, German is the first language of almost 100 million people worldwide and the most widely spoken native language in the European Union. [1] Together with French, German is the second most ...
Old Saxon. Old Saxon ( Altsächsisch ), also known as Old Low German ( Altniederdeutsch ), is a West Germanic language. It is documented from the 9th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken on the north-west coast of Germany by Saxon peoples.
Indo-Aryan, though a large subfamily of Indo-European, has a relatively small number of languages in Europe, and a small number of speakers (Romani, c. 1.5 million). However, a number of Indo-Aryan languages not native to Europe are spoken in Europe today. [2]