Introduction to german language....

German is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Globally, German is spoken by approximately 120 million native speakers and also by about 80 million non-native speakers. Standard German is widely taught in schools, universities and Goethe Institutes worldwide....



Origins

The history of the language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, separating Old High German dialects fromOld Saxon. The earliest testimonies of Old High German are from scattered Elder Futhark inscriptions, especially in Alemannic, from the 6th century AD; the earliest glosses (Abrogans) date to the 8th; and the oldest coherent texts (the Hildebrandslied, the Muspilli and the Merseburg Incantations) to the 9th century. Old Saxon at this time belongs to the North Sea Germanic cultural sphere, and Low Saxon should fall under German rather than Anglo-Frisian influence during the Holy Roman Empire.

As Germany was divided into many different states, the only force working for a unification or standardization of German during a period of several hundred years was the general preference of writers trying to write in a way that could be understood in the largest possible area.

GERMAN ALPHABET

The German Alphabet is a vital part of the language, which is spoken by more than 130 million people in 38 countries of the world, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Belgium, and 33 other countries. The alphabet consists of the same 26 letters as English alphabet, plus some extra ones. The names for each letter are in many cases slightly different to their English equivalents or are pronounced in a different way. These letters and their names are listed in the table below:

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
ah
bay
tsay
day
ay
eff
gay
hah
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
ee
yoht
kah
el
em
en
oh
pay
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
koo
ehr
ess
tay
oo
fow
vay
eeks
Y
Z



irp se lon
tset






Additional German letters:

Ä /ä, Ö/ ö, Ü / ü. ß (called scharfes s)
Ä /ä sounds more like “e”
Ö/ ö sounds more like “oe”
Ü / ü sounds more like “ue”
ß sounds like “ss”
Compound letters:
Sch: sounds like “sh”
Ch: sounds sometimes like “sh” or like “kh”.
St: sounds like “sht” at the beginning, and like “st” at the end of a word.







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