Standard German
Standard German, High German or more precisely Standard High German, is the standardized variety of the German language used in formal contexts and for communication between different dialect areas. It is a pluricentric Dachsprache with three codified specific regional variants: German Standard German, Austrian Standard German and Swiss Standard German.
Regarding the spelling and punctuation, a recommended standard is published by the Council for German Orthography which represents the governments of all majority and minority German-speaking countries and dependencies. Adherence is obligatory not for everyday use but for government institutions including schools. For pronunciation, there is no official standards body but there is a long-standing de facto standard pronunciation, most commonly used in formal speech and teaching materials; it is similar to the formal German spoken in and around Hanover. Adherence to those standards by private individuals and companies, including the print and audio-visual media, is voluntary but widespread.
Origins
Standard German originated not as a traditional dialect of a specific region but as a written language that was developed over a process of several hundred years in which writers tried to write in a way that was understood in the largest area.When Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation mainly on this already developed language, which was the most widely understood language at this time. This language was based on Eastern Upper and Eastern Central German dialects and preserved much of the grammatical system of Middle High German. In the beginning, copies of the Bible had a long list for each region, which translated words unknown in the region into the regional dialect. It took until the middle of the 18th century to create a standard that was widely accepted, thus ending the period of Early New High German.
Until about 1800, Standard German was almost entirely a written language. People in Northern Germany who spoke mainly Low Saxon languages very different from Standard German then learned it more or less as a foreign language. However, later the Northern pronunciation was considered standard and spread southward; in some regions, the local dialect has completely died out with the exception of small communities of Low German speakers.
It is thus the spread of Standard German as a language taught at school that defines the German Sprachraum, which was thus a political decision rather than a direct consequence of dialect geography. That allowed areas with dialects with very little mutual comprehensibility to participate in the same cultural sphere. Currently, local dialects are used mainly in informal situations or at home and also in dialect literature, but more recently, a resurgence of German dialects has appeared in mass media.
Terminology
In German linguistics, only the traditional regional varieties of German are called dialects, not the different varieties of standard German. The latter are known as Umgangssprachen and in the territory of Germany began to replace the traditional dialects beginning in the nineteenth century. They constitute a mixture of old dialectal elements with Standard German.In German, Standard German is often called Hochdeutsch, a somewhat misleading term since it conflicts with the linguistic term High German. High German of the southern uplands and the Alps contrasts with Low German spoken in the lowlands stretching towards the North Sea. To avoid this confusion, some refer to Standard German as Standarddeutsch, deutsche Standardsprache, or if the context of the German language is clear, simply Standardsprache. However, the word "standard" in some people's opinion downgrades the linguistic position of the daily language spoken in Switzerland and Austria, and thus they often prefer "Hochdeutsch" or "High German" as it is less aggressive towards Swiss Standard German and Austrian German.
Pluricentricity
Standard German differs regionally. The most accepted distinction is between different national varieties of standard German: Austrian Standard German, German Standard German and Swiss Standard German. Additionally, there are linguists who posit that there are different varieties of standard German within Germany. Linguistic research of the different varieties of standard German began for the most part only in the 1990s, especially in Austria and Switzerland. During the existence of the German Democratic Republic, there were occasional studies about whether there were differences between the standard varieties of the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic. The German federal state of Bavaria has promoted language diversity in the past in an effort to preserve its distinct culture.The different varieties of standard German differ only in a few features, especially in vocabulary and pronunciation, but even in some instances of grammar and orthography. In the written language, it may be hard or even impossible to tell what variety of standard German has been used, though in the spoken language, the different varieties of standard German are easily recognized by most speakers.
The variation of the standard German varieties must not be confused with the variation of the local German dialects. Even though the standard German varieties are to a certain degree influenced by the local dialects, they are very distinct. All varieties of standard German are based on the common tradition of the written German language, whereas the local dialects have their own historical roots that go further back than the unification of the written language and in the case of Low German belong to a different language entirely.
Continuum between standard German and German dialects
In most regions, the speakers use a continuum of mixtures from more dialectical varieties to more standard varieties according to situation. However, there are two exceptions:- In Northern Germany, there is no continuum in the strict sense between the local indigenous languages and dialects of Low German on the one hand, and standard German on the other. Since the former have not undergone the High German consonant shift, they are too different from the standard for a continuum to emerge. High German and Low German can be considered to be separate languages, but because High, Middle, and Low German form a dialect continuum and Standard German serves as dachsprache for all forms of German, they are mostly seen as dialects of German. Under a socio-linguistic approach to the problem, even if Low German dialects are Abstandsprachen, they are dialects of German, because they lack Ausbau. However, Low German did influence the standard-based vernaculars spoken today in Northern Germany by language transfer, and it continues to do so to a limited degree. High German heavily influenced by Low German has been known as Missingsch, but most contemporary Northern Germans exhibit only an intermediate Low German substratum in their speech.
- In German-speaking Switzerland, there is no such continuum between the Swiss German varieties and Swiss Standard German, and the use of standard German is almost entirely restricted to the written language. Therefore, this situation has been called a medial diglossia. Standard German is rather rarely spoken among native Swiss, and even then the accent and vocabulary is very much Swiss, except for instance when speaking with people who do not understand the Swiss German dialects at all, and it is expected to be used in school. Standard German has, however, left a clear imprint on the contemporary variants of Swiss German, regional expressions and vocabulary having been replaced with material assimilated from the standard language. Of all the German-speaking countries Switzerland has however the most retained its ability to use dialect in everyday situations, also a commonplace phenomenon in southern Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Alsace, and South Tyrol. The fairly common aspect of dialect use in Swiss media, which ranges from uncommon to rare in the media of Austria, Germany, East Belgium, South Tyrol, and Liechtenstein, makes Switzerland a special case.
- Although Luxembourgish is no longer considered a German dialect today but a language, the situation can be compared to that of Switzerland. Standard German is also taught in schools in Luxembourg and close to 90% of the population can speak it.
Phonology
Grammar
Orthography
A first standardization, although non-prescriptive, of Early Modern High German was introduced by the Luther Bible of 1534. In consequence, the written language of the chancery of Saxony-Wittenberg rose in importance in the course of the 17th century, and the 1665 revision of the Zürich Bible abandoned its Alemannic-based idiom in favour of this standard.The First Orthographical Conference was called in 1876 by the government of Prussia.
Konrad Duden published the first edition of his dictionary, later simply known as the Duden, in 1880. The first spelling reform, based on Duden's work, came into effect in 1901. The orthographical standards predating 1901 are now known as "classical orthography", while the conventions in effect from 1901 to 1998 are summarized as "old orthography". In 1944 there was a failed attempt at another reform; this was delayed on the order of Hitler and not taken up again after the end of World War II. In the following decades German spelling was essentially decided de facto by the editors of the Duden dictionaries. After the war, this tradition was followed with two different centers: Mannheim in West Germany and Leipzig in East Germany. By the early 1950s, a few other publishing houses had begun to attack the Duden monopoly in the West by publishing their own dictionaries, which did not always conform to the "official" spellings prescribed by Duden. In response, the Ministers of Culture of the federal states in West Germany officially declared the Duden spellings to be binding as of November 1955.
The 1996 spelling reform was based on an international agreement signed by the governments of the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland; but acceptance of the reform was limited. While,, most German print media followed the reform, some newspapers, such as Die Zeit, Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitung, created their own in-house orthographies.
In 2006, there was a further revision of the spelling reform because there were disagreements about capitalisation and splitting of German words. Also revised were the rules governing punctuation marks.