Standard German
Standard German is the prescriptive norm variant of the
German language used as a
written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas.
Standard German has originated not as a traditional dialect of a specific region, but as a
written language, developed over a process of several hundred years, in which writers tried to write in a way that was understood in the largest area. Until about 1800 Standard German was almost entirely a written language. In this time, people in northern
Germany, who spoke
Low Saxon dialects very different from Standard German, learnt it almost like a foreign language. Later the Northern pronunciation was considered standard and spread southward; in some regions (such as around
Hanover) the local dialect completely died out. It is thus the spread of Standard German as a language taught at school that defines the German
Sprachraum, i.e. a political decision rather than a direct consequence of
dialect geography, allowing areas with dialects of very limited mutual comprehensibility to participate in the same cultural sphere (literature, and more recently mass media).
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 on the territory of
Germany have begun to replace the traditional dialects from the
19th century. They constitute a mixture of old dialectal elements with Standard German.
In German, Standard German is often called
Hochdeutsch, a misleading term since it collides with the linguistic term
High German.
Hoch "high" in the term for the standard language refers to "high" in a cultural or educational sense, while in the linguistic term it simply refers to the
Geography of Germany, High German of the southern uplands and the Alps contrasting with
Low Saxon (also called
Low German) spoken in the lowlands stretching towards the
North Sea. To avoid this confusion, Standard German is increasingly referred to as
Standarddeutsch,
deutsche Standardsprache, or if the context of the German language is clear, simply
Standardsprache "standard language".
Standard German differs regionally, especially between German-speaking countries, especially in
vocabulary, but also in some instances of
pronunciation and even
grammar. This variation must not be confused with the variation of local dialects. Even though the regional varieties of standard German are to a certain degree influenced by the local dialects, they are very distinct. German is thus considered a
pluricentric language.
In most regions, the speakers use a continuum of mixtures from more dialectical varieties to more standard varieties according to situation.
In the German-speaking parts of
Switzerland, there is no such continuum between dialect 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 rarely spoken, 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.
Pronunciation of Standard German was first prescribed in
1898 in the
Deutsche Bühnenaussprache of
Theodor Siebs. In Siebs' pronunciation, the phoneme /r/ was given a pronunciation of , while regional variants are permissible in contemporary Standard German.
A first standardization, although non-prescriptive, of
Early Modern High German was introduced by
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 idiom in favour of this standard.
The First Orthographical Conference (
I. Orthographische Konferenz) was called in
1876 by the government of
Prussia. Since Prussia was by far the largest state in the
German Empire, its regulations also influenced spelling elsewhere.
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" (
Klassische deutsche Rechtschreibung), while the conventions in effect from 1901 to 1998 are summarized as "old orthography" (
Alte deutsche Rechtschreibung). A failed attempt at another reform dates to 1944, delayed on the order of Hitler and not taken back up after the end of the
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 putting out their own dictionaries, which did not always hold 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.
From
1996,
another reform was attempted, based on an international agreement signed by the governments of the
German-speaking countries
Germany,
Austria,
Liechtenstein, and
Switzerland. The acceptance of the reform was limited. While,
as of 2004, most German print media use rules that to a large extent comply with the reform, some newspapers, such as
Die Zeit, , or
Süddeutsche Zeitung, created their own in-house orthographies.
*
Standard language *
History of the German language
