Talk:German language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
 A Wikipedian removed German language from the good article list. There are suggestions below for improving areas to satisfy the good article criteria. Once the objections are addressed, renominate the article as a good article. If you disagree with the objections, you can seek a review.

Removal date: October 13, 2006
Portal:Germany
 Germany Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Germany, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles related to Germany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please join the project.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale.
(If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
Germany To-do:
This article is part of WikiProject Languages (daughter of WikiProject Linguistics), an attempt at creating a standardized, informative, and easy-to-use resource about languages. Suggestions for improving articles on languages should go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages.


Wikipedia CD Selection German language is either included in the 2006 Wikipedia CD Selection or is a candidate for inclusion in the next version (the project page is at WPCD Selection). Please maintain high quality standards, and if possible stick to GFDL and GFDL-compatible images.
  1. January 2003 – September 2006
  2. October 2006

Contents

[edit] "Spoken in [...]"

Currently the infobox of the German language says the following: "Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Belgium, Italy, France, Luxembourg, Argentina, Brazil, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Denmark, Namibia, South Africa, Mexico, Canada, USA and 35 other countries.".

I think we should edit this and go with the way the English language article does it. ie listing the countries where it is official, not dying and not a minority language + "and other countries".

So that would mean: "Austria, - Belgium (official, but also minority) -, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland and other countries."

Are there any objections? Rex 14:25, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I have no objections, but if you do it I will make the same changes to the Dutch language article, as well as every other European language article which does the same thing. Ameise -- chat 14:37, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't care if you did that. Seems kind of fair. (Sorry to disappoint you, Mike.) Rex 14:42, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Why purge valuable information? Ulritz 16:50, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Because infoboxes should be kept short. I'd say any language's infobox should only list the countries where the language in question really predominates (in this case, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Luxembourg, plus maybe Belgium because of having official status there) with an "and other countries" if necessary, while more detail can be given in the body of the text. —Angr 17:20, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I am a bit taken back by this whole Luxembourg as a German speaking language bit. If you define Dutch as an independant language, so is Luxembourgish. There are so many non-german words used in Luxembourgish and time has made it develop in its very own way. It may have been a german dialect once but that was way back in the days of Low German. By the way, Luxembourg is officially a French speaking country and all of the people in Luxembourg are speaking French, whereas Luxembourgish is only used by a very small majority. Besides, there are strong political feelings involved in making us a german-speaking country. No real Luxembourger will accept that.

Well, you're sure you're from Luxembourg? That does not sound like the Luxembourg I know... German IS official language (with French and Luxembourgish), additionally Luxembourgish is the national language. Moreover, in contrast to Dutch, Luxembourgish cannot be considered a fully independent language. French might be a prefered language of the government (dating back to the code civil), which is why most street signs are French, but German on the other hand has a stronger presence throughout the print media, the church, the elementary and professional schools and others. I've visited Luxembourg numerous times and every single time I realised that this small country is much larger concerning lagnuages and is truly trilingual. The citizens are randomly mixing German, French and Luxembourgish, even within one single newspaper, shop window or discussion and nearly everbody is able to speak all three of them more or less fluently. At last, I want to add, that the German dialects of Baden, South Tyrol, Holstein etc. all feature "non-german words" in their specific vocabularies, which, however, does not render them "less German". --BlueMars 23:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Dear anonymous, you wrote "By the way, Luxembourg is officially a French speaking country and all of the people in Luxembourg are speaking French, whereas Luxembourgish is only used by a very small majority."
Now, is it possible that somewhere on this globe there is (hidden away in some secret corner) a second country that is also called Luxemburg/Luxembourg/Letzebuerg? The Luxemburg I know has the official languages French, German and Luxemburgish (in alphabetical order) and practically all natives of Luxemburg speak Luxemburgish as their first language. Many Luxemburgers have a limited knowledge of French and High German (Standard German). When speaking German (Standard German) the very close relationship between Luxemburgish and German gives them the advantage of being ablet to express themselves effortlessly, though not necessarily always correctly. In the worst case, a word-to-word translation of Luxemburgish into Standard German will do.
Furthermore, the number of French loanwords in Luxemburgish is not so high as to hamper mutual intelligibility with Standard German. Many of those loanwords exist in German as well, though most of them are obsolete or dialectal.Unoffensive text or character 13:54, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Well yes, I am a native "Letzeburger". There is, however, a very very large minority of foreigners living in Luxembourg, thankfully so, that do not speak Luxemburgish at all. The problem most of us DO have with being assembled to German (again) lies very much deeper, though.
As for being trilingual, it has its drawbacks, too. Most of the Luxembourgers are not fluent in German (as they do a literal translation from their native language most of the time) and their French is not really perfect, either. As for being a French speaking country, we belong officially to the "pays francophones" and you won't be able to manage for long in Luxembourg without French (try to buy something in Luxemburgish or German and you know what I mean)
Sorry for being anonymous in my first posting. It was largely an emotional reaction more than any logical reasoning. I made my studies at a university in Austria, so I might be more friendly toward German as a language than most of the "Letzeburgers".
Blue Mars, why do you say: "Moreover, in contrast to Dutch, Luxembourgish cannot be considered a fully independent language." Now this is something someone has to explain. I am not sure about the "mutual intelligibility" between German and Luxemburgish either. I guess you may be right for the regions located geographically near our country, but other Germans won't understand a word of what we are talking about. Exactly the same is true for Dutch :). Luxembourgish is a very independant language with it's own literature, folk songs, poetry and everything else you may expect in a language.Mtravellerh 23:55, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Mtravellerh, In contrast to Blue Mars, I do not dispute the status of modern Luxemburgish as an independent language. Yet, I consider Luxemburgish and German to be mutually intelligible, at least in their written forms. Spoken Luxemburgish is certainly unintelligible for most Germans who do not come from the Eifel region.
However, my friends in Luxemburg told me that the knowledge of French may range from "a few words and phrases" to "near perfect" and that many natives, especially those who never use French at work, feel uneasy when speaking to the omnipresent French or Belgian shop assistants in Luxemburg City. And one of my friends, who teaches French at a Lycée, usually speaks Luxemburgish when entering a shop and is occasionally taken aback by shop assistants who tell him things like "parlez Francais" (no "Monsieur", no "s'il vous plait", just plain "parlez Francais").
Anyway, I hope you do not feel offended when I say that, to the best of my knowledge, German is very closely related to Luxemburgish, there is a great degree of mutual intelligibility of the written standard languages and that most (or many?) Luxemburgers are more at ease with some form of Standard German than with French.
The literal word-to-word translations from Luxemburgish to Standard German you mention, do achieve a satisfactory result. You must keep in mind that in many parts of Germany, Germans do the same thing when speaking Standard German. I have never witnessed a Luxemburger groping for words or stumbling helplessly through Standard German grammar, but the Standard German they speak sound (to us Germans) funny but quite alright. I would call this fluencyUnoffensive text or character 10:44, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
The Luxemburgish language is a High German language. However, Alsatian, Yiddish and Pennsylvania Dutch are high German languages, too, so it may be up to the reader to decide whether being a "high German language" makes a language a "German dialect". Although I don't have any close friends or relatives in Luxemburg, I've visited the country numerous times. I've been in Esch, Luxemburg, Wasserbillig and other towns and cities. So my afore posted comments do indeed have some reference. In Esch (close to the French border) the vendor of a bakery greeted me in Luxemburgish and I would estimate I've spotted nearly as much signs written in French as in Luxemburgish or High German (Not only private/commercial signs, but also road sings, e.g. "emplacement d'arrêt d'urgence - Nothaltebucht") In Wasserbillig (close to the German border) I've heard no one speaking French. The guy at the gas station, the sales-woman in the supermarket, everyone spoke High German and some Luxemburgish (and there was nothing which could have indicated me being German, at least nothing that I know of;-) Perhaps the smell? :p ). Due to the lower taxes however, there are a lot of Germans buying their alcohol in Luxemburg, which surely contributes to the fact that High German is quite dominant in supermarkets, especially those near the German border. --BlueMars 20:33, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Speakers ...

The intro says 110 million, the infobox says 100 and the German wikipedia says 120 million native speakers. Who's right? Rex 14:36, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


I think the number is around 96 million. You can find this at this site: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=deu

which in turn cites Raymond Gordon as a source. Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International

I believe that the source is fairly reputable, but it should be double-checked

Traditionally, the number of speakers is given between 100 and 120 million. But if you look at that figure, it seems somewhat exaggerated. There are (according to Ethnologue) about 75 million first language speakers in Germany. This figure is reliable, as the population is around 80 million, but this includes at least 5 million foreigners who have German as a second language, if at all. There are (again according to Ethnologue) about 7.5 million first language speakers in Austria. And there are (according to the Swiss Census Bureau) some 4.6 milliion speakers in Switzerland. This makes a total of 87 million, approximately. The big question is, then: Where do the remaining 9 million speakers live (Ethnologue says there are some 96 million)? There may be a couple of million Germans and descendants of Germans scattered all over the world, but they will hardly add up to 9 million. Most traditionally German speaking communities in the USA, Russia, Kazakhstan, Brazil and Argentina are rapidly assimilating to the surrounding majorities. So, if I had to put forward a figure, I would make it some 90 million worldwide.Unoffensive text or character 09:06, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

By the way, now that I come to think of it: There is another problem with Ethnologue's figures. Ethnologue lists a number of languages for Germany, Austria and Switzerland: Bavarian (the number of speakers in Germany given as 246,050, which is ridiculously low), Franconian, Saxonian, Alemannisch, etc. Practically all German-speaking Swiss and an overwhelming majority of the Austrians are being classified as "Alemannisch" or "Bavarian". That, to my mind, means that they cannot at the same time be first-language speakers of German. To make it short: I would not rely on the Ethnologue, as the figures it gives for Central European languages seem largely to be made up and, what is worse, made up by uninformed people.Unoffensive text or character 09:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that we put in a range of speakers. For instance, we may say that there are between 90 - 100 million speakers, for example. 69.109.174.162 03:29, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of dialect?

I hate to interrupt a really good edit war, but may I ask whether there is a mutually agreed upon definition of the term "Dialect"? Thx (joel johnson)

You're not interrupting anything, the edit war has been over for a month and a half. And the answer to your question is no. —Angr 05:17, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't know, Angr, I think there is a more or less generally agreed upon definition of the term, but it's a very broad one: Dialect.
I've read Dialect, and it completely skirts the issue of the polysemous nature of the word. —Angr 16:02, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bayreuth

I have a question, how do you pronounce "Bayreuth". I can't quite figure that out.

Roughly "bye-ROYT". IPA is [baiˈʁɔyt]. —Angr 10:43, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Bayreuth ? It´s a town in north bavarian, or what do you mean ?!? i AM german, but i don´t speak ENGLISH so good and my translation programm shows more than one word for "pronounce" ...the first was the same as "discribe", so in that case its a town ;)

Die Frage war, wie man den Namen "Bayreuth" ausspricht. —Angr 15:09, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "32% of citizens of the EU-15 countries say they can converse in German"

This 32% percentage of EU-15 citizens does obviously include the people of Germany and Austria so I find it rather misleading that such a statement is standing right next to: "German was once the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe and remains one of the most popular foreign languages taught worldwide, and is more popular than French as a foreign language in Europe." It comes out as though this figure concerns German as a second language. In addition, the statement that French is less popular as a foreign language in Europe as German is directly contradicted by precisely the same source quoted to make this remark, see: [1] page 13.

Antonius Block 01:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation of EE

This is a pronunciation that needs to be listed. I've been listening to different recordings of a particular Richard Wagner aria, and the singers' pronunciationd of this syllable vary. --Scottandrewhutchins 19:22, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

First thing's first: Who was the singer who brought this phonological abnormality to light? Which Wagner aria was he or she singing? And how did this person manage to pronounce EE in a way that could not be accurately described as any kind of front unrounded close-mid to open-mid vowel?
Really, if we were to concern ourselves with what singers do to German - I am a member of the guilty party itself, having performed a few Schubert Lieder - or what we do to any other language, these articles would stretch thousands of pages. They would also be insufferable. I remember being at a Mexican restaurant with a group of teachers and students debating whether singers ought to linger on a pair of Ls (z.B. Hölle) longer than a single L. One very good diction coach said yes, but a grad student said no, that singers do this by false analogy with Italian. There are recordings of great singers doing both, so it may just be a matter of taste. In other cases diction choices are made out of necessity, like the near-universal substitution of an Italian R when singing German, French and even English, languages whose Rs are articulated further back in the throat and are not resonant enough for the stage.
You can see why the linguist won't learn much about a language's phonetics and phonology with a trip to the opera house, nor will the singer get much help with the fine points of German singing diction out of linguistics. Sorry :) Skotoseme 16:13, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

It was James Morris on "Auf wolkigen Höh'n wohnen die Götter". He appears to pronunce "Speer" like "spear" and "heer" like "hare". Donald McIntyre pronounces them "spare" and "hare". I'm doing this for an audtion, and I don't speak German (a German aria is mandatory), and I don't want to sound stupid mispronouncing things. --Scottandrewhutchins 20:12, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, as they are (I guess) non-native speakers, of course they will be a bit off when it comes to pronunciation. "ee" in German is definitely not the English "ee" or "ea", "spare" would be closer (my vowel-IPA-knowledge is too bad to look the correct definition up). At least in spoken German, the 'r' would be transformed to a schwa in that case, by the way. I'm not really up on stage pronunciation for German, though. Baranxtu 23:22, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
The dictionary pronuciation is /ʃpe:r/ (or whatever funky R is used for German IPA - I can't remember if it's upside-down and capitalized or just capitalized) Anyway, we're talking about three vowels:
English "spear" or German "tief" /i/
German "Speer" /e/ and
English "spare" /eɪ/
So, like Baranxtu said, "spare" is close to "Speer" but not quite it. There are two problems for an English speaker: 1) This weird /e/ exists in Standard English only as part of the diphthong /eɪ/ (as in "spare" or "say"). It is only isolated by Canadians and Minnesotans, who famously do a similar thing to O (/oʊ/ > /o/as in "Minnesooota." Interestingly, German also has this sound as in "das Boot" /bo:t/...the Minnesota native in my German diction class never had a problem with these sounds....but I digress) 2) Although IPA uses the same symbol, German /e/ is more closed (that is, a couple millimeters closer to /i/) than an artificially isolated English /e/ (artifically isolated by, say, holding the /e/ vowel before closing the the diphthong /ɪ/). So it's possible that you're hearing Morris' pronunciation of /e/ as /i/ because the more closed German /e/ could more closely resemble the latter. But his pronunciation, whatever it is, should be identical for both words, so...is he singing the words in different registers of the voice perhaps? (I don't know the aria well.) Singers tend to modify vowels into oblivion, especially on high notes and especially with closed vowels like /e/. This would explain the difference, but I can see why you're unnerved.
If you're still hearing /i/, forget Morris and follow McIntyre: closed /e/ without any trace of a diphthong. Good luck with your audition! :) Skotoseme 00:39, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Since I am a native german speaker, I can hardly understand the problem, but I can give advice: Listen to Theo Adam's Wotan, who pronounces very poperly. Even better in this respect: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's Wotan in the Karajan recording of "Rheingold".
Or if you speak or understand French: Imagine the words spelled like this: Spéer and Héer.--Vully 00:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Allow me to clear this up. The words Speer and Heer contain a diphthong which is pronounced [ɛɐ̯] in some dialects and [eɐ̯] in others. This is separate from the phoneme /eː/ which is sometimes written ee (e.g. Beere, Beet). The latter is always pronounced [eː]. — Timwi 23:42, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe that singular Speer and plural Speere have different phonemes, even if the first surfaces with a diphthong and the second surfaces with a monophthong. —Angr 06:07, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The adding of links to the wiki

hey guys,

I've recently launched a completely free site to teach people the basics of German. I am wondering what the requirements of my site are before I can add a link to it on wikipedia? Thanks, Morryau 09:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Please see WP:EL, in particular WP:EL#Advertising and conflicts of interest. —Angr 09:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)


Thanks Angr, that explained it perfectly. My site is at http://www.jiffygerman.com I currently don't think it has much to offer, as I only just put it up, but I will be adding content over time. Is there anything on this site that would prevent it from ever appearing on wiki? Assuming content is at a suitable level.

Thanks again, Morryau 11:30, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Can someone take a look at my site and either add it to the wiki or let me know what is needed before it is allowed to go on here? Or let me know if I can add it myself. Cheers, 58.107.172.115 03:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../g/e/r/Talk%7EGerman_language_3ce2.html"