6 Surprising Facts About German Language You Never Knew

Because of its lengthy history and widespread geographic use, the German language has amassed an impressive number of interesting grammatical subtleties and beautiful words. Take a look at these fascinating facts about German culture and linguistics. If you haven't started learning German yet, maybe this may provoke your interest.

The 11th most frequently spoken language in the world is German.

German is the native language of about 100 million people throughout the world! In addition, there are several million German-speaking minorities, such as Pennsylvania Dutch, in the United States. Over 130 million German speakers may be counted on the fingers of one hand.

As an artist, you may know it as one of the principal languages used on art materials, as it is widely used in technology and commerce.

Five EU nations have German as their official language.

So, in which countries do German speakers live? Five EU nations have made German one of their official languages, making it widely spoken throughout the EU.

In addition to being the official language of Germany, it is also spoken in Austria, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, and Belgium.

Besides these, there are many more places where you may find German speakers, including Switzerland, Namibia, Brazil, South Africa and the United States!

There are dialects that are incredibly confusing to each other.

In Germany, each of the country's 16 federal states (Bundesländer) has its own dialect of German. Northern German dialects are distinct from southern German dialects in several ways. Because of consonant and vowel changes that happened along "lines" in Germany, these linguistic variances emerged.

The Uerdingen line distinguishes between the -k and -ch pronunciations. I change to ik north of the Uerdingen Linie, but remain ich south of the line. 'Machen' for “making' follows the Benrather Line's similar criterion. Like in terms like "apple" á "Apfel" or "Appel," the Speyer line distinguishes between dialects that utilize a fricative and full stops, with full stops (Appel) being used in the north.

The Bavarian dialect is regarded as one of the most difficult to grasp.

German dialects may be quite diverse, as I said in the last interesting fact. As a matter of fact, many northern German native speakers claim that the Bavarian dialect is among the most difficult to decipher!

In addition to the Uerdingen and Benrather Linen, Bavaria has two further dialectal lines. The pronunciation of the plural/accusative 'you' (euch –> enk) and the plural conjugations are both affected by these rules.

The dialect has a wide range of pronunciation and vocabulary variances that even fluent German speakers find difficult to comprehend. The question of whether Bavarian is a dialect of German or a separate language has been debated.

One of Central Europe's most important languages was German.

From France and Italy to the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and portions of Poland, the Holy Roman Empire historically covered a large section of Central Europe. Sardinia and Corsica were included as well!

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Germany served as the region's de facto common tongue for a while. German is now a minority language in several Central and Eastern European nations because of this.

There are several compound words in German.

German is known as the language of "Frankenwords" by many. For example, Schlüsselbein (bowl + bone) for collar bone or Fahrräder (drive + wheels) for bicycle might be merged into a new German noun.

As a result, you'll be able to locate a lot of intriguing terms in German due to this versatility. It's also possible to create new words this way!

To know someone, a location, a thing, etc., is a combination of "to come to know (that person, place, thing, etc.)" in the verb "to get to know." along with the word 'learn,' Creating new German verbs is more difficult than creating new nouns, therefore you'll see fewer 'new verbs.'