The German Language : A Short History

2000 B.C. : Nomadic tribes from the Indo-European community travel to
north-west Europe and settle, developing a culture of the Bronze Age. The settler’s dialect changes into what is known as Primitive Germanic.

500 B.C.: The nomadic tribes expand from their scattered Scandinavian and North German communities into the heart of the European Continent until the frontiers of the Roman Empire.

5th C. AD : The Germanic world begins to stabilize, from the Frankish Empire to the end of the reign of Charlemagne in 1814 , drawing together all the Germanic peoples of Continental Europe together.

In the centuries that followed there was no standard language of the people but rather a variety of dialects; Low German dialects in the North and High German dialects in Middle and Southern Germany.

700-1050 A.D. :The language used from this time by monks, clerics and the aristocracy is now known as Old High German, the collective name for the language of the educated at that time, with its regional variations.

Old High German progressively developed into Middle High German. The common people continued to speak in their dialects.

16th C.- Present : Martin Luther (1483-1546) translates the Bible into Middle German , contributing to this dialect as a common German language.

East Middle German formed the basis of the modern standard language we know today.

Standard German is known today simply as "Hochdeutsch" (High German), and this is used almost always for written German.

"Hochdeutsch" is spoken by educated speakers everywhere, and media, such as newspapers and books are printed in standard German.

"Hochdeutsch" in its purist form can be heard on the classical stage (known as "Bühnendeutsch"). A speaker of "Hochdeutsch" would be understood everywhere and this is used in the Linguaphone courses.