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German (Deutsch) is a West Germanic language that derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Several German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. The languages which are most similar to German are Luxembourgish, Dutch, Afrikaans, the Frisian languages and English. German has three grammatical genders as well as three vowels with umlauts (Ä/ä, Ö/ö, and Ü/ü) in addition to the 26 standard letters of the Latin alphabet. The letter ß (a special kind of “s(s)”, called “Eszett” or “scharfes Es”, which originated as a ligature of archaic forms of the letters s and z) on the other hand, is specific to the German language.

German is the most spoken (and official) language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Italian province of South Tyrol (Alto Adige) and Liechtenstein; it is also an official (but not majority) language of Belgium and Luxembourg. With slightly different standardized variants (German, Austrian, and Swiss Standard German), German is a pluricentric language. German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. Due to the limited intelligibility between certain varieties and Standard German, as well as the lack of an undisputed, scientific difference between a “dialect” and a “language”, some German varieties or dialect groups (e.g. Low German/Plautdietsch) are alternatively referred to as “languages” and “dialects”.

One of the major languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide and the most widely natively spoken language in the European Union. German also is the third most taught foreign language in both the US and the EU, the second most commonly used scientific language, the third largest contributor to research and development as well as the third most used language on websites. Germany is ranked number 5 in terms of annual publication of new books, with one tenth of all books (including e-books) in the world being published in the German language.

The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon. The earliest evidence of Old High German is from scattered Elder Futhark inscriptions, especially in Alemannic, from the sixth century AD; the earliest glosses (Abrogans) date to the eighth century; and the oldest coherent texts (the Hildebrandslied, the Muspilli and the Merseburg Incantations) to the ninth century. Old Saxon, at this time, belonged to the North Sea Germanic cultural sphere, and Low Saxon was to fall under German, rather than Anglo-Frisian, influence during the existence of the Holy Roman Empire.

Because Germany was divided into many different states, the only force working for a unification or standardization of German for several hundred years was the general wish of German writers to be understood by as many readers as possible.

When Martin Luther translated the Bible (the New Testament in 1522 and the Old Testament, published in parts and completed in 1534), he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony (sächsische Kanzleisprache), also known as Meißner-Deutsch(German from the city of Meissen). This language was based on Eastern Upper and Eastern Central German dialects, and preserved much of the grammatical system of Middle High German, unlike the spoken German dialects in Central and Upper Germany, which had, at that time, already begun to lose the genitive case and the preterite tense.

Copies of Luther’s Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luther’s translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language (gemeines Deutsch)—the difference in relation to “Protestant German” was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, ending the period of Early New High German.

Until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language: in urban northern Germany, the local Low Saxon or Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was markedly different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides; however, the actual pronunciation of Standard German varies from region to region.