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The High German languages (in German, Hochdeutsch) are any of the varieties of standard German, Luxembourgish and Yiddish as well as the local German dialects spoken in central and southern Germany, in Austria, in Liechtenstein, in Switzerland, in Luxembourg and in neighbouring portions of Belgium, France (Alsace and northern Lorraine), Italy and Poland. It is also spoken in former colonial settlements, for instance in Romania (Transylvania), Russia, U.S. or Namibia. "High" refers to the mountainous areas of central and southern Germany and the Alps, as opposed to Low German spoken along the flat sea coasts of the north. High German can be subdivided into Upper German and Central German (Oberdeutsch, Mitteldeutsch). The German term Hochdeutsch is also used loosely, but not by linguists, to mean standard written German as opposed to dialect, because the standard language developed out of High rather than Low German. This is based on a misunderstanding, and the attempt to rationalise it by suggesting that "high" means "official" doesn't solve the problem. In English, "High German" has never been used to mean "Standard German".
History High German as used in Southern Germany, Bavaria and Austria was an important basis for the development of standard German. The historical forms of the language are Old High German and Middle High German. Classification High German are distinguished from other West Germanic varieties in that they took part in the High German consonant shift (c. AD 500). To see this, compare German Pfanne with English pan ( to ), German zwei with English two ( to ), German machen with English make ( to ). In the High Alemannic dialects, there is a further shift; Sack (like English "sack") is pronounced ( to ). Family tree Note that divisions between subfamilies of Germanic are rarely precisely defined; most form continuous clines, with adjacent dialects being mutually intelligible and more separated ones not. In particular, there never has been an original "Proto-High German". For this and other reasons, the idea of representing the relationships between West Germanic language forms in a tree diagram at all is controversial among linguists; what follows should be used with care in the light of this caveat. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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