I.

Introduction

German Language, language of the German people and other peoples akin to or at one time politically united with the Germans. German belongs to the western branch of the Germanic languages, a subfamily of the Indo-European languages. It comprises two main groupings of languages and dialects, High German (which has two further sub-groupings of Upper and Middle German, including the standard literary German dialect) and Low German. Together, they form a continuum from Switzerland north to the sea; a local language can be understood by speakers of nearby dialects but not necessarily by speakers of faraway languages. German is spoken in 40 countries other than Germany.