Language Course From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection Contents

Podcasts
from learners
•
Speaken Sie Deutsch?
: Podcast from Canadian Hugh Gordon (
Rss-Feed
). 
for learners
•
Guter Umgang
: German language learning blog about colloquial German (
RSS-Feed
). 
•
Let's speak German
: Jokes, poems, tonguetwisters and more in German (
RSS-Feed
). 
•
Podcasts of Deutsche Welle
: Nachrichten, Top-Thema, Stichwort, Sprachbar and 
Alltagsdeutsch are specifically made for language learners. Most of the texts can be found on 
the pages 
Deutsch im Fokus
(Sprachbar, Stichwort and Alltagsdeutsch) and 
Didaktuelles 
(Nachrichten and Top-Thema). 
Tandem
Tandem by E-Mail

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A.04 • Names
First Names
German names have undergone a drastic change in the last 60 years. Older, "typical" German names 
like 
Hans
, 
Fritz
, 
Heinrich
, 
Karl
or 
Wilhelm
are now uncommon in contemporary Germany. Today 
many parents give their children names like (ten most popular names 2003):
Boys
1. Maximilian 
2. Alexander 
3. Leon 
4. Paul 
5. Lukas/Lucas 
6. Felix 
7. Luca 
8. David 
9. Tim 
10.Jonas 
Girls
1. Marie 
2. Sophie 
3. Maria 
4. Anna, Anne 
5. Lea(h) 
6. Laura 
7. Lena 
8. Leonie 
9. Julia 
10.Sara(h) 
(Source: 
Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache
)
Boys' Names
•
Maximilian 
•
Alexander 
•
Leon 
•
Paul 
•
Lukas/Lucas 
•
Felix 
•
Luca 
•
David 
•
Tim 
•
Gerhard, Gerd, Gert 
•
Ingo 
•
Jonas 
•
Peter 
•
Michael 
•
Thomas / Tomas 
•
Wolfgang 
•
Andreas 

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•
Günter / Günther 
•
Claus / Klaus 
•
Adolph 
•
Jürgen 
•
Stefan / Stephan 
•
Werner 
•
Hans 
•
Fritz 
•
Heinrich 
•
Uwe 
•
Rudi 
•
Jens 
Girls' Names
•
Nina 
•
Ursula, Ulla 
•
Helga 
•
Karin 
•
Ingrid 
•
Renate 
•
Sabine 
•
Monica / Monika 
•
Giesela / Gisela 
•
Susanne 
•
Petra 
•
Birgit / Birgitt 
•
Marie 
•
Sophie 
•
Maria 
•
Anna, Anne 
•
Lea(h) 
•
Lara 
•
Laura 
•
Lena 
•
Leonie 
•
Lisa 
•
Julia 
•
Sara(h) 
Last Names
•
Ackermann 
•
Bachmann 
•
Bäcker, Becker 
•
Bauer 
•
Bayer, Baier, Beier 

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•
Bergmann 
•
Brand, Brandt, Brant 
•
Fischer 
•
Fuchs 
•
Hartmann 
•
Hoffmann, Hofmann 
•
Janssen 
•
Jäger 
•
Jung 
•
Keiser, Kaiser 
•
Keller 
•
Konrad 
•
Kowalski 
•
Klein 
•
Koch 
•
Kurz 
•
Lange 
•
Lehmann 
•
Mayer, Maier, Meyer, Meier 
•
Möller 
•
Müller 
•
Neumann 
•
Reiter 
•
Richter 
•
Seiler 
•
Schmidt,Schmid, Schmitt 
•
Schnapp 
•
Schneider 
•
Schröder 
•
Schulze, Schultze 
•
Schuster 
•
Schüler 
•
Vogel, Vogl 
•
Wagner 
•
Zimmermann 

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A.05 • History
The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration 
period, separating South Germanic dialects from common West Germanic. The earliest testimonies of 
Old High German are from scattered Elder Futhark inscriptions, especially in Alemannic, from the 6th 
century, the earliest glosses (Abrogans) date to the 8th and the oldest coherent texts (the 
Hildebrandslied, the Muspilli and the Merseburg Incantations) to the 9th century. Old Saxon at this 
time belongs to the North Sea Germanic cultural sphere, and Low German should fall under German 
rather than Anglo-Frisian influence during the Holy Roman Empire.
As Germany was divided into many different states, the only force working for a unification or 
standardisation of German during a period of several hundred years was the general preference of 
writers trying to write in a way that could be understood in the largest possible area.
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 mainly on this already developed 
language, which was the most widely understood language at this time. 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 that already 
at that time began to lose the genitive case and the preterit tense). In the beginning, copies of the Bible 
had a long list for each region, which translated words unknown in the region into the regional dialect. 
Roman Catholics rejected Luther's translation in the beginning and tried to create their own Catholic 
standard (gemeines Deutsch) — which, however, only differed from 'Protestant German' in some minor 
details. It took until the middle of the 18th century to create a standard that was widely accepted, thus 
ending the period of Early New High German.
German used to be the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which 
encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century it was essentially 
the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire. It indicated that the speaker was a 
merchant, an urbanite, not their nationality. Some cities, such as Prague (German: Prag) and Budapest 
(Buda, German: Ofen), were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the 
Habsburg domain. Others, such as Bratislava (German: Pressburg), were originally settled during the 
Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. A few cities such as Milan (German: 
Mailand) remained primarily non-German. However, most cities were primarily German during this 
time, such as Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, Zagreb (German: Agram), and Ljubljana (German: 
Laibach), though they were surrounded by territory that spoke other languages.
Until about 1800, standard German was almost only a written language. At this time, people in urban 
northern Germany, who spoke dialects very different from Standard German, learnt it almost like a 
foreign language and tried to pronounce it as close to the spelling as possible. Prescriptive 
pronunciation guides used to consider northern German pronunciation to be the standard. However, the 
actual pronunciation of standard German varies from region to region.
Media and written works are almost all produced in standard German (often called Hochdeutsch in 
German) which is understood in all areas where German is spoken, except by pre-school children in 
areas which speak only dialect, for example Switzerland. However, in this age of television, even they 

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now usually learn to understand Standard German before school age.
The first dictionary of the Brothers Grimm, the 16 parts of which were issued between 1852 and 1860, 
remains the most comprehensive guide to the words of the German language. In 1860, grammatical and 
orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, this was declared the standard 
definition of the German language. Official revisions of some of these rules were not issued until 1998, 
when the German spelling reform of 1996 was officially promulgated by governmental representatives 
of all German-speaking countries. Since the reform, German spelling has been in an eight-year 
transitional period where the reformed spelling is taught in most schools, while traditional and 
reformed spelling co-exist in the media. See German spelling reform of 1996 for an overview of the 
heated public debate concerning the reform with some major newspapers and magazines and several 
known writers refusing to adopt it.
After the spelling reform of 1996 let to so much public controversy and some of its changed rules 
introduced new ambiguities or were simply perceived as "ugly", the transitional period (initially 
scheduled to end on Dec, 31. 2005) was extended until at least end 2006 and some parts of the reform 
were changed again in March 2006. This new "reform of the reform" tries to remove the ambiguities 
introduced in 1996. To date (April 2006), it is yet to be accepted by all german speaking countries.

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