Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
Indo-European language belonging to the Germanic branch, spoken as a native language in various dialects by approx. 90 million speakers in Germany (approx. 77 million speakers), Austria (approx. 7 million speakers), Switzerland (approx. 4 million speakers), Liechtenstein, and elsewhere. It is also either the first or the second language of approx. 40 million people in France (Alsace), Italy (South Tyrol), Belgium, Rumania, Poland and Russia, as well as in non-European countries with German-speaking emigrees (United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada). German differs from the other Germanic languages due in part to the results of the Old High German consonant shift (also second sound shift) in which the voiceless stops [p, t, k] became either fricatives or affricates, depending on their position, cf. Eng. ship, foot, book vs Ger. Schiff, 
, Buch; also Eng. apple, sit, vs Ger. Apfel, sitzen. The dialect distinctions between Low German (ik ‘I,’ maken ‘make,’ dorp ‘village,’ dat ‘that,’ appel ‘apple’), Middle German (ich, machen, dorf, das, appel) and Upper German (ich, machen, dorf, das, apfel) are based on the regional distribution of this sound shift.
While the nature and duration of the historical stages of German are still debated, the following main periods can be distinguished. (a) Old High German (OHG) (from the beginning of written documentation until AD 1050): linguistically distinguished by the spread of the second sound shift and the beginning of vowel mutation (
umlaut); lexically marked by strong influence from Latin. Written documents in various dialects stem mainly from monasteries in the form of Latin translations and poems in alliterative verse. (b) Middle High German (MHG) (from 1050 to 1350, divided into Early Middle High German (1050–1170/80), classical Middle High German (1170/80–1250), and late Middle High German (1250–1350): the transition from Old to Middle High German is linguistically marked by the weakening and loss of final syllables (OHG scôno>MHG schône>NHG schon ‘already’), while Middle and New High German (NHG) differ through monophthongization (MHG lieber müeder bruoder>NHG lieber müder Bruder ‘dear tired brother’), diphthongization (MHG mîn níuwes hûs>NHG mein neues Haus ‘my new house’) and lengthening ( lengthening vs shortening) in open syllables (MHG wege [vεgә]>NHG Wege [ve:gә]). The vocabulary of the court epic is strongly influenced by French. The literary tradition was largely maintained by knights. During this period, the German-speaking territory was greatly enlarged due to colonization of areas to the east. (c) Early New High German (1500–1650): this period is marked by Luther and the Reformation, the invention of the printing press, and the rise of the middle class. Several dialectal variants, such as Middle Low German of the Hanseatic league, the ‘Common German’ of the Hapsburg chancery in southern Germany, ‘Meissen German’ in the territory of Wettin competed against one another for supremacy. (d) New High German, arising in the course of the eighteenth century, based on East Middle German, and resulting from leveling processes between north and south. It occurs as a written standard with numerous variants (dialects, sociolects) and levels (idiomatic, technical, etc.) which show primarily phonetic and lexical differences.
Grammatical characteristics (compared to other Germanic languages): no voiced stops in the syllable coda (=word-final devoicing), relatively complex inflectional system and productive case sy stem, set rules on the placement of the finite verb with otherwise relatively free word order. Special characters: 
, ä, ö, ü. ( also brace construction, positional fields)
Modern grammars
Clément, D. and W.Thümmel. 1975. Grundzüge einer Syntax der deutschen Standardsprache. Frankfurt.
Duden. 1995. Grammatik der deutschen Gegenwartssprache, 5th rev. edn, ed. G.Drosdowski et al Mannheim.
Eisenberg, P. 1994. 
der deutschen Grammatik, 3rd edn. Stuttgart.
Engel, U. 1977. Syntax der deutschen Gegenwartssprache. Berlin. (3rd rev. edn Bielefeld and Munich, 1994.)
——1988. Deutsche Grammatik, 2nd rev. edn. 1991, Heidelberg.
Fox, A. 1990. The structure of German. Oxford.
Hammer, A.E. 1971. German grammar and usage. London. (2nd rev. edn by M.Durrell 1983.)
Heidolph, K.E. et al. 1981. Grundzüge einer deutschen Grammatik. Berlin. (2nd unrev. edn 1984.)
Helbig, G. and J.Buscha. 1974. Deutsche Grammatik: ein Handbuch für den Ausländerunterricht. Leipzig. (16th edn 1994, Munich).
Lohnes, W.F.W. and F.W.Strohmann. 1967. German: a structural approach. New York.
Russ, C.V. 1994. The German language today. London.
Weinrich, H. 1993. Textgrammatik der deutschen Sprache. Mannheim.
Wiese, R. 1995. The phonology of German. Oxford.
History and historical grammars
Bach, A. 1938. Geschichte der deutschen Sprache. Leipzig.
Bergmann, R., et al. (eds) 1987. Althochdeutsch, 2 vols. Heidelberg.
Besch, W., O.Reichmann and S.Sonderegger (eds) 1982–4. Sprachgeschichte: ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung, 2 vols. Berlin and New York.
Braune, W. 1987. Althochdeutsche Grammatik, 14th edn, rev. by H.Eggers. Tübingen.
Eggers, H. 1963. Deutsche Sprachgeschlichte. 4 vols. Reinbek.
Grimm, J. 1819–1837. Deutsche Grammatik. 4 parts. Göttingen (Facsimile printing of the 2nd edn of Berlin 1870/78. Hildesheim 1967).
——1848. Geschichte der deutschen Sprache. Leipzig.
Moser, M. 1950. Deutsche Sprachgeschichte. Stuttgart. (6th rev. edn Tübingen 1969).
Moser, H., H.Stopp, and W.Besch (eds) 1970–. Grammatik des Frühneuhochdeutschen. Heidelberg.
Paul, H. 1989. Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik, 23rd. edn, rev. by S.Grosse and P.Wiehl. Tübingen.
Voyles, J.B. 1976.
The phonology of Old High German. Göttingen.
language history
Dictionaries
Adelung, J.C. 1774–86. Versuch eines vollständigen grammatisch-kirtiischen Wörterbuches der Hochdeutschen Mundart, mit beständiger Vergleichung der fübrigen Mundarten, besonders aber der oberdeutschen, 5 vols. Leipzig. (Repr. Hildesheim, 1970.)
Duden. 1976–81. Das 
Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprace, ed. G.Drosdowski, 6 vols. Mannheim.
Paul, H. 1897. Deutsches Wörterbuch. 9th rev. edn, ed. H.Heine et al. Tübingen, 1992.
Historical dictionaries
Goebel, U. and O.Reichmann (eds) 1989–. Frühneu-hochdeutsches Wörterbuch. Berlin and New York. Vol. II.3 1993.
Grimm, J. and W.Grimm. 1854–60. Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. Leipzig. (Repr. Munich 1884; new rev. edn by the Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften Berlin and Göttingen. Leipzig 1965–.)
Lexer, M. 1872–8. Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols. Leipzig.
Splett, J. 1992. Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3 vols. Berlin and New York.
Etymological dictionaries
Duden Etymologie. 1989. Herkunftswörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, ed. G.Drosdowski. 2nd rev. edn. Mannheim.
Kluge, F. 1883. Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen. (22nd. edn, rev. by E.Seebold. Berlin and New York, 1989.)
Pfeifer, W. et al. 1992. Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd edn. Berlin.
Bibliographies
Germanistik. Internationales Referatenorgan mit bibliographischen Hinweisen. Tübingen.
Kühn, P. 1978. Deutsche Wörterbücher: eine systematische Bibliographie. Tübingen.
Lemmer, M. 1968. Deutscher Wortschatz: Bibliographie zur deutschen Lexikologie. Halle.
Piirainen, I.T. 1980. Frühneuhochdeutsche Bibliographie: Literatur zur Sprache des 14.–17. Jahrhunderte. Tübingen.
Ronneberger-Sibold, E. 1989. Historische Phonologie und Morphologie des Deutschen: eine kommentierte Bibliographie zur strukturellen Forschung. Tübingen.
Varieties of German
Ammon, U. 1995. Die deutsche Sprache in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. Das Problem der nationalen Varietäten. Berlin and New York.
Barbour, S. and P.Stevenson. 1990. Variation in German. A critical approach to German sociolinguistics. Cambridge.
Noble, C.A.M. 1983. Modern German dialects. New York.
Journals
Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur.
Beiträge zur Namenforschung. Neue Folge.
Deutsch als Fremdsprache.
Deutsche Sprache.
Der Deutschunterricht.
English and American Studies in German.
The German Quarterly.
The German Review.
Germanistik.
Germanistische Linguistik.
LiLi. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik.
Linguistische Berichte.
Sprachwissenschaft.
Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie.
Zeitschrift für deutsche Sprache.
Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literature.
Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik.
Zeitschrift für Germanistische Linguistik.
Reference works
Althaus, H.P., H.Henne, and H.E.Wiegand (eds) 1973. Lexikon der germanischen Linguistik. Tübingen. (2nd rev. edn 1980.)
History
Bach, A. 1938. Geschichte der deutschen Sprache. Leipzig.
Eggers, H. 1963. Deutsche Sprachgschichte, 4 vols. Reinbek.
Grimm, J. 1848. Geschichte der deutschen Sprache. Leipzig.
Keller, R.E. 1978. The German language. London.
Moser, M. 1950. Deutsche Sprachgeschichte. Stuttgart. (6th rev. edn Tübingen, 1969.)
German in Austria
Kranzmayer, E. 1956. Historische Lautgeographie des gesamtbairischen Dialektraums. Vienna.
Österreichisches Wörterbuch. 1979. (Hrg. im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Unterricht und Kultus.) 35th rev. edn. Vienna.
Schikola, H. 1954. Schriftdeutsch und Wienerisch. Vienna.
Wiesinger, P. (ed.) 1988. Das österreichische Deutsch. Berlin.
German in Switzerland
Hotzenköcherle, R. 1962–. Sprachatlas der deutschen Schweiz. Bern.
Stucki, K. 1921. Schweizerdeutsch: 
einer Grammatik mit Laut-und Formenlehre. Zurich.
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