German language

"A wonder is German syntax, when one must wait patiently for the verb, it engenders politeness and conviviality."

"Everyone said to me: you will see, German grammar is a catastrophe... in fact it's quite logical, a little bit like lego, you take a word, another word and stack them [...]It's a language that makes you think differently."  Sylvie Testud, actress

The first attempt at a uniform language first appeared in northern Germany for the purposes of the Hanseatic League, but disappeared with the decline of the League in the 15th century. Standard German in fact originates from the south at the end of the 15th century. At the end of the 14th century, for the purposes of the chanceries under Charles IV, a German language was born "over and above the dialects" - High German. At the end of the 15th century this language of middle Germany became necessary for commerce, and, helped by the progress of printing (Gutemberg in 1450), then by Lüther's translation of the bible (1521), it finally took over from Latin. It wasn't until the 19th century that a uniform German was regulated. The first German dictionary was the Deutsches Wörterbuch (1838-1961) by the Brothers Grimm. Siebs fixed the rules of pronunciation in 1898 and Konrad Duden enunciated the spelling and grammar rules which officially defined modern German in 1901.

Classification by family:
Indo-European>Germanic>Western German>High German>German