Interesting Facts about the German Language
German is a key language in the European Union, and its economic significance is growing in Central and Eastern European countries.
Interesting Facts about the German Language
- The German language consists of 5.3 million words, but only 12,000 - 16,000 words are used in active vocabulary, of which 3,500 are of foreign origin.
- Germans love to create long words that include many short ones. It is not uncommon to encounter monster words in their dictionary, consisting of 40, 50, or even 60 letters. One of the longest words has 79 letters:
Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft.
- German and English share many similarities, such as the presence of words that are identical in meaning and spelling. However, there are "false friends" that look the same but have completely different meanings. One of them is "Kind," which means "child" in German and "kind" in English. Or "Spring," which means "jump" in German and "spring" in English.
- During the American Revolution, the US wanted to sever all ties with England, and Congress considered changing the official language from English to German. According to rumors, English won by a single vote.
- The oldest book is considered to be the Abrogans manuscript (8th century), which was written by 20 different people in a monastery in the southwestern region of German-speaking countries and contains an early translation of the Creed and the Lord's Prayer.
- There are about 60 million people of German descent living in the US, making up the largest ethnic group, of which 10 million (3% of the population) still speak German.
- Most nouns are feminine - 46%, masculine - 34%, and neuter - 20%. All nouns are capitalized, accounting for 74.3% of the German language, adjectives - 13.8%, and verbs - 10.1%.
- Many foreign words, particularly German, have made their way into the Ukrainian language, which we use without thinking about their origin, such as landscape, easel, soldier, firework, clock face, sandwich, and many others.
- In addition to standard German, there are numerous dialects and sub-dialects (about 50 varieties) that differ significantly from each other depending on the region. The difference in pronunciation is so significant that a northerner may not understand a native southerner, and television broadcasts programs for other regions with subtitles.
- The most popular endearing name for both men and women is "Treasure," used by 90% of Germans to call their significant others. Additionally, women often use: bunny, teddy bear, sweetie, Romeo. Men use: mouse, angel, sweetie, sunshine.
- German is an official language not only in Germany but also in several other countries: Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the EU.
- Gothic fonts were widely used in Germany until the first half of the 20th century. They were banned in 1941 and are now used only for decorative purposes.
- Due to the Law passed on 01.08.2007, significant reforms in the language occurred, resulting in the cancellation of 87 out of 212 spelling rules, and only 12 out of 52 punctuation rules remained.
- The names of the days of the week in German mostly originate from the names of ancient Germanic gods.
- According to statistics, the number of people who start learning German each year is 15 - 18 million.
