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  • Belongs to the Netherlandic-German group within the western branch of the Germanic languages, a subfamily of the Indo-European languages.

  • It comprises two main groups of dialects, High German (including standard literary German) and Low German.

  • It is spoken in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and is widely understood in several East-European countries (Hungary, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia etc.)
  • 38% of the EU-15 citizens say they can converse in German.
  • German was once the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe. Increasing influence from the English language has affected German recently. However, German remains one of the most popular foreign languages taught worldwide, and is more popular than French as a foreign language in Europe.
  • The Low German dialects, or Low Saxon as they are sometimes known more precisely, are more closely related to Lower Franconian languages like Dutch than to the High German dialects, and from a linguist's perspective are not part of the German language proper. The High German dialects spoken by Germanic communities in the former Soviet Union and Ashkenazi Jews have several unique features, and are usually considered the separate language Yiddish.
  • German is written using the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with Umlaut, namely ä, ö and ü, as well as a special symbol for "ss", which is only used in special cases: ß. Until recently, however, German was printed in Gothic black letters (Fraktur, or Schwabacher) and written in Sütterlin. These variants of the Latin alphabet are very different from the serif or sans serif typefaces used today, and are difficult for the untrained to read.
  • When Martin Luther translated the Bible (the New Testament in 1521 and the Old Testament in 1534) he based his translation mainly on this already developed language, which was the most widely understood language at this time. 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 (Gemaines Deutsch). It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a standard was created (thus ending the period of the Early New High German).


     

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  • Artikelsammlung Biblische Themen - Bücher und Artikel in PDF, DOC und ZIP-Format zu den Themen Altes und Neues Testament, Prophezeiungen Christi, Adam und Eva, sowie Interpretation bekannter Gleichnisse aus dem Christentum.
  • Autorenplattform.de - Diese Plattform gibt Textschaffenden die Möglichkeit, ihre Schriften unmittelbar einer breiten Öffentlichkeit zugänglich zu machen. Zahlreiche Texte verschiedener Autoren sind abrufbar.
  • Autorenreich - Veröffentlicht Texte mit Kritiken und stellt Autoren vor.
  • FreeLit - LiberLibri - Freie Literatur im Internet - Sammelt frei verfügbare Texte und bietet Servereinträge dafür an. Beschäftigt sich primär mit klassischer Literatur, Philosophie, Theologie und Naturwissenschaft.
  • GIV-Archiv - Textsammlung mit über 8.000 Texten zu Themen wie Atomwaffen, Geheimdienste, Kosovo, Irak, Nahost-Krise, Palästina und weitere politische Artikel.
  • Jim Becker's German Page - Probably one of the most exhaustive resources on the Internet about the German language and German-speaking countries.
  • Luther-Bibel - Altes und Neues Testament in der revidierten Fassung von 1984.
  • Sharebooks - Veröffentlicht kostenlos für Autoren und Leser digitalisierte Publikationen aus allen Themenbereichen inklusive umfangreicher Belletristik-Sammlung.
  • Story Zone - Texte aus den Bereichen Horror, Poesie und Science Fiction.
  • TextArchiv 7 - Kostenloses Textarchiv mit Texten unterschiedlichster Sachgebiete geordnet in 25 Rubriken wie Literatur, Recht, Politik, Sport und mehr.
  • TolleSeite - Sammlung deutscher Literatur im RBook- und HTML-Format zum kostenlosen Download.
  • Top Language Jobs - Europe's leading specialist language recruitment website for language jobs in the UK, London and Europe.
  • Top Language Community - a site for bilingual and multilingual people living in London, UK, and Ireland with language services including Language Jobs, Dating, Flat Share, Classifieds, Directory, Events and Forums.
  • Unrevidierte Lutherbibel (1545) - Text der deutschen Bibel von 1545 in moderner Schreibweise und eine Kritik moderner Bibelversionen.
  • Der Weg - Website für Deutschlernende
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