German (Deutsch) is a West Germanic language related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90–100 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union.
 
Most German vocabulary is derived from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. A number of words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer from French and English.
 
German is written using the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with umlauts ( /a, O/o, and Ü/ü) and the letter ß.

The history of the language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, separating Old High German dialects from Old Saxon. The earliest evidence of Old High German is from scattered Elder Futhark inscriptions, especially in Alemannic, from the 6th century AD; 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 Saxon was to 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 standardization of German for several hundred years was the general wish of writers to be understood by as many readers as possible.
 
Modern German
In Germany
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 the bureaucratic standard language used in Saxony (sachsische Kanzleisprache), also known as Meißner-Deutsch (German from the city of Meissen). 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, which had already at that time begun to lose the genitive case and the preterite tense). Initially, copies of the Bible had a long list of glosses for each region, which translated words unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics rejected Luther's translation initially and tried to create their own Catholic standard (gemeines Deutsch) — which, however, differed from "Protestant German" only in some minor details. It took until the middle of the 18th century to create a widely accepted standard, thus ending the period of Early New High German.
 
Until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language: in urban northern Germany, the local dialects of Low Saxon or Low German were spoken; Standard German, which was markedly different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Prescriptive pronunciation guides considered northern German pronunciation as the standard. However, the actual pronunciation of Standard German varies from region to region.
 
In the Austrian empire
German was 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. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant, an urbanite, irrespective of 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 Pozsony (German: Pressburg, now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. A few cities remained mainly non-German. However most cities, such as Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, Zagreb (German: Agram), and Ljubljana (German: Laibach), were primarily German during this time, although surrounded by territory where other languages were spoken.
 
Switzerland
In Switzerland, a number of local dialects are spoken in the German-speaking cantons, but standard German is used as a written language.
 
Standardisation
In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a complete standardisation of the German language in its written form while the Deutsche Bühnensprache (literally, German stage language) had established rules for German three years earlier.
 
Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German (often called Hochdeutsch ("high German")) which is understood in all areas where German is spoken.
 
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 vocabulary 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 a controversial spelling reform was officially promulgated by governments of all German-speaking countries.

Standard German originated not as a traditional dialect of a specific region, but as a written language. However, there are places where the traditional regional dialects have been replaced by standard German; this is the case in large stretches of Northern Germany, but also in major cities in other parts of the country.
 
Standard German differs regionally, between German-speaking countries, in vocabulary and some instances of pronunciation, and even grammar and orthography. This variation must not be confused with the variation of local dialects. Even though the regional varieties of standard German are only to a certain degree influenced by the local dialects, they are very distinct. German is thus considered a pluricentric language.
 
In most regions, the speakers use a continuum from more dialectal varieties to more standard varieties according to circumstances.
 
In the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, mixtures of dialect and standard are very seldom used, and the use of standard German is largely restricted to the written language. This situation has been called a medial diglossia. Swiss Standard German is used in the Swiss, Austrian Standard German officially in the Austrian education system.
 
Official status
Standard German is the only official language in Liechtenstein; it shares official status in Germany (with Danish, Frisian, Romany and Sorbian as minority languages), in Austria (with Slovene, Croatian, and Hungarian as minority languages), Switzerland (with French, Italian and Romansh), Belgium (with Dutch (Flemish) and French) and Luxembourg (with French and Luxembourgish). It is an official regional language in Italy (South Tyrol), as well as in the cities of Sopron (Hungary), Krahule (Slovakia) and several cities in Romania. It is the official language of command (together with Italian) of the Vatican Swiss Guard.
 
German has an officially recognized status as a regional or auxiliary language in Denmark (Southern Jutland region), Italy (Gressoney valley), Namibia, Poland (Opole region), and Russia (Asowo and Halbstadt).
 
German is one of the 23 official languages of the European Union and one of the three working languages. It is the language with the largest number of native speakers in the European Union, and is the second-most spoken language in Europe, just behind English and ahead of French.

Orthography
German is written in the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with Umlaut, namely a, o and ü, as well as the Eszett or scharfes s (sharp s), ß.
Written texts in German are easily recognisable as such by distinguishing features such as umlauts and certain orthographical features—German is the only major language that capitalizes all nouns—and the frequent occurrence of long compounds. The longest German word that has been published is "Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitatenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft" made of 79 characters. Since legibility and convenience set certain boundaries, compounds consisting of more than three or four nouns are almost exclusively found in humorous contexts.