German is a part of the West Germanic family of languages, and is closely related to Dutch, English, Frisian and Yiddish. The German uses the Latin alphabet with the addition of the diacritics ¨ as in ä, ö, ü and ß.
An early form of German appears on 6th century Runes, but the first written texts, such as the epic 'Hildebrandslied', appear in the 8th century. The history of German language begins with the Second Germanic consonant shift within the period of roughly AD 300-700 in Europe, which separated South Germanic from the common West Germanic.
There are three main periods in the German language history – Old German (c.750 – c.1050); Middle German (c.1050 – c.1500); and Modern German (c.1500 to the present). In the first period there was no standard language and only local dialects were used in writing. In the 14th Century uniform written language developed in government after the previous chancelleries of the Holy Roman Empire began to use a combination of certain dialects of Middle High German in place of the Latin that until then had dominated official writings. The neighboring languages within the dialect continuum of the West Germanic languages were Middle Dutch in the West and Middle High German in the South, later substituted by Early New High German. In the 18th century a number of outstanding writers gave modern standard German essentially the form it has today. It is now the language of the Church and the state, education and literature and is now used in all walks of life.
German is spoken by approximately 100 million native speakers and another 20 million non-native speakers, and Standard German is widely taught in schools and universities in Europe. German is spoken in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Denmark, France (Alsace, Moselle), Belgium, Poland, Italy, Romania (Transylvania), Hungary, Iceland, Russia (Kaliningrad Oblast, Orenburg), Kazakhstan, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Namibia, Slovenia, Croatia, Baltic countries, Argentina and Brazil.
Standard German is the only official language in Liechtenstein and Austria; it shares official status in Germany (with Danish, Frisian and Sorbian as minority languages), Switzerland (with French, Italian and Romansh), Belgium (with Dutch and French) and Luxembourg (with French and Luxembourgish). It is used as a local official language in German-speaking regions of Denmark, Italy, and Poland. It is one of the 23 official languages of the European Union. It is also a minority language in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Namibia, Paraguay, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Tajikistan, Togo, Ukraine and the United States.
The United States has the largest concentration of German speakers outside of Europe (an estimated 3 million German speakers in the US); there are large and vibrant German-speaking communities throughout the country. In the United States, the largest concentrations of German speakers are in Pennsylvania, Texas, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wisconsin, Indiana, Louisiana and Oklahoma.
In Canada there are people of German ancestry throughout the country and especially in the west as well as in Ontario. There is a large and vibrant community in the city of Kitchener, Ontario. German immigrants were instrumental in the country's three largest urban areas: Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, but post-WWII immigrants managed to preserve a fluency in the German language in their respective neighborhoods and sections. In the first half of the 20th century, over a million German-Canadians made the language one of Canada's most spoken after French.
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