German

German, or Deutsch, is a West Germanic language spoken primarily in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and the German-speaking communities of Belgium and Italy, with communities worldwide. It is one of the world's major languages by number of native speakers, with roughly 95 to 100 million native speakers and more than 120 million people who speak it as a second language or foreign language. It forms part of the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European family, closely related to English and Dutch. The standard form, Hochdeutsch, is used in education, media, and formal writing. A wide range of regional dialects exists, generally classified as Low German (Plattdeutsch) in the north; Central German; and Upper German in the south. Swiss German refers to dialects used in Switzerland, with Standard German in formal contexts.

German uses the Latin script with umlaut letters ä, ö, ü and the ß (Eszett) in standard orthography. German features four cases (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive), three grammatical genders, strong and weak noun inflection, and adjectives with various endings. The verb-second (V2) word order in main clauses, separable and inseparable prefixes, and rich compound noun formation are notable.

Old High German (c. 700–1050), Middle High German, and Early New High German (from the 16th century) culminated in the standardized modern German. The 1996 spelling reform aimed to simplify and unify orthography. German is an official language of Germany and Austria, one of the official languages of Switzerland, and, alongside Luxembourgish and French, used in Luxembourg. It is widely taught as a foreign language and used in science, philosophy, and arts.