In grammar, the dative case is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a drink". In this example, the dative marks what would be considered the indirect object of a verb in English.
German is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also an official language of Luxembourg and Belgium, as well as a recognized national language in Namibia. There further exist notable German-speaking communities in France (Alsace), the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Denmark, Romania and Hungary (Sopron).
The Marchian dialects are dialects of Low German, more precisely Northern Low German, spoken in Germany in the northern and western parts of Brandenburg as well as in northern Saxony-Anhalt (Altmark). The language area can be further divided into North-Markish and Middle-Markish.
Eastphalian, or Eastfalian, is a dialect of Low German, spoken in southeastern parts of Lower Saxony and western parts of Saxony-Anhalt in Germany.
Pennsylvania Dutch, sometimes referred to as Pennsylvania German, is a variety of Palatine German spoken by the Pennsylvania Dutch, including the Amish, Mennonites, Fancy Dutch, and other related groups in the United States and Canada. There are approximately 300,000 native speakers of Pennsylvania Dutch in the United States and Canada.
Middle Low German is a developmental stage of Low German. It developed from the Old Saxon language in the Middle Ages and has been documented in writing since about 1225/34 (Sachsenspiegel). During the Hanseatic period, Middle Low German was the leading written language in the north of Central Europe and served as a lingua franca in the northern half of Europe. It was used parallel to medieval Latin also for purposes of diplomacy and for deeds.
Palatine German is a group of Rhine Franconian dialects spoken in the Upper Rhine Valley, roughly in the area between Zweibrücken, Kaiserslautern, Alzey, Worms, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Mannheim, Odenwald, Heidelberg, Speyer, Landau, Wörth am Rhein and the border to Alsace and Lorraine, in France, but also beyond.
Colognian or Kölsch is a small set of very closely related dialects, or variants, of the Ripuarian group of dialects of the Central German group. These dialects are spoken in the area covered by the Archdiocese and former Electorate of Cologne reaching from Neuss in the north to just south of Bonn, west to Düren and east to Olpe in northwest Germany.
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German. It is a West Germanic language, closely related to the Anglo-Frisian languages. It is documented from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it gradually evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken throughout modern northwestern Germany, primarily in the coastal regions and in the eastern Netherlands by Saxons, a Germanic tribe that inhabited the region of Saxony. It partially shares Anglo-Frisian's Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law which sets it apart from Low Franconian and Irminonic languages, such as Dutch, Luxembourgish and German.
Viennese German is the city dialect spoken in Vienna, the capital of Austria, and is counted among the Bavarian dialects. It is distinct from written Standard German in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. Even in Lower Austria, the state surrounding the city, many of its expressions are not used, while farther to the west they are often not even understood.
Missingsch is a type of Low-German-coloured dialect or sociolect of German. It is characterised by Low-German-type structures and the presence of numerous calques and loanwords from Low German in High German.
Yiddish grammar is the system of principles which govern the structure of the Yiddish language. This article describes the standard form laid out by YIVO while noting differences in significant dialects such as that of many contemporary Hasidim. As a Germanic language descended from Middle High German, Yiddish grammar is fairly similar to that of German, though it also has numerous linguistic innovations as well as grammatical features influenced by or borrowed from Hebrew, Aramaic, and various Slavic languages.
German declension is the paradigm that German uses to define all the ways articles, adjectives and sometimes nouns can change their form to reflect their role in the sentence: subject, object, etc. Declension allows speakers to mark a difference between subjects, direct objects, indirect objects and possessives by changing the form of the word—and/or its associated article—instead of indicating this meaning through word order or prepositions. As a result, German can take a much more fluid approach to word order without the meaning being obscured. In English, a simple sentence must be written in strict word order. This sentence cannot be expressed in any other word order than how it is written here without changing the meaning. A translation of the same sentence from German to English would appear rather different and can be expressed with a variety of word order with little or no change in meaning.
German verbs may be classified as either weak, with a dental consonant inflection, or strong, showing a vowel gradation (ablaut). Both of these are regular systems. Most verbs of both types are regular, though various subgroups and anomalies do arise; however, textbooks for learners often class all strong verbs as irregular. The only completely irregular verb in the language is sein. There are more than 200 strong and irregular verbs, but just as in English, there is a gradual tendency for strong verbs to become weak.
German pronouns are German words that function as pronouns. As with pronouns in other languages, they are frequently employed as the subject or object of a clause, acting as substitutes for nouns or noun phrases, but are also used in relative clauses to relate the main clause to a subordinate one.
The Dutch language in its modern form does not have grammatical cases, and nouns only have singular and plural forms. Many remnants of former case declensions remain in the Dutch language, but few of them are productive. One exception is the genitive case, which is still productive to a certain extent. Although in the spoken language the case system was probably in a state of collapse as early as the 16th century, cases were still prescribed in the written standard up to 1946/1947. This article describes the system in use until then. For a full description of modern Dutch grammar, see Dutch grammar. See also History of Dutch orthography.
In linguistics, case government is government of the grammatical case of a noun, wherein a verb or adposition is said to 'govern' the grammatical case of its noun phrase complement, e.g. in German the preposition für 'for' governs the accusative case: für mich 'for me-accusative'. Case government may modify the meaning of the verb substantially, even to meanings that are unrelated.
Erzgebirgisch is a (East) Central German dialect, spoken mainly in the central Ore Mountains in Saxony. It has received relatively little academic attention. Due to the high mobility of the population and the resulting contact with Upper Saxon, the high emigration rate and its low mutual intelligibility with other dialects, the number of speakers is decreasing.
The terms Rhinelandic, Rhenish, and Rhinelandic regiolect refer to the vernacular lect spoken in the so-called Rhineland of West Germany. This linguistic region is approximately formed of the West of North Rhine-Westphalia, the North of Rhineland-Palatinate and several smaller adjacent areas, including some areas in neighbouring countries.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to German language:
