New High German

"Teutsch" redirects here. For the painter with this surname, see János Mattis-Teutsch.

New High German
Teutsch, Deutsch, Neuhochdeutsch
Spoken in	Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland
Region	Central Europe, Western Europe
Native speakers	Native speakers: 95 to 100 million[1][2] Non-native speakers: 20 million[2]  (date missing)
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic High German New High German
Writing system	German alphabet
Official status
Regulated by	No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1	de
ISO 639-2	ger (B) deu (T)
ISO 639-3	deu

New High German (NHG) is the term used for the most recent period in the history of the German language. It is a translation of the German Neuhochdeutsch (Nhd). It includes all of the modern High German dialects since the Baroque period, but is often used as a synonym for Standard German.

The German term was originally coined in 1848 by Jakob Grimm for the period from 1500 to the present day, following on from Middle High German (Mittelhochdeutsch). However, Wilhelm Scherer redefined it as the period from 1650, introducing a new term Frühneuhochdeutsch (Early New High German) for the period 1350-1650, and this is the most widely adopted periodisation of German. In this sense, the beginning of New High German is marked by the "first German novel", Grimmelshausen's Simplicius Simplicissimus.

The New High German period is characterised by the codification of German grammar and the development of a standard language in both writing and speech. Unlike earlier periods, there have been few major changes in phonology or morphology. Rather, the standard language has selected particular features and these choices have then exerted an influence on individual German dialects.

See also

• German literature of the Baroque period

Sources

Jakob Grimm Deutsches Wörterbuch: Definition of neuhochdeutsch

Jakob Grimm, Geschichte der deutschen Sprache (Leipzig 1848)

Wilhelm Scherer, Zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache (Berlin 1868)

C.J.Wells, German. A Linguistic History to 1945 Oxford 1987. ISBN 0-19-815809-2

References

1. ^ SIL Ethnologue (2006). 95 million speakers of Standard German; 95 million including Middle and Upper German dialects; 100 million including Low Saxon and Yiddish.
2. ^ ^{a b} National Geographic Collegiate Atlas of the World. Willard, Ohio: R.R Donnelley & Sons Company. 2006. pp. 257–270. ISBN Regular:0-7922-3662-9, 978-0-7922-3662-7. Deluxe:0-7922-7976-X, 978-0-7922-7976-1.