German (language)

letter ß (Eszett )
- https://www.quora.com/I-m-curious-about-the-German-character-%C3%9F-What-is-the-history-of-the-letter-%C3%9F-and-how-is-it-pronounced The letter combines the two forms of the letter s into one. It’s almost forgotten and not used anymore, but there is a second form of the letter s that was used in both English and German, called the “long s”.[1] It was used to replace the first instance of an s in a syllable or word. Hence the word sense would have been written ſense. You see the long s in older printed texts, and it is often confused with an f. It even shows up in the US Bill of Rights:So if you combine the two — ſs — you get ß. This kind of joining of two letterforms into a new letterform is called a ligature. Normally a ligature (like those for fi or fl) is considered to be a new letterform, but not a new letter in its own right. However, in German, it did indeed evolve into a separate letter.

p

- Short answer: yes, many words in Germanic languages that begin with a ‘p’ are of foreign origin, but that’s only because these words began with a ‘p’ before the ancestors of German tortured these words to no longer begin with a ‘p’ and then decided they wanted the ‘p’ words back. Long answer: This is due to what is called Grimm’s Law - “A word beginning with a voiceless stop such as /p/ in most Indo-European languages has for its cognate sound an aspirant /f/ in Germanic languages.” https://www.quora.com/Are-German-words-starting-with-the-letter-p-really-of-foreign-origin

r

- https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-Germans-cannot-pronounce-squirrel

skw sound

- https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-Germans-cannot-pronounce-squirrel

gender

- table generalising classification https://www.quora.com/Except-from-tradition-is-there-any-reason-to-keep-using-impractical-alphabets-like-those-of-Japan-and-China-Why-not-use-better-ones-like-Arabic-or-Latin

dialect
- https://www.quora.com/Which-German-language-dialect-is-most-similar-to-Dutch
-  https://www.quora.com/Why-is-there-a-low-German-and-a-high-German-dialect-Where-did-the-word-low-in-describing-a-dialect-come-from-English-German-or-Latin
- https://www.quora.com/Can-Arnold-Schwarzenegger-speak-German Austria, except for Vorarlberg, is in the “upper-German dialect region” termed Bavarian, and this southern region within Steiermark is specifically termed South Bavarian. This Bavarian-dialect designation (made by linguists) of that region exemplifies how dialects of German don’t necessarily correspond to today’s political boundaries. The situation within Germany, itself, has been compounded by dialect-mixing and movement toward Hochdeutsch caused by the intense internal migration after the seizure of East Prussia, Further Pomerania and Silesia by the Soviets after WWII: in its larger cities and, particularly, in Hannover [even before WWII], Hochdeutsch itself came to be the common dialect and that has resulted (as personal experience attests) in many people whose families now speak Hochdeutsch from birth [thereby getting a significant headstart at university and in entertainment, commerce and government, where well-spoken Hochdeutsch is required of all speakers of German]. Having been spared loss of territory and its resulting dialect-mixing from migration, those areas of Germanic speech south of the river Main have maintained their mediæval-rooted dialects, to the point that those in Switzerland, and in some parts of Austria, as well, must still learn Hochdeutsch essentially as a _foreign_ language.

- https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-similar-German-dialect-to-the-standard Standard German is a constructed written language, the result of levelling the German dialects so that any dialect speaker from any region can understand it. To do so, it straightens the pronunciation and takes away anything that composes the character of the dialects. The German dialects sound completely different than Standard German. If you know only Standard German, you need some time to understand them. I as a Northern German am not able to understand Bavarian or Alemannic unless the speaker lowers his speed and speaks very articulated. The other way round it works well, every German understands the standard language. Grammatically, lexically, and orthographically, Standard German is mainly based on the Eastern Central German dialect of Upper Saxony (nothing to do with Low Saxon, just historical reasons for the name), because the main step to a Standard German language was made by Martin Luther’s Bible translation, and he used the relatively standardized language and writing system of the Upper Saxon chanceries (“Meißner Kanzleideutsch”) as a basis. Even today the Upper Saxon/Thuringian dialect group has the most parallels to written Standard German.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/11/sport/football/world-cup-pleitgen-german-words/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

"-aną" 
- Proto-Germanic *-aną is from Proto-Indo-European *-onom, which is from *-o- (thematic vowel) + *-nom (verbal noun suffix). This is the suffix that eventually became the German verb ending -en, as in essen, sehen, denken, fühlen (from Proto-Germanic *etaną, *sehwaną, *þankijaną, *fōlijaną).https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-origin-of-the-Proto-Germanic-infinitive-ending-an%C4%85

https://www.quora.com/Are-the-German-words-for-berg-mountain-and-burg-village-related-How-about-the-words-borough-and-burrow

crush in german https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-weirdest-sounding-word-in-the-German-language

fraulein
- https://www.quora.com/In-German-why-is-Fr%C3%A4ulein-considered-offensive-as-opposed-to-Frau The term Fräulein as a salutation was officially banished from all government documents and forms in Germany in 1972. This was in response to 20 years of protests by women of the war generation who were not able to get married even if they had wanted to because there had been so many fallen solders that there were not enough men to go round. The women were earning their own living, some running businesses or working as politicians and were not being accorded the respect that their positions deserved. They argued on the strength of the (West) German constitution, which enshrines the dignity of the individual and equality as basic human rights.

Gemütlichkeit (German pronunciation: [ɡəˈmyːtlɪçkaɪt]) describes a space or state of warmth, friendliness, and good cheer. Other qualities include coziness, peace of mind, belonging, well being, and social acceptance.Gemütlichkeit derives from gemütlich, the adjective of Gemüt, which means "heart, mind, temper, feeling" expressed by (and cognate with) English mood. The German abstract nounGemütlichkeit has been adopted into English. The current meaning of the word derives from its use in the Biedermeier period. By the second half of the 19th century, it also became associated with a set of traits supposedly unique to the German culture. In the United States, the city of Jefferson, Wisconsin uses the phrase: "The Gemütlichkeit City" as its motto.

gift
-  the idea of “giving” — “to give/give!” in English and “geben/gib!” in German. Originally, das Gift in German meant something that was given, similar to “gift” in English. If you think about Grimm’s fairy tales (like Snow White), you can see the connection between poison and “something that’s given.” This is not a novel connection — Latin and Greek both had this relationship with the word “dose.” Just over time, the German word has deviated from its original meaning to express the idea of poison (e.g. Rauschgift (= drugs, literally “ecstasy poison”), Lebensmittelvergiftung (= food poisoning)). However, vestiges of the old meaning of Gift still exist: die Mitgift (literally “something that’s given with something”) means “dowry” in English (i.e. a present that’s given with marriage).https://www.quora.com/Why-does-gift-mean-poison-in-German-and-present-in-English-Is-it-a-coincidence-or-do-they-have-the-same-etymology

reich
- https://www.quora.com/Why-is-reich-not-translated-when-third-is-What-is-the-English-synonym-of-reich

schloss 
- In German, a key is a Schlüssel. The verb schließen means to close something. Verschließen means to lock something. A Schloss is a lock. A Schloss is also a palace, but I am not sure (without researching) why this homonymy has occurred.https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-word-for-key-in-your-language-Does-it-have-to-do-with-the-verb-to-open-with-the-verb-to-close-or-neither

wandel durch handel (change through trade)

- https://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article203949574/Totalitaere-Systeme-Kein-Wandel-durch-Handel.html

names
- Häberlin, anglicized Haberlin or Haeberlin, is a Germanic surname common in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.The roots of Haeberlin last name come from Swabians, a baltic population that was mixed with Germans and that during the years reached the "Swabian Sea" (ancient name of the Constance Lake). One of the probably meanings of Haeberlin is "little oat" (Haeber mean "oat") with a double signified: "bakers" as a letteral signified and also as a symbolic signified (as "masons" in "masonry" but also as "beth"-"lehem" that in Jewish language mean "the home of the bread"). Through widespread diffusion of ethnic Germans during the late 1700s to early 1900s across Northeastern Europe, as well as from German refugees fleeing Nazi oppression, the name is also common in countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland, and Lithuania. The name has its origins in an Old German term meaning 'grower of oats'. In Switzerland it is often rendered as Haeberli. 

germanic language
-https://www.quora.com/Is-English-the-most-unusual-sounding-Germanic-language there are only 13 Germanic languages, that are currently spoken (or more, or less, depending on how you see it):

North Germanic:

1. Danish
2. Faeroese
3. Icelandic
4. Norwegian
5. Swedish

West Germanic:

1. Afrikaans
2. Dutch (, Limburgish, and Low German)
3. English
4. Frisian
5. German
6. Luxembourgish
7. Scots
8. Yiddish

-  modern English Old-Saxon dictionary online http://www.koeblergerhard.de/aswbhinw.html
- https://www.quora.com/Was-the-English-spoken-before-1066-still-mutually-intelligible-with-continental-Germanic-languages-If-so-which-ones/answer/Olaf-Simons
- "ge-"

• Old Norse doesn’t have that ge-, and it’s suspected that influence from the Norse spoken in northern England, where the Vikings settled, might be responsible for the loss of ge- in English. David Bäckström, in the comments below, points out that ge- has also been lost in Low German, the trade language of the Hanseatic League, and suggests that that might have also influenced the loss of ge- in areas bordering the North Sea and/or the Baltic. https://www.quora.com/Germanic-languages-like-German-and-Dutch-use-the-prefix-ge-a-lot-Why-does-English-also-being-West-Germanic-not-use-it-at-all-Did-it-ever-use-it-in-the-past

development

- https://www.quora.com/Did-Bach-speak-the-same-German-as-today The language of Johann Sebastian Bach would barely be intelligible for speakers of modern German, and vice versa. In fact, it would be hard to communicate with any speaker of “German” from before the year 1800.