tsche Bühnensprache (literally, German stage language) had established rules for German three ye

The widespread popularity of the Bible translated into German by Martin Luther helped establish modern German
When Martin Luther translated the Bible (the New Testament in 1522 and the Old Testament, published in parts and completed in 1534), he based his translation mainly on the bureaucratic standard language used in Saxony (sächsische Kanzleisprache), also known as Meißner-Deutsch (German from the city of Meissen). This language was based on Eastern Upper and Eastern Central German dialects and preserved much of the grammatical system of Middle High German (unlike the spoken German dialects in Central and Upper Germany, which had already at that time begun to lose the genitive case and the preterite tense).
Copies of the Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luther's translation and tried to create their own Catholic standard (gemeines Deutsch)—the difference in relation to "Protestant German" was only minor. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, thus ending the period of Early New High German.
Until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language: in urban northern Germany, the local dialects of Low Saxon or Low German were spoken; Standard German, which was markedly different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation were considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides; however, the actual pronunciation of Standard German varies from region to region.
The Austrian empire[edit]


Ethnolinguistic map of Austria–Hungary, 1910.
German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant, an urbanite, irrespective of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague (German: Prag) and Budapest (Buda, German: Ofen), were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain. Others, such as Pozsony (German: Pressburg, now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. A few cities remained mainly non-German. However most cities, such as Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, Zagreb (German: Agram), and Ljubljana (German: Laibach), were primarily German during this time, although surrounded by territory where other languages were spoken. In the eastern provincies Banat and Transylvania there were not only the greater towns - such as Temeswar (Timisoara), Hermannstadt (Sibiu) and Kronstadt (Brasov) - German speaking, but also many smaller localities in the surrounding areas.
Switzerland[edit]


linguistic map of Switzerland, 2000
In Switzerland, a number of local dialects are spoken in the German-speaking cantons, but (the Swiss variety of) Standard German is used as a written language. It is one of the main languages, along with French, Italian and Romansh.
Standardization[edit]
In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a complete standardization of the German language in its written form while the Deutsche Bühnensprache (literally, German stage language) had established rules for German three years earlier.
Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German (often called Hochdeutsch ("High German")) which is understood in all areas where German is spoken.
The most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts, which were issued between 1852 and 1860 . In 1860, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, this was declared the standard definition of the German language. Official revisions of some of these rules were not issued until 1996, when a controversial spelling reform was officially promulgated by governments of all German-speaking countries.
Geographic distribution[edit]