American Intercontinental University
October 19, 2013
German Language Origins
From its origins, the German language has overcome and survived many transformations, several obstacles, and different dialects to become recognize as one of the most spoken languages in the world, currently in seventeen countries and by millions of individuals. The Roman Empire was conquering lands that Germanic tribes lived on spread the language or dialects of the language also helped with the Latin influencing the Western language development. While Latin has been around since the beginning of documented time from what it seems, is the foundation of everything that we base on today’s languages, justice system, government, military, church and state laws along with some trade operations all stems from Latin of a form of Latin.
The German language was derive from an ancient dialect identified as Proto-Germanic, part of the Indo-European language, originated in the North-West Europe and Scandinavia (excluding Finland) (Primsleur Approach, 2000-2013). The Old High German language dates back to the 8th Century and is comparable to the Anglo-Saxton (Language Helpers, 2012). Native and second-language speakers of this language or dialects of the language make up roughly 118 million individuals with two million residing in the United States (Primslueur Approach, 2000-2013). It is the official language in seven countries, and acknowledged as a second language in ten countries yet still growing with leaps and bounds. Germanic Tribes originated in southern Scandinavia, along the North Sea and Baltic Coast (now known as the Netherlands to Vistula River). Expansion of the German language was due mostly by the expansion of Roman Empire; they were converting Germanic Tribes into Christianity.
Latin influenced the Western Language development greatly in several ways. Latin influenced the Catholic Church; since the Pope Saint Callists was born a slave and closer to the common everyday people, unlike the upper class, spoke Latin. He decided in AD 217-222 that in Rome the mass would be spoken Latin only. Latin remains the official language of the Catholic Church and continues to remain a neutral language regardless of where you dwell. The Vatican composes every manuscript in Latin before converting into other languages. Another major influence is Roman Empire, as the Roman Empire conquered and spread across all of Europe, to Africa, and Asia Minor they came into several tribes and communities that had their own languages combined with Latin from the Romans came up with new dialects and variations called Vulgar Latin (Oxford University Press, 2013). Another important influence Latin that has had on the Western language influence is the criminal justice system. Since Latin was the common legal language of the land, it soon became the language of the local laws. Roman soldiers, administrators, settlers, and traders to the various parts of their growing empire carried the Latin language. With that said, Latin, the