0_Wizard
I like learning about the German language and talking with Germans
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German language
German ( ) is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and (co-) official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol (Italy), the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein. It is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. The languages which are most similar to German are the other members of the West Germanic language branch: Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the major languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide and the most widely spoken native language in the European Union.
German Americans
German Americans () are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 44 million in 2016, German Americans are the largest of the ancestry groups reported by the US Census Bureau in its American Community Survey. The group accounts for about one third of the total ethnic German population in the world. None of the German states had American colonies. In the 1670s, the first significant groups of German immigrants arrived in the British colonies, settling primarily in Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia. Immigration continued in very large numbers during the 19th century, with eight million arrivals from Germany.
Germans
Germans () are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe, who share a common German ancestry, culture and history. German is the shared mother tongue of a substantial majority of ethnic Germans. The English term "Germans" has historically referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages. Before the collapse of communism and the reunification of Germany in 1990, Germans constituted the largest "divided" nation in Europe by far. Ever since the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation within the Holy Roman Empire, German society has been characterized by a Catholic-Protestant divide.
German Brazilians
German Brazilians (German: "Deutschbrasilianer", Riograndenser Hunsrückisch: "Deitschbrasiliooner", ) refers to Brazilian people of ethnic German ancestry or origin. German Brazilians live mostly in the country's South Region, with lesser but still significant degree in the Southeast Region. German dialects together make up the second most spoken first language in Brazil after Portuguese. A few Brazilian municipalities have Brazilian Hunsrückisch and Germanic East Pomeranian as co-official with Portuguese. They are located in Southern Brazil and Espírito Santo. In the year 2000 Brazilian census 12 million people in Brazil claimed to be of German descent.
Geographical distribution of German speakers
In addition to the German-speaking area ("") in Europe, German-speaking minorities are present in many countries and on all six inhabited continents. Mostly depending on the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties with a disputed status as separate languages (e.g., Low German/Plautdietsch,), it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language, 10-25 million as a second language, and 75–100 million as a foreign language. This would imply approximately 175-220 million German speakers worldwide. The German language is spoken in a number of countries and territories in Europe, where it is used both as an official language and as a minority language in various countries.
Germanisation
Germanisation (also spelled Germanization) is the spread of the German language, people and culture or policies which introduced these changes. It was a central plank of German conservative thinking in the 19th and 20th centuries, at a period when conservatism and nationalism went hand-in-hand. In linguistics, Germanisation also occurs when a word from the German language is adopted into a foreign language. Under the policies of states such as Teutonic Order state (who arrived from the Holy Roman Empire), Austria, the German Empire, and Nazi Germany, non-Germans were often banned from use of their language, the state discriminated their traditions and culture.
Sudeten Germans
German Bohemians and German Moravians (), also known as the Sudeten Germans () in the early 20th century, were ethnic Germans living in the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Margraviate of Moravia (parts of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown) both of which came under jurisdiction of the state of Czechoslovakia in the aftermath of the dissolution of Austria-Hungary after World War I and the subsequent failure to create German Austria. Before 1945, Czechoslovakia was inhabited by over three million such German Bohemians and German Moravians, comprising about 23 percent of the population of the whole republic and about 29.5 percent of the population of Bohemia and Moravia.
1_Apprentice
Sounds interesting. How are you learning the language?
0_Wizard
I had some exposure early in life when the language development process starts, but I lost it when I was 8. I'm picking it back up by talking to other Germans
Language development is a process starting early in human life.
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Language development
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Child development
Child development entails the biological, psychological and emotional changes that occur in human beings between birth and the end of adolescence, as the individual progresses from dependency to increasing autonomy. It is a continuous process with a predictable sequence, yet having a unique course for every child. It does not progress at the same rate and each stage is affected by the preceding developmental experiences. Because these developmental changes may be strongly influenced by genetic factors and events during prenatal life, genetics and prenatal development are usually included as part of the study of child development.
Language development
Language development is a process starting early in human life. Infants start without knowing a language, yet by 10 months, babies can distinguish speech sounds and engage in babbling. Some research has shown that the earliest learning begins in utero when the fetus starts to recognize the sounds and speech patterns of its mother's voice and differentiate them from other sounds after birth. Usually, productive language is considered to begin with a stage of preverbal communication in which infants use gestures and vocalizations to make their intents known to others. According to a general principle of development, new forms then take over old functions, so that children learn words to express the same communicative functions they had already expressed by proverbial means.
Simultaneous bilingualism
Simultaneous bilingualism is a form of bilingualism that takes place when a child becomes bilingual by learning two languages from birth. According to Annick De Houwer, in an article in "The Handbook of Child Language", simultaneous bilingualism takes place in "children who are regularly addressed in two spoken languages from before the age of two and who continue to be regularly addressed in those languages up until the final stages" of language development. Both languages are acquired as first languages. This is in contrast to sequential bilingualism, in which the second language is learned not as a native language but a foreign language.
Baby sign language
Baby sign language is the use of manual signing allowing infants and toddlers to communicate emotions, desires, and objects prior to spoken language development. With guidance and encouragement signing develops from a natural stage in infants development known as gesture. These gestures are taught in conjunction with speech to hearing children, and are not the same as a sign language. Some common benefits that have been found through the use of baby sign programs include an increased parent-child bond and communication, decreased frustration, and improved self-esteem for both the parent and child.
Language acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate. Language acquisition is one of the quintessential human traits, because non-humans do not communicate by using language. Language acquisition usually refers to first-language acquisition, which studies infants' acquisition of their native language. This is distinguished from "second-language acquisition", which deals with the acquisition (in both children and adults) of additional languages. Linguists who are interested in child language acquisition for many years question how language is acquired, lidz et al.
Hearing loss
Hearing loss, also known as hearing impairment, is a partial or total inability to hear. A deaf person has little to no hearing. Hearing loss may occur in one or both ears. In children hearing problems can affect the ability to learn spoken language and in adults it can cause work related difficulties. In some people, particularly older people, hearing loss can result in loneliness. Hearing loss can be temporary or permanent. Hearing loss may be caused by a number of factors, including: genetics, ageing, exposure to noise, some infections, birth complications, trauma to the ear, and certain medications or toxins.
Second language development
Second language development is a view on second language acquisition. It is contrasted with second language acqusition by emphasising that language learning is an infinite process with no end state. Researchers who view language learning as a second language development mostly apply Dynamic systems theory to explicate changes in the development. Dynamic systems theory stems from applied mathematics but the introduction of dynamic systems theory to study development in social sciences can be attributed to Thelen who applied it to study motor development. She explicated the A-not-B error from a Dynamic systems theory perspective.