New High German

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

New High German
Teutsch, Deutsch, Neuhochdeutsch
Native to	Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Netherlands,
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic German New High German
Early forms	Old High German Middle High German Early New High German
Writing system	German alphabet
Official status
Official language in	Austria, European Union, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Belgium, co-official language of Namibia until 1990.
Language codes
ISO 639-1	de
ISO 639-2	ger (B) deu (T)
ISO 639-3	Variously: deu – Standard German sxu – Upper Saxon sli – Upper Silesian wym – Wymysorys frk – Frankish ltz – Luxembourgeois vmf – Mainfränkisch pfl – Pfälzisch ksh – Kölsch pdc – Pennsylvania German gct – Colonia Tovar German gsw – Swiss German swg – Swabian wae – Walser bar – Bavarian cim – Cimbrian geh – Hutterisch mhn – Mócheno ydd – Eastern Yiddish yih – Western Yiddish
Glottolog	mode1258

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 Jacob 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

• Jacob Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch: Definition of neuhochdeutsch
• Jacob 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