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DE- | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary

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English (UK)

English

Meaning of de- in English

de-prefix uk

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/diː-/ /dɪ-/ us

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used to add the meaning "opposite", "remove", or "reduce" to a noun or verb: deforestation the denationalization of the coal industry Once you've written a computer program, you have to debug (= remove the errors from) it.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Taking things away from someone or somewhere

appropriate

bear away

carry someone away

carry something off

collect someone/something from somewhere

debug

drain

drainage

dredge

expropriate

expropriation

extractive

relieve

rob

root something/someone out

rout someone out

seize

shelf

stripping

sweep

See more results »

written abbreviation for the US state of Delaware: used in addresses

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Towns & regions: named regions of countries

Aberdeen City

Aberdeenshire

Affrilachian

Essex

fife

fl.

Flintshire

Mississippian

Missouri

Missourian

Monmouthshire

Staffordshire

Stirling

Stirlingshire

Strathclyde

Suffolk

the Fertile Crescent

See more results »

(Definition of de- from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

What is the pronunciation of de-?

Translations of de-

in Chinese (Traditional)

（用於名詞或動詞前）表示「相反」、「除去」或「減少」, （美國）德拉威州（寫地址時Delaware的縮寫）…

in Chinese (Simplified)

（用于名词或动词前）表示“相反”、“除去”或“减少”, （美国）特拉华州（写地址时Delaware的缩写）…

in more languages

in Polish

in Turkish

in Russian

de(z)-, od-…

uzağa, öteye götürme anlamında ön ek…

образует слова, указывая на лишение чего-либо…

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de jure

de nos jours

de rigueur

de trop

de-

de-escalate

de-escalated

de-escalating

de-ice

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Cinco de Mayo

de facto

de rigueur

de trop

esprit de corps

de-ice

de-icer

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response

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/rɪˈspɒns/

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/rɪˈspɑːns/

an answer or reaction

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DE Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

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Est. 1828

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Definition

abbreviation

prefix

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1 of 2

abbreviation

defensive end

Delaware

diatomaceous earth

doctor of engineering

de-

2 of 2

prefix

: do the opposite of

deactivate

: reverse of

de-emphasis

: remove (a specified thing) from

delouse

: remove from (a specified thing)

dethrone

: reduce

devalue

: something derived from (a specified thing)

decompound

: derived from something (of a specified nature)

denominative

: get off of (a specified thing)

detrain

: having a molecule characterized by the removal of one or more atoms (of a specified element)

deoxy-

Word History

Etymology

Prefix

Middle English, from Anglo-French de-, des-, partly from Latin de- from, down, away (from de, preposition) and partly from Latin dis-; Latin de akin to Old Irish di from, Old English tō to — more at to, dis-

Dictionary Entries Near DE

DDVP

de-

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“DE.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/DE. Accessed 12 Mar. 2024.

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Kids Definition

de-

prefix

: do the opposite of

decode

: remove (a specified thing) from

delouse

: remove from (a specified thing)

dethrone

: reduce

degrade

Etymology

Prefix

derived from Latin de- "from, down, away" and Latin dis-, literally, "apart"

Medical Definition

D&E

noun

variants

or D and E

ˈdē-ən(d)-ˈē

: dilation and evacuation

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DE Definition & Usage Examples | Dictionary.com

GamesDaily CrosswordWord PuzzleWord FinderAll gamesFeaturedWord of the DaySynonym of the DayWord of the YearNew wordsLanguage storiesAll featuredPop cultureSlangEmojiMemesAcronymsGender and sexualityAll pop cultureWriting tipsGrammar Coach™Writing hubGrammar essentialsCommonly confusedAll writing tipsGamesFeaturedPop cultureWriting tipsde[ duh; French duh; Spanish de; Portuguese di ]show ipaprepositionfrom; of (used in French, Spanish, and Portuguese personal names, originally to indicate place of origin): Comte de Rochambeau; Don Ricardo de Aragón.Origin of de1From French, Portuguese, Spanish, from Latin dē Words Nearby deDDoSDDRDDSD.D.Sc.DDTdeDEAdeacceleratedeaccessiondeacetylatedeacidifyOther definitions for de' (2 of 5)de'[ duh; Italian de ]show ipaprepositiondei (used in Italian names as an elided form of dei): de' Medici.Other definitions for DE (3 of 5)DEabbreviationDelaware (approved especially for use with zip code).destroyer escort. Other definitions for de- (4 of 5)de-a prefix occurring in loanwords from Latin (decide); also used to indicate privation, removal, and separation (dehumidify), negation (demerit; derange), descent (degrade; deduce), reversal (detract), intensity (decompound).: Compare di-2, dis-1. Origin of de-4Middle English

Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024How to use de in a sentenceIn the last year, her fusion exercise class has attracted a cult following and become de rigueur among the celebrity set.How Taryn Toomey’s ‘The Class’ Became New York’s Latest Fitness Craze | Lizzie Crocker | January 9, 2015 | THE DAILY BEASTThey tried to continue their getaway but had to quickly abandon their vehicle on the Rue de Meaux in the 19th.Police Hunt for Paris Massacre Suspects | Tracy McNicoll, Christopher Dickey | January 7, 2015 | THE DAILY BEASTHumans spent a long time domesticating cattle, and what they were trying to do, in essence, was de-domesticate them.‘Nazi Cows’ Tried to Kill British Farmer | Tom Sykes | January 6, 2015 | THE DAILY BEASTThe band was still on its way back as de Blasio and his wife departed.Funeral Protest Is Too Much for NYPD Union Boss | Michael Daly | January 5, 2015 | THE DAILY BEASTYet even after the funeral protest, de Blasio was booed and heckled while addressing a new class of recruits as well.We Need Our Police to Be Better Than This | Nick Gillespie | December 31, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTMadame de Condillac stood watching him, her face composed, her glance cold.St. Martin's Summer | Rafael SabatiniThen the door opened, the portiere was swept aside, and Anselme announced "Monsieur de Garnache."St. Martin's Summer | Rafael SabatiniSan Antonio de Bexar lies in a fertile and well-irrigated valley, stretching westward from the river Salado.Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. | VariousOne evening, while he was thus engaged, he observed de Patinos and Duke Wharton enter together.The Pastor's Fire-side Vol. 3 of 4 | Jane PorterWithout any known cause of offence, a tacit acknowledgement of mutual dislike was shewn by Louis and de Patinos.The Pastor's Fire-side Vol. 3 of 4 | Jane PorterSee More ExamplesBritish Dictionary definitions for de (1 of 4)de1De, before a vowel d' or before a vowel D'/ (də) /of; from: occurring as part of some personal names and originally indicating place of origin: Simon de Montfort; D'Arcy; de la MareOrigin of de1from Latin dē; see de-British Dictionary definitions for de (2 of 4)de2the internet domain name forGermanyBritish Dictionary definitions for DE (3 of 4)DEabbreviation for(formerly in Britain) Department of EmploymentDelawareBritish Dictionary definitions for de- (4 of 4)de-prefix forming verbs and verbal derivativesremoval of or from something specified: deforest; dethronereversal of something: decode; decompose; desegregatedeparture from: decampSee moreOrigin of de-4from Latin, from dē (prep) from, away from, out of, etc. In compound words of Latin origin, de- also means away, away from (decease); down (degrade); reversal (detect); removal (defoliate); and is used intensively (devote) and pejoratively (detest)Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition

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de- | Etymology of prefix de- by etymonline

Log inAdvertisementde- active word-forming element in English and in many verbs inherited from French and Latin, from Latin de "down, down from, from, off; concerning" (see de), also used as a prefix in Latin, usually meaning "down, off, away, from among, down from," but also "down to the bottom, totally" hence "completely" (intensive or completive), which is its sense in many English words.

As a Latin prefix it also had the function of undoing or reversing a verb's action, and hence it came to be used as a pure privative — "not, do the opposite of, undo" — which is its primary function as a living prefix in English, as in defrost (1895), defuse (1943), de-escalate (1964), etc. In some cases, a reduced form of dis-.Entries linking to de-de Latin adverb and preposition of separation in space, meaning "down from, off, away from," and figuratively "concerning, by reason of, according to;" from PIE demonstrative stem *de- (see to). Also a French preposition in phrases or proper names, from the Latin word.condescend (v.)mid-14c., of God, a king., etc., "make gracious allowance" for human frailty, etc.; late 14c., "yield deferentially," from Old French condescendere (14c.) "to agree, consent, give in, yield, come down from one's rights or claims," and directly from Late Latin condescendere "to let oneself down, stoop," in Medieval Latin "be complaisant or compliant," from assimilated form of Latin com "with, together" (see con-) + descendere "to descend," literally "climb down," from de "down" (see de-) + scandere "to climb," from PIE root *skand- "jump" (see scan (v.)).

Sense of ""voluntarily waive ceremony or dignity proper to one's superior position or rank and willingly assume equality with inferiors" is from early 15c. Generally a positive word in Middle English; the modern, negative sense is from the notion of a mere show or assumed air of condescending (compare sense evolution in patronize). Also in Middle English "give one's consent; come to mutual agreement; make a concession."de-accessiondeactivatedeaminationde-anglicizedebagde-bamboozledebarkdebasedebatedebenturedebilitatedebilitationdebilitativedebilitydebitdebridementdebriefdebrisSee all related words (380) >More to Exploredebatelate 14c., "to quarrel, dispute," also "to combat, fight, make war" (senses now archaic), also "discuss, deliberate upon the pros and cons of," from Old French debatre (13c., Modern French débattre), originally "to fight," from de- "down, completely" (see de-) + batre "to beat," debenturemid-15c., "written acknowledgment of a debt" (early 15c. in Anglo-Latin), from Latin debentur "there are due" (said to have been the first word in formal certificates of indebtedness in Medieval Latin, debentur mihi "there are owing to me"), passive present indicative third-persodebilitationearly 15c., debilitacioun, "physical weakness, state of being enfeebled," from French débilitation (13c.) and directly from Latin debilitationem (nominative debilitatio) "a laming, crippling, weakening," noun of action from past-participle stem of debilitare "to weaken," from debgaminUn groupe d'enfants, de ces petits sauvages vanu-pieds qui ont de tout temps battu le pavé de Paris sous le nom éternel de...gamins, et qui, lorsque nous étions enfants aussi, nous ont jeté des pierres à tous, le soir, au sortir de classe, parce...[Hugo, "Notre-Dame de Paris"]...impasseSupposedly coined by Voltaire as a euphemism for cul de sac. ... dans l'impasse de St Thomas du Louvre; car j'appelle impasse..., Messieurs, ce que vous appelez cul-de-sac: je trouve qu'une rue ne ressemble ni à un cul ni à un sac: je vous prie de vous...servir du mot d'impasse, qui est noble, sonore, intelligible, nécessaire, au lieu de celui de cul, ......auto-da-fePortuguese auto-da-fé "judicial sentence, act of the faith," especially the public burning of a heretic, from Latin actus de...The elements are auto "a play," in law, "an order, decree, sentence," from Latin actus (see act (v.)), de "from, of" (see...de), fides "faith" (from PIE root *bheidh- "to trust, confide, persuade")....The Spanish form is auto-de-fe, but the Portuguese form took hold in English, perhaps through popular accounts of the executions...nomIt is used in various phrases in English, such as nom de guerre (1670s) "fictitious name used by a person engaged in some...action," literally "war name" and formerly in France a name taken by a soldier on entering the service, and nom de théâtre...Nom de plume (1823) "pseudonym used by a writer," literally "pen name," is a phrase invented in English in imitation of nom...de guerre....ministerc. 1300, "man consecrated to service in the Christian Church, an ecclesiastic;" also "an agent acting for a superior, one who acts upon the authority of another," from Old French menistre "servant, valet, member of a household staff, administrator, musician, minstrel" (12c.) and opportunitylate 14c., opportunitie, "fit, convenient, or seasonable time," from Old French opportunite (13c.) and directly from Latin opportunitatem (nominative opportunitas) "fitness, convenience, suitableness, favorable time," from opportunus "fit, convenient, suitable, favorable," from tfinemid-13c., "unblemished, refined, pure, free of impurities," also "of high quality, choice," from Old French fin "perfected, of highest quality" (12c.), a back-formation from finire or else from Latin finis "that which divides, a boundary, limit, border, end" (see finish (v.)); heShare de-‘cite’Page URL:https://www.etymonline.com/word/de-HTML Link:Etymology of de- by etymonlineAPA style:Harper, D. (n.d.). Etymology of de-. Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved $(datetime), from https://www.etymonline.com/word/de-Chicago style:Harper Douglas, “Etymology of de-,” Online Etymology Dictionary, accessed $(datetime), https://www.etymonline.com/word/de-.MLA style:Harper, Douglas. “Etymology of de-.” Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/word/de-. Accessed $(datetimeMla).IEEE style:D. Harper. “Etymology of de-.” Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/word/de- (accessed $(datetime)).updated on August 19, 2020AdvertisementRemove ads >AdvertisementTrending words1. sirloin2. pesky3. shampoo4. gadzooks5. knowledge6. slogan7. ramadan8. easter9. pocketbook10. canDictionary entries near de-daytimedazedazzleD-daydede-de factode jurede minimisde novoDe ProfundisABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZLINKSForumFull List of SourcesLinksPRODUCTSiOS AppAndroid AppChrome ExtensionABOUTWho Did ThisIntroduction and ExplanationFollow on FacebookSUPPORTDonate with PayPalYe Olde Swag ShoppeSupport on Patreon© 2001-2024 Douglas Harper | Terms of Service | Privacy PolicyEnglish (English) English (English)简体中文 (Chinese)Deutsch (German)Español (Spanish)Français (French)Italiano (Italian)日本語 (Japanese)한국어 (Korean)Português (Portuguese)繁體中文 (Chinese)

de- - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

de-

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See also[edit]

an-dis-in-non-un-

Anagrams[edit]

-ed, -èd, E.D., ED, Ed, Ed., ed, ed-, ed.

Dutch[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /deː/

Audio(file)

Prefix[edit]

de-

Dutch terms prefixed with de-

German[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Ultimately from Latin de.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): [de(ː)]

Audio(file)

Prefix[edit]

de-

Derived terms[edit]

German terms prefixed with de-

Indonesian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Dutch de-, from Latin de-.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): [de]

Hyphenation: dé

Prefix[edit]

dé

de-

Derived terms[edit]

Indonesian terms prefixed with de-

Further reading[edit]

“de-” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Language Development and Fostering Agency — Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic Indonesia, 2016.

Italian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin dē-, from dē (“of”, “from”).

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /de/

Hyphenation: de-

Prefix[edit]

de-

denoting:

removal

‎de- + ‎nuclearizzare (“to nuclearize”) → ‎denuclearizzare (“to denuclearize”)

movement downwards; lowering

‎de- + ‎grado (“grade”, “level”) → ‎degradare (“to gradually diminish in height”)

privation; a-

‎de- + ‎trarre (“to draw, extract”) → ‎detrarre (“to subtract”)

negation; un-

‎de- + ‎crescita (“growth”) → ‎decrescita (“degrowth”)

intensifying

‎de- + ‎limitare (“to contain, restrict”) → ‎delimitare (“to delimit”)

(chemistry) denoting subtraction of one or more atoms, radicals or molecules:

‎de- + ‎carbossilazione (“carboxylation”) → ‎decarbossilazione (“decarboxylation”)

Derived terms[edit]

Italian terms prefixed with de-

Anagrams[edit]

ed, ed.

Latin[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From dē (“of”, “from”).

Pronunciation[edit]

(Classical) IPA(key): /deː/, [d̪eː]

(modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /de/, [d̪e]

Prefix[edit]

dē-

de-

Derived terms[edit]

Latin terms prefixed with de-

Descendants[edit]

→ English: de-

French: de-, dé- (partially)

Italian: de-

Spanish: de-

→ Swedish: de-

Malay[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From English de-, from Latin dē (“of, from”).

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /de/

Prefix[edit]

de-

(obsolete) de- (reversal, undoing or removing)

Synonym: nyah-

deaktifkan ― deactivate

Middle English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from Old French de-, from a combination of Latin de- and dis-.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /dɛː-/, /dɛ-/

Prefix[edit]

de-

Forms words denoting negativity, reversal or removal; dis-, de-.

Synonym: dis-

Intensifies words with a negative connotation; dis-, de-.

Synonym: dis-

Usage notes[edit]

Because Old French de- sometimes comes from des-, this prefix may be used interchangeably with dis-.

Derived terms[edit]

Middle English terms prefixed with de-

Descendants[edit]

English: de-

References[edit]

“de-, pref.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Norwegian Bokmål[edit]

Prefix[edit]

de-

References[edit]

Norwegian Bokmål terms prefixed with de-

“de-” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk[edit]

Prefix[edit]

de-

References[edit]

Norwegian Nynorsk terms prefixed with de-

“de-” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Old French[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin dis-.

Prefix[edit]

de-

Alternative form of des-

indicating that an action is done more strongly or more vigorously

‎de- + ‎brisier (“to break”) → ‎debrisier (“to break”)

Descendants[edit]

French: dé-

Polish[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

de-

Etymology[edit]

Internationalism; compare English de-.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /dɛ/

Audio(file)

Rhymes: -ɛ

Syllabification: de

Prefix[edit]

de-

de-, dis-

Synonyms: roz-, od-

‎aktywować + ‎de- → ‎dezaktywować

Derived terms[edit]

Polish terms prefixed with de-

Further reading[edit]

de- in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Spanish[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Inherited from Latin dē-.

Prefix[edit]

de-

Derived terms[edit]

Spanish terms prefixed with de-

Further reading[edit]

“de-”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014

Swedish[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin dē-, from the preposition dē (“of”, “from”), through loan words mainly from French.

Prefix[edit]

de-

Derived terms[edit]

Swedish terms prefixed with de-

Anagrams[edit]

e.d., ed

Tagalog[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from Spanish de (“of”).

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /de/, [dɛ]

Prefix[edit]

de- (Baybayin spelling ᜇᜒ)

prepositional particle added to indicate possession of quality or object

‎de- + ‎baterya (“battery”) → ‎de-baterya (“with battery; powered by battery”)

‎de- + ‎gulong (“wheel”) → ‎de-gulong (“with wheels”)

‎de- + ‎kahoy (“wood”) → ‎de-kahoy (“wooden”)

‎de- + ‎koryente (“electricity”) → ‎de-koryente (“electrical”)

Derived terms[edit]

de-abanikode-bateryade-botede-botonde-brasode-gasolinade-gulongde-kahonde-kahoyde-kalidadde-koryentede-kotsede-kuwatrode-latade-manode-mesade-motorde-salaminde-susi

Tagalog terms prefixed with de-

See also[edit]

West Coast Bajau[edit]

Prefix[edit]

de-

one

Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=de-&oldid=78413401"

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de- prefix - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com

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Definition of de- prefix from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

de- prefix /diː/ /diː/in verbs and related nouns, adjectives and adverbs

jump to other results

the opposite ofdecentralization

Take your English to the next level

The Oxford Learner’s Thesaurus explains the difference between groups of similar words. Try it for free as part of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app

removing somethingto defrost the refrigerator (= remove layers of ice from it)More Like This PrefixesPrefixesa-ante-anti-be-co-de-demi-dis-en-ex-extra-hyper-hypo-il-in-infra-inter-intra-mis-non-off-oft-out-over-para-post-pre-pro-re-retro-semi-sub-trans-ultra-un-under-up- See de- in the Oxford Advanced American DictionaryCheck pronunciation:

de-

Other results

All matches

de-ice verb

de facto noun

de facto adverb

de facto adjective

de-icer noun

de jure adjective

de trop adjective

de-stress verb

de rigueur adjective

cri de cœur noun

cul-de-sac noun

De Profundis

pas de deux noun

whoop-de-do exclamation

aide-de-camp noun

bêche-de-mer noun

chemin de fer noun

Coeur de Lion

coup de grâce noun

crème de cacao noun

Nearby words

DDT noun

de facto noun

de- prefix

DEA

deacon noun

boost

verb

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Further reading[edit]

“de”, in FGJSH: Fjalor i gjuhës shqipe [Dictionary of the Albanian language] (in Albanian), 2006

“de”, in FGJSSH: Fjalor i gjuhës së sotme shqipe [Dictionary of the modern Albanian language]‎[4] (in Albanian), 1980

Alemannic German[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

der (preconsonantic & prevocalic)

der (prevocalic, besides preconsonantic de)

d'r, dr (Bern)

Article[edit]

(definite) the

1879, Leonhard Steiner, Glärnisch-Fahrt. Gedicht in Zürcher Mundart, p. 10:

[...] Fründ der Natur [...]

1879, Leonhard Steiner, Glärnisch-Fahrt. Gedicht in Zürcher Mundart, p. 30:

[...]; der erst und de zweit Stock [...]

Dichtungen in Thurgauer Mundart. Gesammelt von O. Sutermeister, published in Zürich by Verlag von Orell Füßli & Co., I. Teil, p. 5:

[...] so luted der erst Atrag, wo bi der Umfrog vom Pfleger Heieri Guetchnecht vorbrocht würd.

Dichtungen in Thurgauer Mundart. Gesammelt von O. Sutermeister, I. Teil, p. 13:

[...] wo die Flüchtigkeit der Zeit den Ernst des Läbens dem Gemüeti näher bringt.

Dichtungen in Thurgauer Mundart. Gesammelt von O. Sutermeister, I. Teil, p. 34:

[...] i siner Eigeschaft als Fürst der Höll, der [...]

Dichtungen in Thurgauer Mundart. Gesammelt von O. Sutermeister, I. Teil, p. 52:

Was ihr an einem der Ärmsten und Gringste Liebes und Guets tüend, Das will ich achte, als heied ihr mir 's tue – so spricht jo der Heiland.

Dichtungen in Thurgauer Mundart. Gesammelt von O. Sutermeister, II. Teil, p. 23:

Mach mit den ander-n acht Moß, wa d'witt; [...]

Declension[edit]

Zürich:

Singular

Plural

Masculine

Feminine

Neuter

Nominative

de der (before a vowel)

die, d', d'-

's (at the beginning of a sentence or verse: S')

de, d'

Genitive

der

Dative

dem

der, de

dem

Accusative

de der (before a vowel)

de, d', d'-

d', d'-

Thurgau:

Singular

Plural

Masculine

Feminine

Neuter

Nominative

de (before a consonant, including h) der (before a vowel, also before h)

die, de, d'-

das, 's

die, d'-

Genitive

des

der

des

der

Dative

dem

der

dem

de (before a consonant) den (before a vowel)

Accusative

de (before a consonant) der (before a vowel) den (before a vowel, less common)

die, de, d'-

das, 's

d'-

Asturian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin dē.

Preposition[edit]

of, from

Usage notes[edit]

The preposition de contracts to d' before a word beginning with a vowel or h-: d'Asturies (“of Asturias”), d'hermanu (“of a brother”).

Derived terms[edit]

del

Bambara[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): [dè]

Particle[edit]

emphatic particle (placed directly after the word it modifies)

A ma i wele. A ye ne de weleHe didn't call you. It was me that called

References[edit]

2007. The UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Department of Linguistics.

Basque[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /de/, [d̪e̞]

Noun[edit]

de inan

The name of the Latin-script letter D.

Declension[edit]

Declension of de (inanimate, ending in vowel)

indefinite

singular

plural

absolutive

dea

deak

ergative

dek

deak

deek

dative

deri

deari

deei

genitive

deren

dearen

deen

comitative

derekin

dearekin

deekin

causative

derengatik

dearengatik

deengatik

benefactive

derentzat

dearentzat

deentzat

instrumental

dez

deaz

deez

inessive

detan

dean

deetan

locative

detako

deko

deetako

allative

detara

dera

deetara

terminative

detaraino

deraino

deetaraino

directive

detarantz

derantz

deetarantz

destinative

detarako

derako

deetarako

ablative

detatik

detik

deetatik

partitive

derik

—

prolative

detzat

—

See also[edit]

(Latin-script letter names) a, be, ze, de, e, efe, ge, hatxe, i, jota, ka, ele, eme, ene, eñe, o, pe, ku, erre, ese, te, u, uve, uve bikoitz, ixa, i greko, zeta

Bavarian[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

d' (unstressed form)

Etymology[edit]

Cognate with German German die.

Article[edit]

stressed nominative/accusative singular feminine of der

stressed nominative/accusative/dative plural of der

See also[edit]

Bavarian articles

stressed

unstressed

stressed

unstressed

stressed

unstressed

stressed

unstressed

definite

nominative

der, da

—

das, es, des

accusative

en, den

dative

em, dem

der, da

—

genitive1

des

der, da

indefinite

nominative

—

accusative

dative

a, ana

'na

1) higher, formal register

Pronoun[edit]

she, her (accusative)

they, them

Synonyms[edit]

See also[edit]

Bavarian personal pronouns

nominative

accusative

dative

stressed

unstressed

stressed

unstressed

stressed

unstressed

1st person singular

—

mia (mir)

2nd person singular(informal)

—

dia (dir)

2nd person singular(formal)

Sie

—

Eahna

—

Eahna

—

3rd person singular

eahm

es, des

des

se, de

ihr

—

1st person plural

mia (mir)

uns

—

uns

—

2nd person plural

eß, ihr

—

enk, eich

—

enk, eich

—

3rd person plural

eahna

—

eahna

—

Catalan[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencian) [ˈde]

Noun[edit]

de f (plural des)

The name of the Latin-script letter D.

Etymology 2[edit]

From Latin dē.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): (Central, Balearic) [də]

IPA(key): (Valencian) [de]

Preposition[edit]

de (before vowel or h d')

of, from

Further reading[edit]

“de” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Etymology 3[edit]

Verb[edit]

inflection of dar:

first/third-person singular present subjunctive

third-person singular imperative

Cebuano[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Spanish de.

Preposition[edit]

(dated) of, from (only in names with Spanish origins or in phrases with Spanish construct)

hopia de CebuCebu's hopia or hopia of/from Cebu

Isabel biyuda de CortesIsabel widow of Cortes

Related terms[edit]

del, dela

Central Franconian[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /də/

Article[edit]

de (definite, reduced)

the

(most dialects) feminine nominative and accusative

(most dialects) plural nominative and accusative

(many dialects) plural dative

(some dialects) masculine nominative

(some dialects) masculine accusative

(few dialects) feminine dative

Usage notes[edit]

(masculine): Three territories must be distinguished: 1.) Ripuarian, in which the accusative takes the form of the nominative; 2.) western Moselle Franconian, in which the nominative takes the form of the accusative; 3.) eastern Moselle Franconian, in which nominative and accusative are distinct.

1.) In Ripuarian, the reduced masculine article in nominative and accusative is de only in a few places, including Bonn; most dialects have der. The full form is always dä.

2.) In western Moselle Franconian, the form is de, but becomes den before vowels, h-, and dental consonants. The full form is dän.

3.) In eastern Moselle Franconian, the reduced masculine article in the nominative is de in many dialects, der in others. The full form is där. The accusative takes den (full form: dän).

(feminine): Virtually all dialects use de as the reduced feminine article in nominative and accusative. The full form is die. In the dative, de is used in a few dialects of Ripuarian; the general form is der. The full form may be där or dä.

(plural): Virtually all dialects use de as the reduced plural article in nominative and accusative. The full form is die. In the dative, de is used in most dialects of Ripuarian. In Moselle Franconian the form is the same as the masculine accusative (see above). The full form of the dative plural may be dä, dän, or däne.

Westernmost Ripuarian has no case distinction whatsoever. Only the nominative forms are relevant for these dialects.

Declension[edit]

definite article

Masculine

Feminine

Neuter

Plural

Nominative

de (some dialects, also some Ripuarian dialects; reduced) der (some Ripuarian dialects; reduced) dä (Ripuarian; full)

de (most dialects; reduced) die (most dialects; full)

Genitive

Dative

de (few dialects; reduced) dä (Ripuarian; full) där (Moselle Franconian; full)

de (many dialects; reduced) dä (some Ripuarian dialects; full)

Accusative

de (some dialects; reduced) dä (Ripuarian; full)

de (most dialects; reduced) die (most dialects; full)

Ripuarian (scientific transcription by Münich with ę [ɛ] and ꝛ ⁠[ʁ⁠]):

Ripuarian definite article

Masculine

Feminine

Neuter

Plural

Nominative

dę

ət

Genitive

dęs (rare)

Dative

dęm

dę(ꝛ)

dęm

dę̄

Accusative

dę

ət

Ripuarian demonstrative pronoun

Masculine

Feminine

Neuter

Plural

Nominative

dę̄ꝛ

dē

dat

dē

Genitive

des

Dative

dęm

dęꝛ

dęm

mf dęǹə n (fan) dęǹə

Accusative

dę̄ (dęǹə)

dē

dat

dē

Ripuarian → Kölsch (as actually used):

definite article

Masculine

Feminine

Neuter

Plural

Nominative

der, de, dä

die, de

dat, et, -'t

die, de

Genitive

des

der

des

der

Dative

dem

der

dem

den

Accusative

den, dä

die, de

dat, et, -'t

die, de

Quotations[edit]

1875, Fritz Hönig, „Geschräppels.“ Humoresken. Erster Band, p. 34:

Ha geiht no noh'm Kobes öm Veetel op Aach, Verzällt imm dä ganzen Hergang der Saach.

Derived terms[edit]

em (en dem)

References[edit]

Grammatik der ripuarisch-fränkischen Mundart von Ferdinand Münch. Verlag von Friedrich Cohen, Bonn 1904, p. 138f. & 163f.

Cimbrian[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

di (Luserna)

Article[edit]

(Sette Comuni) the; definite article for four declensions:

nominative singular feminine

accusative singular feminine

nominative plural

De diarn zeint bille un de puuben noch mèeront.The girls are silly, and the boys even more so.

accusative plural

See also[edit]

Cimbrian definite articles

Masculine

Feminine

Neuter

Plural

Nominative

dar

de / di

's / z

de / di

Accusative

de / di

's / z

de / di

Dative

dar

References[edit]

“de” in Martalar, Umberto Martello; Bellotto, Alfonso (1974) Dizionario della lingua Cimbra dei Sette Communi vicentini, 1st edition, Roana, Italy: Instituto di Cultura Cimbra A. Dal Pozzo

Dalmatian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin dē.

Preposition[edit]

Related terms[edit]

dei

Danish[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Old Danish thē, from Old Norse þeir, from Proto-Germanic *þai.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /di/, [d̥i]

Rhymes: -i

Article[edit]

de pl

plural definite article

de grønne huse

the green houses

See also[edit]

den (common gender singular)

det (neuter gender singular)

Pronoun[edit]

de (as a personal pronoun, it has the forms dem in the oblique case and deres in the genitive; as a determiner, it is uninflected)

(personal pronoun) they (third-person plural)

(personal pronoun, nonstandard) they (gender-neutral third-person singular)

(determiner) those

De kager smager ikke godt.Those cakes taste not good.

2000, Mon farven har en anden lyd?: strejftog i 90'ernes musikliv og ungdomskultur i Danmark, Museum Tusculanum Press →ISBN, page 90

De huse er meget store, både som sommerhuse og som helårshuse for de gamle hvis de flytter tilbage som pensionister uden børnene.Those houses are very large, both as summerhouses and all-year-houses for the old people, if they move back, being retired, without their children.

2015, Lynne Graham, Claire Baxter, Den lunefulde kærlighed/Min bedste ven, min elskede, Förlaget Harlequin AB →ISBN

De borde var normalt forbeholdt VIP'erne og arrangørerne.Those tables were usually reserved for the VIP's and the arrangers.

See also[edit]

Danish personal pronouns

Number

Person

Type

Nominative

Oblique

Possessive

common

neuter

plural

Singular

First

–

jeg

mig

min

mit

mine

Second

modern / informal

dig

din

dit

dine

formal

Dem

Deres

Third

masculine (person)

han

ham

hans

feminine (person)

hun

hende

hendes

common(noun)

den

dens

neuter(noun)

det

dets

reflexive

–

sig

sin

sit

sine

Plural

First

modern

vores

archaic / formal

vor

vort

vore

Second

–

jer

jeres

Third

–

dem

deres

reflexive

–

sig

Dutch[edit]

Etymology[edit]

An unstressed variety of Middle Dutch die. See die for more information.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /də/

Audio(file)

Hyphenation: de

Rhymes: -ə

Article[edit]

the (definite article, masculine and feminine singular, plural)

De man ― The man (masculine singular)

De vrouw ― The woman (feminine singular)

Het boek ― The book (neuter singular)

De boeken ― The books (neuter plural)

De oude man en de zee. ― The old man and the sea.

Usage notes[edit]

Placed before masculine and feminine nouns in the singular and plural nouns of all genders, indicating a specific person or thing instead of a general case.

Inflection[edit]

Dutch definite article

Masculine

Feminine

Neuter

Plural

Nominative

het

Genitive

des

der

des

der

Dative

den

der

den

Accusative

den

het

There is also the clitic form 's for des. The oblique cases are archaic and found in contemporary Dutch only in fixed idiomatic phrases (e.g., op den duur or des ochtends).

Derived terms[edit]

de mande neusdezelfde

Descendants[edit]

Afrikaans: die

Berbice Creole Dutch: di

Jersey Dutch: de

Skepi Creole Dutch: di, de, the

Preposition[edit]

(informal, in restricted contexts, mostly with "man") per

Ze namen drie biertjes de man. ― They took three beers per person.

We betaalden vijftien euro de neus. ― We paid fifteen euros per person.

See also[edit]

dé

een

het

Anagrams[edit]

e.d.

Esperanto[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin dē, French de, Spanish de.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): [de]Audio: (file)Hyphenation: de

Preposition[edit]

from

Mi ne aĉetas ion ajn de ĉi tiu vendejo!I don't buy anything at all from this store!

of, possessed by

La aŭto de Davido estas nigra.David's car is black.

done, written or composed by

Synonyms: far, fare de

Ĉu vi havas esperantan tradukon de Drakulo de Bram Stoker?Do you have an Esperanto translation of Dracula by Bram Stoker?

La viro estis mordita de hundo.The man was bitten by a dog.

Fala[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Old Galician-Portuguese de, from Latin dē (“of; from”).

Preposition[edit]

2000, Domingo Frades Gaspar, Vamus a falal: Notas pâ coñocel y platical en nosa fala, Editora regional da Extremadura, Chapter 1: Lengua Española:Español falan millós de persoas.Millions of people speak Spanish.

Usage notes[edit]

When followed by the articles u/o, a, us/os, as; it contracts to du/do, da, dus/dos, das respectively.

References[edit]

Valeš, Miroslav (2021) Diccionariu de A Fala: lagarteiru, mañegu, valverdeñu (web)‎[5], 2nd edition, Minde, Portugal: CIDLeS, published 2022, →ISBN

Faroese[edit]

Noun[edit]

de n (genitive singular des, plural de)

The name of the Latin-script letter D.

Declension[edit]

Declension of de

singular

plural

indefinite

definite

indefinite

definite

nominative

deið

deini

accusative

deið

deini

dative

de, dei

denum

deum

deunum

genitive

des

desins

dea

deanna

See also[edit]

(Latin-script letter names) bókstavur; a / fyrra a, á, be, de, edd, e, eff, ge, há, i / fyrra i, í / fyrra í, jodd, ká, ell, emm, enn, o, ó, pe, err, ess, te, u, ú, ve, seinna i, seinna í, seinna a, ø

French[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Middle French de, from Old French de, from Latin dē.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /də/

audio(file)

Rhymes: -ə

Preposition[edit]

of (expresses belonging)

Paris est la capitale de la France. ― Paris is the capital of France.

1837, Louis Viardot, chapter I, in L’Ingénieux Hidalgo Don Quichotte de la Manchefr.Wikisource, translation of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra:Dans une bourgade de la Manche, dont je ne veux pas me rappeler le nom, vivait, il n’y a pas longtemps, un hidalgo ....In a village of La Mancha, whose name I do not want to remember, lived, not long ago, an hidalgo ....

of (used to express property or association)

Œuvres de Fermat ― Fermat’s Works

Elle est la femme de mon ami. ― She is my friend’s wife.

le voisin de Gabriel ― Gabriel's neighbor

from (used to indicate origin)

Elle vient de France. ― She comes from France.

Êtes-vous de Suisse ? ― Are you from Switzerland?

Ce fromage vient d’Espagne. ― This cheese is from Spain.

C’est de l’ouest de la France. ― It’s from the west of France.

Le train va de Paris à Bordeaux. ― The train goes from Paris to Bordeaux.

of (indicates an amount)

5 kilos de pommes. ― 5 kilograms of apples.

Un verre de vin ― A glass of wine

Une portion de frites ― A portion of fries

used attributively, often translated into English as a compound word

Un jus de pomme ― Apple juice

Un verre de vin ― A glass of wine

Une boîte de nuit ― A nightclub

Un chien de garde ― A guarddog

Une voiture de sport ― A sportscar

Un stade de football ― A football stadium

from (used to indicate the start of a time or range)

De 9:00 à 11:00 je ne serai pas libre. ― From 9 to 11 I won’t be free.

Je travaille de huit heures à midi. ― I work from 8 o'clock to noon.

un groupe de cinq à huit personnes ― a group of [from] five to eight people

used after certain verbs before an infinitive, often translated into English as a gerund or an infinitive

J’ai arrêté de fumer. ― I stopped smoking.

Il continue de m’embêter. ― He keeps annoying me.

Elle m’a dit de venir. ― She told me to come.

Nous vous exhortons de venir. ― We urge you to come.

by (indicates the amount of change)

Boire trois tasses par jour réduirait de 20 % les risques de contracter une maladie. ― Drinking three cups a day would reduce the risks of catching an illness by 20%.

Usage notes[edit]

Before a word beginning with a vowel sound, de elides to d’. Before the article le, it contracts with the article into du. Before the article les, it contracts with the article into des.

Le Songe d’une nuit d’été’ ― A Midsummer Night’s Dream (literally, “The Dream of a night of summer”)

La queue du chien ― The dog’s tail

Index des auteurs ― Index of the authors

Article[edit]

de (indefinite)

Used in the plural with prepositioned adjectives.

Ce sont de bons enfants. ― They are good children.

Il y a d’autres exemples. ― There are other examples.

Used in negated sentences with the grammatical object.

Elle n’a pas de mère. ― She doesn’t have a mother.

Il ne mange pas de viande. ― He doesn’t eat meat.

Il n’y a pas de problèmes. ― There are no problems.

Usage notes[edit]

In negative sentences, de often replaces the indefinite (un, une and des) and partitive articles (du, de la, des). However, there are situations where the indefinite or partitive articles are retained. For example[1]:

when the nominal element is an attributive complement to the negated verb être

Il n’est pas un menteur. ― He isn't a liar.

when the complement of the negated verb is followed by a contradistinctive element (not X, but Y)

Il ne mange pas de viande. ― He doesn't eat meat.

Il ne mange pas de la viande, mais du pain. ― He doesn't eat meat, but bread.

Derived terms[edit]

(contractions): d’, du, des

Etymology 2[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /dam/

Noun[edit]

de f (plural des)

Abbreviation of dame.

See also[edit]

dlle

References[edit]

^ Banque de dépannage linguistique

“de”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams[edit]

ed, éd.

Galician[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin dē.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /dɪ/

Audio(file)

Preposition[edit]

of, from

Veño de Lugo.(please add an English translation of this usage example)

of; -'s (belonging to)

Socorro é a avoa de Clara e de Daniel.Socorro is Clara and Daniel's grandmother

Usage notes[edit]

The preposition de contracts to d- before articles, before third-person tonic pronouns, and before the determiners algún and outro.

Derived terms[edit]

of/from + the

Singular

Plural

Masculine

dos

Feminine

das

dalgún, dalgunha, dalgunhas, dalgúns

of/from + third-person pronoun

Singular

Plural

Masculine

del

deles

Feminine

dela

delas

dun, dunha, dunhas, duns

doutra, doutras, doutro, doutros

Further reading[edit]

“de” in Dicionario da Real Academia Galega, Royal Galician Academy.

Haitian Creole[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From French deux (“two”).

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /de/

Numeral[edit]

two

Hungarian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

For the adverbial use, compare Polish ale.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): [ˈdɛ]

Audio(file)

Rhymes: -dɛ

Adverb[edit]

de (not comparable)

how!, very much

Synonyms: (dated, poetic) be, milyen, mennyire

De szép ez a ház! ― Oh, how beautiful that house is!

Conjunction[edit]

but

Synonyms: viszont, azonban, ám, ugyanakkor, ellenben

(oh) yes!, surely! (used as a positive contradiction to a negative statement)

Synonym: de igen

Nem voltál itt! – De ott voltam. ― You weren’t here! – Yes I was!

Derived terms[edit]

Compound wordsámdedehátdehogydeviszont

Expressionsa lélek kész, de a test erőtlenvégül, de nem utolsósorban

See also[edit]

csakdehátésmégis

Further reading[edit]

(adverb): de in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh. A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (‘The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’, abbr.: ÉrtSz.). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN

(conjunction): de in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh. A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (‘The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’, abbr.: ÉrtSz.). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN

de in Ittzés, Nóra (ed.). A magyar nyelv nagyszótára (‘A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2006–2031 (work in progress; published A–ez as of 2024)

Hunsrik[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

te (Wiesemann spelling system)

Etymology[edit]

From Middle High German der, from Old High German der, ther, replacing the original masculine and feminine nominative forms from Proto-Germanic *sa, by analogy with the adjective inflection.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /tə/

Article[edit]

de (definite)

inflection of där:

unstressed nominative/accusative singular masculine

unstressed dative singular feminine

unstressed dative plural all genders

Declension[edit]

Hunsrik definite articles

nominative

accusative

dative

str.

unstr.

str.

unstr.

str.

unstr.

Masculine

där

dem

Feminine

die

där

Neuter

das

dem

Plural

die

den

Further reading[edit]

Online Hunsrik Dictionary

Ido[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from French de and Spanish de.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /de/, /dɛ/

Preposition[edit]

from (indicating departure, dependency, starting point, origin or derivation)

Me kompris la frukti de la merkato.I bought the fruits from the market.

of (with a noun: indicating measurement, quantity, amount, content)

Me esis un de kin en la konkurso.I was one of five in the competition.

Me prizas tre multe tasego de kafeo ye la matino.I really like a big cup of coffee in the morning.

of (with an adjective: indicating measurement, dimension)

Me havas tri boteli plena de aquo.I have three bottles of water.

with a title of nobility

Rejio de AngliaQueen of England

Antonyms[edit]

ad (“to”)

til (“until, till”)

Derived terms[edit]

de-

del (“from the”)

Related terms[edit]

di (“of (indicates possession or association)”)

da (“by”)

Noun[edit]

de (plural de-i)

The name of the Latin script letter D/d.

See also[edit]

(Latin script letter names) litero; a, be, ce, che, de, e, fe, ge, he, i, je, ke, le, me, ne, o, pe, que, re, se, she, te, u, ve, we, xe, ye, ze (Category: io:Latin letter names)

See also[edit]

ek (“out of, out from”)

Indonesian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Dutch dee.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /ˈde/, [ˈde]

Noun[edit]

dé

The name of the Latin-script letter D/d.

Synonyms[edit]

di (Standard Malay)

See also[edit]

(Latin-script letter names) huruf; a, be, ce, de, e, ef, ge, ha, i, je, ka, el, em, en, o, pe, ki, er, es, te, u, ve, we, eks, ye, zet

Further reading[edit]

“de” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Language Development and Fostering Agency — Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic Indonesia, 2016.

Interlingua[edit]

Preposition[edit]

from

since

with

by means of

for

Irish[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Old Irish di (“of, from”).

Alternative forms[edit]

d’ (used before a vowel sound)

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /dʲɛ/, /dʲə/

(Galway) IPA(key): /ɡə/

(Ulster, colloquial) IPA(key): /ə/, (before ⟨a/á, o/ó, u/ú⟩) /ə.ɣ-/, (before ⟨e/é, i/í⟩) /ə.j-/[1]

Preposition[edit]

de (plus dative, triggers lenition, used only before consonant sounds)

from

Inflection[edit]

Inflection of de

Person

Normal

Emphatic

1st person sing.

díom

díomsa

2d person sing.

díot

díotsa

3d sing. masc.

desean

3d sing. fem.

dise

1st person pl.

dínn

dínne

2d person pl.

díbh

díbhse

3d person pl.

díobh

díobhsan

Derived terms[edit]

Irish preposition contractions

Basic form

Contracted with

Copular forms

an (“the sg”)

na (“the pl”)

mo (“my”)

do (“your”)

a (“his, her, their; which (present)”)

ár (“our”)

ar (“which (past)”)

(before consonant)

(present/future before vowel)

(past/conditional before vowel)

de (“from”)

den

de nadesna*

de modem*

de doded*, det*

dá

dár

dar

darb

darbh

do (“to, for”)

don

do nadosna*

do modom*

do dodod*, dot*

dá

dár

dar

darb

darbh

faoi (“under, about”)

faoin

faoi na

faoi mo

faoi do

faoina

faoinár

faoinar

faoinarb

faoinarbh

i (“in”)

sa, san

sna

i moim*

i doid*, it*

ina

inár

inar

inarb

inarbh

le (“with”)

leis an

leis na

le molem*

le doled*, let*

lena

lenár

lenar

lenarb

lenarbh

ó (“from, since”)

ón

ó naósna*

ó moóm*

ó doód*, ót*

óna

ónár

ónar

ónarb

ónarbh

trí (“through”)

tríd an

trí na

trí mo

trí do

trína

trínár

trínar

trínarb

trínarbh

*Dialectal.

See also: Category:Irish phrasal verbs with particle (de)

Etymology 2[edit]

From Old Irish de (“of/from him”).

Alternative forms[edit]

dhe, dó, dhó

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /dʲɛ/

(Ulster) IPA(key): /dʲɛh/[2]

Pronoun[edit]

de (emphatic desean)

third-person singular masculine of de

References[edit]

^ Quiggin, E. C. (1906) A Dialect of Donegal, Cambridge University Press, page 73

^ Quiggin, E. C. (1906) A Dialect of Donegal, Cambridge University Press, page 19

Further reading[edit]

Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977), “de”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN

G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “1 de, di”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

Entries containing “de” in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm, 1959, by Tomás de Bhaldraithe.

Entries containing “de” in New English-Irish Dictionary by Foras na Gaeilge.

Italian[edit]

Contraction[edit]

Apocopic form of del

Michael Radford è il regista de "Il postino". ― Michael Radford is the director of "Il Postino".

Usage notes[edit]

De is used where del, della, etc, would ordinarily be used, but cannot be because the article is part of the title of a film, book, etc.

See also[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

ed, ed.

Japanese[edit]

Romanization[edit]

Rōmaji transcription of で

Rōmaji transcription of デ

Jersey Dutch[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Dutch de (“the”). Cognates include Afrikaans die.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /də/

Article[edit]

the

1912, Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsche taal— en letterkunde, volumes 31-32, page 309:

De v'lôrene zön

The prodigal (literally "lost") son

Ladin[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin dē.

Preposition[edit]

of, from

Derived terms[edit]

dla

dles

Ladino[edit]

Preposition[edit]

de (Latin spelling, Hebrew spelling ⁧די⁩)

2019, Silvyo OVADYA, “Hanukah Alegre”, in Şalom Gazetesi‎[6]:Alhad la noche vamos a asender la primera kandela de muestras Hanukiyas.Sunday night we're going to light the first candle of our Hanukiyas.

from

Lashi[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Proto-Lolo-Burmese [Term?], from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *daj (“do, make”). Cognates include Ao da (“do”) and Lahu te (“do”).

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /deː˧/

Verb[edit]

(transitive) to build

Etymology 2[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /de˧/

Noun[edit]

wealth

References[edit]

Hkaw Luk (2017) A grammatical sketch of Lacid‎[7], Chiang Mai: Payap University (master thesis)

Latin[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Etruscan. Etruscan names of stops were the stop followed by /eː/.[1]

Pronunciation[edit]

(Classical) IPA(key): /deː/, [d̪eː]

(modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /de/, [d̪ɛː]

Noun[edit]

dē f (indeclinable)

The name of the letter D.

Coordinate terms[edit]

(Latin-script letter names) littera; ā, bē, cē, dē, ē, ef, gē, hā / *acca, ī, kā, el, em, en, ō, pē, kū, er, es, tē, ū, ix / īx / ex, ȳ / ī graeca / ȳpsīlon, zēta

References[edit]

de in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press

de in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers

de in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)

de in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette

Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎[8], London: Macmillan and Co. the vegetable kingdom: arbores stirpesque, herbae stirpesque (De Fin. 5. 11. 33)to take root: radices agere (De Off. 2. 12. 73)to be struck by lightning: de caelo tangi, percutito turn aside from the right way; to deviate: de via declinare, deflectere (also metaphorically)make way for any one: (de via) decedere alicuiweary with travelling; way-worn: fessus de viato leave a place: discedere a, de, ex loco aliquoto quit a place for ever: decedere loco, de, ex locoto throw oneself from the ramparts: se deicere de muroto throw some one down the Tarpeian rock: deicere aliquem de saxo Tarpeiowhile it is still night, day: de nocte, de dielate at night: multa de noctea fine, practised ear: aures elegantes, teretes, tritae (De Or. 9. 27)to pass a thing from hand to hand: de manu in manus or per manus tradere aliquidto wrest from a person's hand: ex or de manibus alicui or alicuius extorquere aliquidto slip, escape from the hands: e (de) manibus effugere, elābithe world of sense, the visible world: res sensibus or oculis subiectae (De Fin. 5. 12. 36)to free one's mind from the influences of the senses: sevocare mentem a sensibus (De Nat. D. 3. 8. 21)from one's entry into civil life: ab ineunte (prima) aetate (De Or. 1. 21. 97)to dream of a person: somniare de aliquoto depart this life: (de) vita decedere or merely decedereto depart this life: de vita exire, de (ex) vita migrareto remove a person: e or de medio tollereI'm undone! it's all up with me: perii! actum est de me! (Ter. Ad. 3. 2. 26)for valid reasons: iustis de causisto comfort a man in a matter; to condole with him: consolari aliquem de aliqua reto deserve well at some one's hands; to do a service to..: bene, praeclare (melius, optime) mereri de aliquoto deserve ill of a person; to treat badly: male mereri de aliquoto expostulate with a person about a thing: conqueri, expostulare cum aliquo de aliqua reto inform a person: certiorem facere aliquem (alicuius rei or de aliqua re)to mention a thing: mentionem facere alicuius rei or de aliqua reto mention a thing incidentally, casually: mentionem inicere de aliqua re or Acc. c. Inf.to detract from a person's reputation, wilfully underestimate a person: de gloria, fama alicuius detrahereto have a good or bad reputation, be spoken well, ill of: bona, mala existimatio est de aliquoto do work (especially agricultural): opus facere (De Senect. 7. 24)to exert oneself very considerably in a matter: desudare et elaborare in aliqua re (De Senect. 11. 38)to study the commonplace: cogitationes in res humiles abicere (De Amic. 9. 32) (Opp. alte spectare, ad altiora tendere, altum, magnificum, divinum suspicere)vague, undeveloped ideas: intellegentiae adumbratae or incohatae (De Leg. 1. 22. 59)to give up one's opinion: de sententia sua decedereto give up one's opinion: (de) sententia desistereto be forced to change one's mind: de sententia deici, depelli, deterrerito make a man change his opinion: de sententia aliquem deducere, movereto judge others by oneself: de se (ex se de aliis) coniecturam facereto form a plan, make a resolution: consilium capere, inire (de aliqua re, with Gen. gerund., with Inf., more rarely ut)to deliberate together (of a number of people): consilium habere (de aliqua re)to deliberate, consider (of individuals): consultare or deliberare (de aliqua re)designedly; intentionally: de industria, dedita opera (opp. imprudens)from memory; by heart: ex memoria (opp. de scripto)to reduce a thing to its theoretical principles; to apply theory to a thing: ad artem, ad rationem revocare aliquid (De Or. 2. 11. 44)to apply oneself very closely to literary, scientific work: in litteris elaborare (De Sen. 8. 26)to be a man of great learning: doctrina abundare (De Or. 3. 16. 59)abstruse studies: studia, quae in reconditis artibus versantur (De Or. 1. 2. 8)to have a thorough grasp of a subject: penitus percipere et comprehendere aliquid (De Or. 1. 23. 108)for a Roman he is decidedly well educated: sunt in illo, ut in homine Romano, multae litterae (De Sen. 4. 12)to civilise men, a nation: homines, gentem a fera agrestique vita ad humanum cultum civilemque deducere (De Or. 1. 8. 33)to obtain a result in something: aliquid efficere, consequi in aliqua re (De Or. 1. 33. 152)he is a young man of great promise: adulescens alios bene de se sperare iubet, bonam spem ostendit or alii de adulescente bene sperare possuntto take a lesson from some one's example: sibi exemplum sumere ex aliquo or exemplum capere de aliquoto give advice, directions, about a matter: praecepta dare, tradere de aliqua reCicero's philosophical writings: Ciceronis de philosophia libriSolon, one of the seven sages: Solo, unus de septem (illis)to teac: tradere (aliquid de aliqua re)dialectical nicety: disserendi subtilitas (De Or. 1. 1. 68)moral science; ethics: philosophia, quae est de vita et moribus (Acad. 1. 5. 19)moral science; ethics: philosophia, in qua de bonis rebus et malis, deque hominum vita et moribus disputaturto systematise: ad rationem, ad artem et praecepta revocare aliquid (De Or. 1. 41)to determine the nature and constitution of the subject under discussion: constituere, quid et quale sit, de quo disputeturthe points on which proofs are based; the grounds of proof: loci (τόποι) argumentorum (De Or. 2. 162)to discuss, investigate a subject scientifically: disputare (de aliqua re, ad aliquid)to discuss both sides of a question: in utramque partem, in contrarias partes disputare (De Or. 1. 34)to be contested, become the subject of debate: in controversiam vocari, adduci, venire (De Or. 2. 72. 291)the point at issue: id, de quo agitur or id quod cadit in controversiama twofold tradition prevails on this subject: duplex est memoria de aliqua reto write poetry with facility: carmina , versus fundere (De Or. 3. 50)to learn to play a stringed instrument: fidibus discere (De Sen. 8. 26)the melody: modi (De Or. 1. 42. 187)the art of painting: ars pingendi, pictura (De Or. 2. 16. 69)the dramatic art: ars ludicra (De Or. 2. 20. 84)to retire from the stage: de scaena decedereto be fluent: disertum esse (De Or. 1. 21. 94)to be a capable, finished speaker: eloquentem esse (De Or. 1. 21. 94)flow of oratory: flumen orationis (De Or. 2. 15. 62)incorrect language: oratio inquinata (De Opt. Gen. Or. 3. 7)flowers of rhetoric; embellishments of style: lumina, flores dicendi (De Or. 3. 25. 96)to give an account of a thing (either orally or in writing): exponere aliquid or de aliqua reto make a character-sketch of a person: de ingenio moribusque alicuius exponeregraphic depiction: rerum sub aspectum paene subiectio (De Or. 3. 53. 202)to go deeply into a matter, discuss it fully: multum, nimium esse (in aliqua re) (De Or. 2. 4. 17)to speak at great length on a subject, discuss very fully: fusius, uberius, copiosius disputare, dicere de aliqua reto interpolate, insert something: interponere aliquid (De Am. 1. 3)to digress, deviate: digredi (a proposito) (De Or. 2. 77. 311)a rather recondite speech: oratio longius repetita (De Or. 3. 24. 91)to read a speech: de scripto orationem habere, dicere (opp. sine scripto, ex memoria)the arrangement of the subject-matter: dispositio rerum (De Inv. 1. 7. 9)to set some one a theme for discussion: ponere alicui, de quo disputetto let those present fix any subject they like for discussion: ponere iubere, qua de re quis audire velit (Fin. 2. 1. 1)the question at issue: res, de qua nunc quaerimus, quaeriturto answer every question: percontanti non deesse (De Or. 1. 21. 97)a far-fetched joke: arcessitum dictum (De Or. 2. 63. 256)to be silly, without tact: ineptum esse (De Or. 2. 4. 17)to be united by having a common language: eiusdem linguae societate coniunctum esse cum aliquo (De Or. 3. 59. 223)to translate from Plato: ab or de (not ex) Platone vertere, convertere, transferrea linguist, philologian: grammaticus (De Or. 1. 3. 10)to employ carefully chosen expressions: lectissimis verbis uti (De Or. 3. 37)to say not a syllable about a person: ne verbum (without unum) quidem de aliquo facereto speak on a subject: verba facere (de aliqua re, apud aliquem)to begin with a long syllable: oriri a longa (De Or. 1. 55. 236)to compose, compile a book: librum conficere, componere (De Sen. 1. 2)there exists a book on..: est liber de...the book treats of friendship: hic liber est de amicitia (not agit) or hoc libro agitur de am.to lay down a book (vid. sect. XII. 3, note vestem deponere...): librum de manibus ponerehumour; disposition: animi affectio or habitus (De Inv. 2. 5)I am pained, vexed, sorry: doleo aliquid, aliqua re, de and ex aliqua renot to trouble oneself about a thing: non laborare de aliqua reto disconcert a person: animum alicuius de statu, de gradu demovere (more strongly depellere, deturbare)to lose one's composure; to be disconcerted: de statu suo or mentis deici (Att. 16. 15)to lose one's composure; to be disconcerted: de gradu deici, ut diciturwhat will become of me: quid (de) me fiet? (Ter. Heaut. 4. 3. 37)it's all over with me; I'm a lost man: actum est de meto hope well of a person: bene, optime (meliora) sperare de aliquo (Nep. Milt. 1. 1)to fulfil expectation: exspectationem explere (De Or. 1. 47. 205)to be touched with pity: misericordia moveri, capi (De Or. 2. 47)to have enthusiasm for a person or thing: studio ardere alicuius or alicuius rei (De Or. 2. 1. 1)to undermine a person's loyalty: de fide deducere or a fide abducere aliquemto make a thing credible: fidem facere, afferre alicui rei (opp. demere, de-, abrogare fidem)to be answerable for a person, a thing: praestare aliquem, aliquid, de aliqua re or Acc. c. Inf.to suspect a person: suspicionem habere de aliquoto be separated by a deadly hatred: capitali odio dissidere ab aliquo (De Am. 1. 2)to vent one's anger, spite on some one: virus acerbitatis suae effundere in aliquem (De Amic. 23. 87)his vices betray themselves: vitia erumpunt (in aliquem) (De Amic. 21. 76)to give some one satisfaction for an injury: satisfacere alicui pro (de) iniuriisapparently; to look at: specie (De Amic. 13. 47)to neglect one's duty: de, ab officio decedereto follow one's inclinations: studiis suis obsequi (De Or. 1. 1. 3)moral precepts: praecepta de moribus or de virtuteto give moral advice, rules of conduct: de virtute praecipere alicuiby divine inspiration (often = marvellously, excellently): divinitus (De Or. 1. 46. 202)to observe the sky (i.e. the flight of birds, lightning, thunder, etc.: de caelo servare (Att. 4. 3. 3)to escort a person from his house: deducere aliquem de domoto be a strict disciplinarian in one's household: severum imperium in suis exercere, tenere (De Sen. 11. 37)to dispossess a person: demovere, deicere aliquem de possessioneto live on one's means: de suo (opp. alieno) viverea sociable, affable disposition: facilitas, faciles mores (De Am. 3. 11)to turn the conversation on to a certain subject: sermonem inferre de aliqua rethe conversation turned on..: sermo incidit de aliqua reto converse, talk with a person on a subject: sermonem habere cum aliquo de aliqua re (De Am. 1. 3)to exchange greetings: inter se consalutare (De Or. 2. 3. 13)to congratulate a person on something: gratulari alicui aliquid or de aliqua reto separate, be divorced (used of man or woman): nuntium remittere alicui (De Or. 1. 40)disinherited: exheres paternorum bonorum (De Or. 1. 38. 175)to introduce a thing into our customs; to familiarise us with a thing: in nostros mores inducere aliquid (De Or. 2. 28)to transact, settle a matter with some one: transigere aliquid (de aliqua re) cum aliquo or inter seto subtract something from the capital: de capite deducere (vid. sect. XII. 1, note Notice too...) aliquidto demand an account, an audit of a matter: rationem ab aliquo reptere de aliqua re (Cluent. 37. 104)credit has disappeared: fides (de foro) sublata est (Leg. Agr. 2. 3. 8)to have pecuniary difficulties: laborare de pecuniaas you sow, so will you reap: ut sementem feceris, ita metes (proverb.) (De Or. 2. 65)to plant trees: arbores serere (De Sen. 7. 24)to have the good of the state at heart: bene, optime sentire de re publicato have the good of the state at heart: omnia de re publica praeclara atque egregia sentirethe head of the state: rector civitatis (De Or. 1. 48. 211)statesmanship; political wisdom: prudentia (civilis) (De Or. 1. 19. 85)to foresee political events long before: longe prospicere futuros casus rei publicae (De Amic. 12. 40)one of the people: homo plebeius, de plebeone of the crowd; a mere individual: unus de or e multisto overthrow a person (cf. sect. IX. 6): aliquem de dignitatis gradu demovereto overthrow a person (cf. sect. IX. 6): aliquem gradu movere, depellere or de gradu (statu) deiceredeposed from one's high position: de principatu deiectus (B. G. 7. 63)to contend with some one for the pre-eminence: contendere cum aliquo de principatu (Nep. Arist. 1)to record in the official tablets (Annales maximi): in album referre (De Or. 2. 12. 52)to have the same political opinions: idem de re publica sentireto form a conspiracy: coniurare (inter se) de c. Gerund. or ut...to banish a person, send him into exile: de, e civitate aliquem eicereto expel a person from the city, country: exterminare (ex) urbe, de civitate aliquem (Mil. 37. 101)a returning from exile to one's former privileges: postliminium (De Or. 1. 40. 181)to shake hands with voters in canvassing: manus prensare (De Or. 1. 24. 112)to give up, lay down office (usually at the end of one's term of office): de potestate decederemen of rank and dignity: viri clari et honorati (De Sen. 7. 22)a man who has held many offices: honoribus ac reipublicae muneribus perfunctus (De Or. 1. 45)to offically proclaim (by the praeco, herald) a man elected consul; to return a man consul: aliquem consulem renuntiare (De Or. 2. 64. 260)to consult the senators on a matter: patres (senatum) consulere de aliqua re (Sall. Iug. 28)the senate inclines to the opinion, decides for..: senatus sententia inclīnat ad... (De Sen. 6. 16)what is your opinion: quid de ea re fieri placet?to waive one's right: de iure suo decedere or cedereto hold an inquiry into a matter: quaerere aliquid or de aliqua reto examine a person, a matter: quaestionem habere de aliquo, de aliqua re or in aliquemto have a person tortured: quaerere tormentis de aliquoto examine slaves by torture: de servis quaerere (in dominum)counsel; advocate: patronus (causae) (De Or. 2. 69)to strike a person's name off the list of the accused: eximere de reis aliquemto accuse a person of extortion (to recover the sums extorted): postulare aliquem repetundarum or de repetundisto accuse some one of illegal canvassing: accusare aliquem ambitus, de ambituto accuse a person of violence, poisoning: accusare aliquem de vi, de veneficiisto decide on the conduct of the case: iudicare causam (de aliqua re)to exact a penalty from some one: supplicium sumere de aliquoto atone for something by..: luere aliquid aliqua re (De Sen. 20)to execute the death-sentence on a person: supplicium sumere de aliquoto congratulate a person on his victory: victoriam or de victoria gratulari alicuito triumph over some one: triumphare de aliquo (ex bellis)to triumph over some one: triumphum agere de or ex aliquo or c. Gen. (victoriae, pugnae)to treat with some one about peace: agere cum aliquo de paceto stop rowing; to easy: sustinere, inhibere remos (De Or. 1. 33)to land, disembark: exire ex, de navinot to mention..: ut non (nihil) dicam de...this can be said of..., applies to..: hoc dici potest de aliqua reI have a few words to say on this: mihi quaedam dicenda sunt de hac remore of this another time: sed de hoc alias pluribusso much for this subject...; enough has been said on..: atque haec quidem de...so much for this subject...; enough has been said on..: ac (sed) de ... satis dixi, dictum estI am sorry to hear..: male (opp. bene) narras (de)but enough: sed manum de tabula!

de in Enrico Olivetti, editor (2003-2024) Dizionario Latino, Olivetti Media Communication

Arthur E. Gordon, The Letter Names of the Latin Alphabet (University of California Press, 1973; volume 9 of University of California Publications: Classical Studies), part III: “Summary of the Ancient Evidence”, page 32: "Clearly there is no question or doubt about the names of the vowels A, E, I, O, U. They are simply long A, long E, etc. (ā, ē, ī, ō, ū). Nor is there any uncertainty with respect to the six mutes B, C, D, G, P, T. Their names are bē, cē, dē, gē, pē, tē (each with a long E). Or about H, K, and Q: they are hā, kā, kū—each, again, with a long vowel sound."

^ (2012) The Unicode Consortium, The Unicode Standard: Version 6.1 – Core Specification. →ISBN, page 468; citing: (1985) Geoffrey Sampson, Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. →ISBN.

Etymology 2[edit]

From Proto-Italic *dē, from an instrumental singular form of Proto-Indo-European *de. Also in suffixes -dam, -dum, -de, -dō (e.g. quondam, inde, unde, quandō), dōnec, Ancient Greek δέ (dé), δή (dḗ), English to.

All 3 ablative senses are from the PIE ablative of cause, origin, and separation.

Pronunciation[edit]

(Classical) IPA(key): /deː/, [d̪eː]

(modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /de/, [d̪ɛː]

Preposition[edit]

dē (+ ablative)

of, concerning, about

actum est de aliquo ― It is over for someone, the fate of someone is sealed

(Can we date this quote?), Finnur Jónsson, Historia Ecclesiastica Islandiæ‎[9], page 1:De introductione religionis Christianæ in Islandiam.Of the introduction of Christianity to Iceland.

De rebus mathematicis. ― Concerning mathematical things.

from, away from, down from, out of; in general to indicate the person or place from which any thing is taken, etc., with verbs of taking away, depriving, demanding, requesting, inquiring, buying; as capere, sumere, emere, quaerere, discere, trahere, etc., and their compounds.

Emere de aliquo. ― To buy from someone.

Aliquid mercari de aliquo. ― To buy something from someone.

De aliquo quaerere, quid, etc., C ― To search for someone.

Saepe hoc audivi de patre. ― I have often heard this from father.

De mausoleo exaudita vox est. ― A voice was heard from the mausoleum.

Ut sibi liceret discere id de me. ― Just as he himself permitted for me to learn.

Hamum de cubiculo ut e navicula jacere. ― (please add an English translation of this usage example)

Brassica de capite et de oculis omnia (mala) deducet. ― (please add an English translation of this usage example)

De digito anulum detraho. ― From the finger I pull the ring.

De matris complexu aliquem avellere atque abstrahere. ― (please add an English translation of this usage example) (literally, “I rip someone away from the embrace of their mother and drag them away.”)

Nomen suum de tabula sustulit. ― He removed his name from the tablet.

Ferrum de manibus extorsimus. ― We tore the sword from their hands.

Juris utilitas vel a peritis vel de libris depromi potest. ― The utility of a law is able to be produced either from an expert or from books.

De caelo aliquid demittere. ― To bring down something from the sky.

with petere, of a place

De vicino terra petita solo. ― (please add an English translation of this usage example)

(Late Latin) of persons

Peto de te. ― I beg of thee.

from, away from, to indicate the place from which someone or something departs or withdraws.

Animam de corpore mitto. ― I release the spirit from the body.

Aliquo quom jam sucus de corpore cessit. ― Somehow the spirit has already passed somewhere from the body.

Civitati persuasit, ut de finibus suis cum omnibus copiis exirent. ― He persuaded the people to go forth from their territories with all their possessions.

Decedere de provincia. ― To retire from office.

De vita decedere. ― To withdraw from life

Exire de vita. ― to exit out of life. (compare excedere e vita)

De triclinio, de cubiculo exire. ― To go out from the triclinium, from the cubiculum.

De castris procedere. ― To proceed out of the military camps.

...decido de lecto praeceps. ― I fall down from the bed headlong.

De muro se deicere. ― To throw oneself down from the wall.

De sella exsilire. ― To jump from the stool.

Nec ex equo vel de muro etc., hostem destinare. ― To aim at the enemy from neither the horse nor the wall.

De altera parte tertia Sequanos decedere juberet. ― He ordered the Sequani to withdraw from another third part.

(particularly coins) over, in reference to the people subjugated when celebrating a Roman victory

De GermanisOver the Germans

De BritannisOver the Britons

Usage notes[edit]

Dē denotes the going out, departure, removal, or separating of an object from any fixed point (it occupies a middle place between ab (“away from”) which denotes a mere external departure, and ex (“out of”) which signifies from the interior of a thing). Hence verbs compounded with dē are constructed not only with dē, but quite as frequently with ab and ex; and, on the other hand, those compounded with ab and ex often have the terminus a quo indicated by dē.

Derived terms[edit]

dē exdē forīsdē intusdē postdē retrōdēmumdēniquēdēteriorsexāgēnārios dē pontesusque dēque

Descendants[edit]

Descendants

Aragonese: de

Asturian: de

Aromanian: di

Old Catalan: de

Catalan: de

Corsican: di

Dalmatian: de

→ Esperanto: de

Franco-Provençal: de

Old French: de

Middle French: de

French: de

Friulian: di

Mozarabic: ⁧ד⁩ (d)

Old Galician-Portuguese: de

Galician: de

Portuguese: de

→ Ido: de

→ Interlingua: de

Italian: di

Ladin: de

Ladino: de

Mozarabic: ⁧ד⁩ (d)

Neapolitan: 'e

Old Occitan: de

Occitan: de

Romanian: de

Romansch: da

Sicilian: di

Old Spanish: de

Spanish: de

Ligurian[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /de/

Etymology 1[edit]

From Latin dē.

Preposition[edit]

from

de + article

Combined form

de + o

de + a

de + i

de + e

Etymology 2[edit]

de (“of, from”, preposition) + e (“the (fem. plur.)”, article)

Contraction[edit]

of the, from the (followed by a plural feminine noun)

Louisiana Creole[edit]

Louisiana Creole cardinal numbers

< 1

3 >

Cardinal : de Ordinal : sègon Multiplier : doub Collective : toulédé

Etymology[edit]

Inherited from French deux (“two”).

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /dø/

Rhymes: -ø

Numeral[edit]

Alternative form of dé (“two”)

Low German[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

dee (for the pronoun)

dei

de, dé (´ denoting a raising of the voice), dè (` denoting a swallow up or shorting) (all three used together; Grafschaft Bentheim)

Etymology[edit]

From Middle Low German dê, from Old Saxon thē.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /deː/, /deɪ/, /dɛɪ̯/

Article[edit]

de m or f (neuter dat, plural de)

the

De Mann gat hen. ― The man walks [lit. goes] there.

De Fru geiht hen. ― The woman walks [lit. goes] there.

dat Sakramänt der Eihe (Paderbornisch) ― the sacrament of marriage

Usage notes[edit]

Dative and accusative are sometimes called 'object case'. However, most (if not all) dialects have not actually merged these two.

There is the only plural article and like English 'the' is used for nouns of every gender and class. Indefinite nouns in plural are used without article, again as in English.

Declension[edit]

Sg. m.

Sg. f.

Sg. n.

Pl.

Nom.

dat

Gen.

des

der

Dat.

demden

derde

den

Acc.

den

dat

Pronoun[edit]

de m or f (neuter dat)

(relative) which, that

de Mann, de dår güng ― the man, which walked there

de Mann, den wi hüert häbben ― the man, which we hired

de Fru, de wi hüert hębben ― the woman, which we have hired

dat Schipp, dat wi sailt hębben ― the ship that we have sailed

Usage notes[edit]

The use as a relative pronoun might not be present in all dialects.

Declension[edit]

Sg. m.

Sg. f.

Sg. n.

Pl.

Nom.

dat

Gen.

Dat.

Acc.

den

dat

Luxembourgish[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): [də]

Pronoun[edit]

unstressed form of du

Declension[edit]

Luxembourgish personal pronouns

nominative

accusative

dative

reflexive

str.

unstr.

str.

unstr.

str.

unstr.

1st person singular

ech

—

mech

—

mir

mer

like dat. and acc.

2nd person singular(informal)

dech

—

dir

der

like dat. and acc.

2nd person singular(formal)

Dir

Der

Iech

Iech [əɕ]

Iech

Iech [əɕ]

Iech

3rd person singular

hien

him

sech

hir

sech

hatt

et ('t)

hatt

et ('t)

him

sech

1st person plural

mir

mer

eis (ons)

—

eis (ons)

—

eis (ons)

2nd person plural

dir

der

iech

iech [əɕ]

iech

iech [əɕ]

iech

3rd person plural

hinnen

sech

Mandarin[edit]

Romanization[edit]

de (de5／de0, Zhuyin ˙ㄉㄜ)

Hanyu Pinyin reading of 地

Hanyu Pinyin reading of 底

Hanyu Pinyin reading of 得

Hanyu Pinyin reading of 的

Hanyu Pinyin reading of 脦

Hanyu Pinyin reading of

Hanyu Pinyin reading of の

Romanization[edit]

Nonstandard spelling of dē.

Nonstandard spelling of dé.

Nonstandard spelling of dè.

Nonstandard spelling of dê̄.

Usage notes[edit]

Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.

Mauritian Creole[edit]

Mauritian Creole cardinal numbers

< 1

3 >

Cardinal : de Ordinal : deziem Adverbial : ledoub

Etymology[edit]

From French deux.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /de/

Numeral[edit]

two

Derived terms[edit]

de trwa

Middle Dutch[edit]

Article[edit]

inflection of die:

masculine nominative singular

feminine nominative/accusative singular

nominative/accusative plural

Middle English[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

Pronoun[edit]

Alternative form of þe (“thee”)

Etymology 2[edit]

Noun[edit]

Alternative form of dee

Middle French[edit]

Preposition[edit]

from

Mirandese[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin dē.

Preposition[edit]

of, from

Pertual ye un paíç localizado ne l sudoeste de la Ouropa. ― Portugal is a country located in the south-west of Europe.

Mòcheno[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Middle High German diu, from Old High German diu, from Proto-Germanic *þō, an alteration of *sō. Cognate with German die, obsolete English tho.

Article[edit]

de (singular masculine der, singular neuter s)

the, nominative singular feminine definite article

the, nominative plural definite article

References[edit]

“de” in Cimbrian, Ladin, Mòcheno: Getting to know 3 peoples. 2015. Servizio minoranze linguistiche locali della Provincia autonoma di Trento, Trento, Italy.

Northern Kurdish[edit]

Postposition[edit]

an element of several circumpositions

Related terms[edit]

di ... de

li ... de

ji ... de

Northern Ndebele[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Proto-Bantu *-dàì.

Adjective[edit]

-de

tall

Inflection[edit]

Adjective concord, tone L

Modifier

Copulative

1st singular

engimude

ngimude

2nd singular

omude

umude

1st plural

esibade

sibade

2nd plural

elibade

libade

Class 1

omude

mude

Class 2

abade

bade

Class 3

omude

mude

Class 4

emide

mide

Class 5

elide

lide

Class 6

amade

made

Class 7

eside

side

Class 8

ezinde

zinde

Class 9

ende

inde

Class 10

ezinde

zinde

Class 11

olude

lude

Class 14

obude

bude

Class 15

okude

kude

Class 17

okude

kude

Northern Sami[edit]

Etymology[edit]

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation[edit]

(Kautokeino) IPA(key): /ˈte/

Conjunction[edit]

then, after that

then, in that case

Further reading[edit]

Koponen, Eino; Ruppel, Klaas; Aapala, Kirsti, editors (2002–2008) Álgu database: Etymological database of the Saami languages‎[10], Helsinki: Research Institute for the Languages of Finland

Adverb[edit]

yes

Norwegian Bokmål[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Audio(file)

IPA(key): /diː/

Article[edit]

definite article, equivalent to "the", used before adjectives used with plural nouns; also used before adjectives converted to nouns. Usually capitalised as "De" when used in proper nouns.

Related terms[edit]

den

det

Pronoun[edit]

de (accusative dem, genitive deres)

they

those

See also[edit]

Personal pronouns in Bokmål

Number

Person

Type

Nominative

Oblique

Possessive

feminine

masculine

neuter

plural

Singular

First

–

jeg

meg

min

mitt

mine

Second

general

deg

din

ditt

dine

formal (rare)

Dem

Deres

Third

feminine (person)

hun

henne

hennes

masculine (person)

han

ham / han

hans

feminine (noun)

den

dens

masculine (noun)

neuter (noun)

det

dets

reflexive

–

seg

sin

sitt

sine

Plural

First

–

oss

vår

vårt

våre

Second

general

dere

deres

formal (very rare)

Dem

Deres

Third

general

dem

deres

reflexive

–

seg

sin

sitt

sine

References[edit]

“de” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Old Norse þér, ér and þit, it. From a variant of Proto-Germanic *jūz, from Proto-Indo-European *yū́.

Alternative forms[edit]

dokker

di, did (dialectal and/or nonstandard)

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /deː/, /diː/

Pronoun[edit]

de (objective case dykk, possessive dykkar)

you (second-person plural)

Synonyms[edit]

dokker

See also[edit]

Norwegian Nynorsk personal pronouns

person

first person

second person

reflexive

third person

case

singular

singular masculine

singular feminine

singular neuter

nominative

eg, je1

han

det, dat2

accusative

meg

deg

seg

han, honom2

ho, henne2

det, dat2

dative2

meg

deg

seg

honom

henne

di2

genitive

min

din

sin

hans

hennar, hennes1

dess3

case

plural

nominative

me, vi

de, dokker

dei

accusative

oss, okk

dykk, dokker

seg

dei, deim2

dative

oss, okk

dykk, dokker

seg

deim2

genitive

vår, okkar

dykkar, dokkar

sin

deira, deires1

1Obsolete. 2Landsmål. 3Rare or literary. Cursive forms unofficial today.

Etymology 2[edit]

From French de, Latin dē.

Preposition[edit]

used in set expressions (such as de jure); translates to "from" and "of"

Etymology 3[edit]

Pronoun[edit]

(Midlandsnormalen or eye dialect) alternative spelling of det n (“that, it”)

Article[edit]

de n

(Midlandsnormalen or eye dialect) alternative spelling of det n (“that, it”)

Etymology 4[edit]

Pronoun[edit]

(dialectal or eye dialect, Trøndelag, Eastern Norway) pronunciation spelling of deg

References[edit]

“de” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

“de” in Ivar Aasen (1873) Norsk Ordbog med dansk Forklaring

Ivar Aasen (1850), “did”, in Ordbog over det norske Folkesprog, Oslo: Samlaget, published 2000

Nupe[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /dē/

Verb[edit]

to have

Mi de etun à ― I don't have a job

Occitan[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

Inherited from Latin dē.

Preposition[edit]

from

Alternative forms[edit]

d' (before a vowel)

Etymology 2[edit]

Noun[edit]

de f (plural des)

dee (the letter d, D)

Old French[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Latin dē.

Preposition[edit]

from

Usage notes[edit]

before a vowel, either remains as a separate word or becomes d'

Derived terms[edit]

del (de + le)

des (de + les)

Descendants[edit]

Middle French: de

French: de

Old Galician-Portuguese[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

d- (elided form when followed by a word which begins with a vowel)

D- (elided form when followed by a capitalised word which begins with a vowel)

Etymology[edit]

From Latin dē (“of; from”).

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /de/

Preposition[edit]

13th century CE, Alfonso X of Castile, Cantigas de Santa Maria, To codex, cantiga 5 (facsimile):

Eſta ·xviiii· é como ſṫa maria aiudou · á emperadriz de roma · a ſofrer as grãdes coitaſ per que paſſou.

This 19th is how Holy Mary helped the empress of Rome suffer the great pains she underwent.

Descendants[edit]

Fala: de

Galician: de

Portuguese: de

Old Irish[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): [dʲe]

Preposition[edit]

Alternative form of di (“of, from”)

c. 845, St Gall Glosses on Priscian, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1975, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. II, pp. 49–224, Sg. 26b7

De dliguth trá inna n-il-toimdden sin, is de gaibthi “igitur”; quasi dixisset “Ní fail ní nád taí mo dligeth-sa fair i ndegaid na comroircnech.”Of the law then, of those many opinions, it is thereof that he recites “igitur”; as if he had said, “There is nothing which my law does not touch upon after the erroneous ones.

Pronoun[edit]

third-person singular masculine/neuter of di (“of, from”)

Used after the comparative degree of an adjective in the meaning of English “the” before a comparative

lía de ― the more (literally, “more of it”)

c. 800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 23d23

Cía thés hí loc bes ardu, ní ardu de; ní samlid són dúnni, air ⟨im⟩mi ardu-ni de tri dul isna lucu arda.Though he may go into a higher place, he is not the higher; this is not the case for us, for we are the higher through going into the high places.(literally, “Though he may go into a place that is higher, he is not higher of it; this is not thus for us, for we are higher of it through going into the high places.”)

Old Occitan[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin dē.

Preposition[edit]

from

Pennsylvania German[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Compare German den.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /də/

Article[edit]

de pl (definite)

dative plural of der (“the”)

Declension[edit]

Pennsylvania German definite articles

Masculine

Feminine

Neuter

Plural

Nominative

der

die

Dative

dem or em

der

dem or em

Accusative

der or den

die

Pronoun[edit]

you

Declension[edit]

Pennsylvania German personal pronouns

singular

plural

1st person

2nd personfamiliar

2nd personpolite/formal

3rd person

1st person

2nd person

3rd person

nominative

ich

dude1

dihrder1Sie

siese1

mirmer1

dihrder1

sie

dative

mirmer1

dirder1

eichIhneNe1

ihmem1

ihrere1

ihmem1

uns

eich

ihnene1

accusative

mich

dich

eichSie

ihnen1

siese1

sie

1unstressed

Phalura[edit]

Etymology[edit]

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /de/

Verb[edit]

de (auxiliary, Perso-Arabic spelling ⁧دےۡ⁩)

Past tense marker

References[edit]

Liljegren, Henrik; Haider, Naseem (2011) Palula Vocabulary (FLI Language and Culture Series; 7)‎[11], Islamabad, Pakistan: Forum for Language Initiatives, →ISBN

Polish[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From the first letter of dupa.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /dɛ/

Audio(file)

Rhymes: -ɛ

Syllabification: de

Noun[edit]

de n (indeclinable)

(minced oath) ass, arse, butt

Further reading[edit]

de in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Portuguese[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

d' (archaic, except for fixed terms)

Etymology[edit]

From Old Galician-Portuguese de (“of”), from Latin dē (“of”).

Pronunciation[edit]

(Brazil) IPA(key): /d͡ʒi/

(Southern Brazil) IPA(key): /de/

(Portugal) IPA(key): /dɨ/

(Nordestino) IPA(key): /di/

(Caipira) IPA(key): /di/

Hyphenation: de

Preposition[edit]

of (in relation to)

2005, J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter e o Enigma do Príncipe [Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince] (Harry Potter; 6), Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, →ISBN, page 138:O protesto de Hermione foi abafado por uma risadinha alta.Hermione's objection was interrupted by a loud little laugh.

os amigos delehis friends(literally, “the friends of him”)

of (forms compounds; often untranslated)

fones de ouvidoheadphones(literally, “phones of ear”)

acampamento de verãosummer camp

of; about (on the subject of)

Do que estavam falando?What were they talking about?

of; -'s (belonging to)

a casa de alguémsomeone's house

-'s (made by)

Você provou o bolo da minha mãe?Have you tried my mother’s cake?

of (being a part of)

capa do livrocover of the book

of (introduces the month a given day is part of)

Primeiro de janeiro.First of January.

of (introduces the object of an agent noun)

Hitler foi um exterminador de judeus.Hitler was an exterminator of Jews.

of (introduces the name of a place following its hypernym)

A vila de Iorque.The village of York.

of; -en (made or consisting of)

De que é feito?What is this made of?(literally, “Of what is made this?”)

-long (having the duration of)

um filme de duas horasa two hour-long movie

of (indicates the composition of a given collective or quantitative noun)

Milhares de pessoas vieram.Thousands of people came.

of (characterised by; having the given quality)

O templo não é mais um local de paz.The temple is no longer a place of peace.

of (introduces the noun that applies a given adjective or past participle)

Um balde cheio de água.A bucket full of water.

from (born in or coming out of)

De onde você é?Where are you from?

by means of; by

Eu sempre vou trabalhar de ônibus.I always go to work by bus.

as (in the role of)

Na festa, ele estava de bruxo.At the party, he was dressed as a wizard.

in (wearing)

Homens de PretoMen in Black

Usage notes[edit]

When followed by an article, a pronoun, a demonstrative pronoun or adjective, or an adverb denoting location, de is combined with the next word to give the following combined forms:

Contractions of de

De + article

Combined form

de + o

de + a

de + os

dos

de + as

das

de + um

dum

de + uma

duma

de + uns

duns

de + umas

dumas

De + pronoun

Combined form

de + ela

dela

de + elas

delas

de + ele

dele

de + eles

deles

De + dem. pronoun

Combined form

de + aquela

daquela

de + aquelas

daquelas

de + aquele

daquele

de + aqueles

daqueles

de + aquilo

daquilo

de + esse

desse

de + essa

dessa

de + esses

desses

de + essas

dessas

de + este

deste

de + esta

desta

de + estes

destes

de + estas

destas

de + isso

disso

de + isto

disto

de + outra

doutra

de + outras

doutras

de + outro

doutro

de + outros

doutros

De + adverb

Combined form

de + acolá

dacolá

de + algures

dalgures

de + ali

dali

de + além

dalém

de + antes

dantes

de + aqui

daqui

de + aquém

daquém

de + aí

daí

de + entre

dentre

de + estoutra

destoutra

de + estoutro

destoutro

de + onde

donde

Quotations[edit]

For quotations using this term, see Citations:de.

Romanian[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

де (de) — post-1930s Cyrillic spelling

dă, di — dialectal

Etymology[edit]

From Latin dē.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /de/

Audio:(file)

Rhymes: -e

Conjunction[edit]

(informal or literary) Synonym of dacă (“if”)

(with the optative mood) if only

(informal) to the effect that

Synonyms: încât, (informal) că

Am așteptat de m-am plictisit.I waited [so much] that I got bored.

Cum a jucat echipa de a pierdut așa de rău?How did the team play to lose so badly?

E o căldură de nu ar ieși nimeni din casă.There’s [such] heat that no one would go outside.

Mașina a demarat de i-au scârțâit cauciucurile.The car sped off [so fast] that its tyres screeched.

Am bani de nu știu ce să fac cu ei.I have [so much] money that I don’t know what to do with it.

(archaic) while (whereas, despite the fact that)

Synonyms: chiar dacă, deși, cu toate că

Usage notes[edit]

In the meaning of “if”, de is not typically directly followed by any word other than a verb, a pronoun (accusative or reflexive, but not nominative) or the word nu (“no”). The more common and style-neutral dacă is under no such restrictions.

As an informal synonym of încât, de can only be used in simple constructions and without any coordinative adverbs (atât, așa). Thus, it can be used in the sentence Vântul bate de ridică praful (“The wind blows [so hard] it raises dust”), but not if the first half were Vântul bate atât de tare. Conversely, încât and că would not be used in such simple sentences.

Preposition[edit]

de (+accusative)

Beau o ceașcă de ceai.I’m drinking a cup of tea.

Este profesor de matematicăHe’s a teacher of mathematics.

(only before spatial adverbs and prepositions) Indicates source of motion or origin: from

Stația nu este departe de aici.The station is not far from here.

Apa picură de sus.The water drips from above.

Prefer mâncarea de acolo.I prefer the food from there.

De unde vine sunetul?Where does the sound come from?

Gloanțele acestea nu sunt bune decât de aproape.These bullets are only good from a short distance.

Seara la ora de vârf toată lumea se întoarce de la serviciu.In the evening during rush hour everybody is returning from work.

Ia plasa de lângă radiator! O să se topească!Take the bag away from near the heater! It will melt!

O foaie de hârtie poate fi trasă repede de sub un pahar.A sheet of paper can be quickly pulled from under a glass.

(with adverbs of time, precisely referenced time-related nouns, or prepositions or conjunctions of time) of, from, ’s

Ziua de mâine va fi mai bună decât ziua de azi.Tomorrow will be better than today.(literally, “the day of tomorrow”, “the day of today”)

Întâlnirile de mâine, de marți și de săptămâna viitoare se amână.Tomorrow’s, Tuesday’s and next week’s meetings are being postponed.

Arhiva este plină cu documente de demult.The archive is full of documents from long ago.

Știrile acestea nu sunt de acum, ci de anul trecut.These news are not from right now, but from last year.

Mă uit la poze de dinainte să mă fi născut.I’m looking at photos from before I was born.

Retrăiesc amintiri de când eram copil.I’m reliving memories from when I was a child.

Anii de după Revoluție au fost grei.The years from after the Revolution were difficult.

for (intended for a certain destination)

În magazin hainele de bărbați sunt în stânga, iar cele de femei în dreapta.In the shop, men’s clothes are on the left, while women’s are on the right.

Acestea sunt de începători.These are for beginners.

Ai cizme de lucru?Do you have work boots?

Unele lemnuri sunt bune de tâmplărie, altele sunt bune de foc.Some woods are good for woodworking, others are good for firewood.

Introduces the doer of a passive verb or participle: by.

Constantinopolul a fost cucerit de otomani.Constantinople was conquered by the Ottomans.

Introduces the author of a work: by.

Connects a cardinal numeral who is a multiple of 100 or whose tens are greater than 1 to the determinated noun.

Suma este de două sute șaisprezece lei și patruzeci și patru de bani.The sum is 216 lei and 44 bani.

Connects most adverbs other than certain basic ones to the determinated adjectives or adverbs.

Sunt nemaipomenit de atent să ajung suficient de devreme.I’m exceedingly careful to arrive sufficiently early.

Motocicleta merge destul de repede.The motorbike is going pretty fast.

E atât de frumos afară.It’s so beautiful outside.

Follows certain adverbs of position (as well as the temporal adverb înainte) to form prepositional phrases.

Este bine să locuiești aproape de centrul orașului.It is good to live near the city centre.

Dincolo de munți se află Transilvania.Beyond the mountains lies Transylvania.

Aceste clădiri au fost construite înainte de Primul Război Mondial.These buildings were built before the First World War.

Marks the point of action of a force of grip: by.

Nu lua iepurele de urechi.Do not grab the rabbit by the ears.

Plăcile se prind numai de margini.Vinyls are held by the edges only.

L-a mușcat câinele de mână.The dog bit him by the hand.

(informal outside certain constructions; regarding physical or mental states or traits of living beings) for, because of

Synonyms: de la (colloquial), din cauza

La ora șase încă eram buimac de somn.At six I was still groggy for lack of sleep.

Unii prizonieri au murit de foame, iar ceilalți de diverse boli.Some of the prisoners died of hunger, and the rest of various diseases.

O să îți pierzi capul de amețit ce ești.You’ll lose your own head for being so absent-minded.

(informal, chiefly in the negative) Indicates the cause of a hindrance: because of

Unii oameni stau în ușă fără să își dea seama că alții nu pot trece de ei.Some people stand in the doorway without realising that others cannot pass because of them.

Nu se vede de ceață.There is no visibility because of fog.

Mă auzi de zgomot?Can you hear me with all this noise?

Pe aici nu se poate trece de minele de teren.One cannot pass through here due to landmines.

Forms an adverbial numeral with ori or dăți.

De câte ori a bătut ceasul? De șase ori.How many times did the pendulum clock strike? Six times.

Precedes numbers and letters when they are themselves counted.

Dacă ai un opt, o să îți trebuiască trei de zece ca să îți iasă media zece.If you have one grade of 8 (equivalent of a B), you’ll need three 10s (equivalent of an A) to still get an average grade of 10.

„Nu fi” nu se scrie cu doi de i, ci cu unul.Nu fi (“don’t be”) isn’t written with two i’s, but with one.

(after indications of position or before numerals, time coordinates, or the word atât) than

Synonym: decât (mutually exclusive in use)

Puține orașe se află mai jos de nivelul mării.Few cities are situated lower than sea level.

Război și pace are mai mult de o mie de pagini.War and Peace has more than a thousand pages.

A trecut mai puțin de jumătate din vacanță.Less than half of summer break has passed.

Nu se poate mai devreme de luna viitoare.It isn’t possible any earlier than next month.

Poți chiar mai bine de atât.You can do even better than that.

Marks the starting point of a state or recurring event: since, starting, as of.

de acum încolo ― from now on

Curentul e tăiat de ieri.The power is cut since yesterday.

Noii angajați încep de săptămâna viitoare serviciul.The new employees are beginning work starting next week.

Marks the duration of a state or recurring event persisting to the present: for, in

Compania noastră este prezentă în România de șase ani.Our company has been present in Romania for six years.

Nu te-am mai văzut de multă vreme.I haven’t seen you in a long time.

(only of festive dates) on

Synonym: pe (of regular dates)

De Anul Nou sau de 1 Mai se petrece.On New Year or May Day one celebrates.

Mi-am luat concediu de ziua mea de naștere.On my birthday I took a day off.

(informal) Synonym of despre (“about, of”)

Ce știe lumea de economie?What do people know about economy?

Tocmai vorbeam de tine.We were just talking about you.

(informal) Connects an often negative qualifier to a noun or pronoun: of a.

Aici stă un nesuferit de moș. ― Here lives a jerk of an old man.

Prostul de mine, am uitat. ― Foolish me, I forgot.

Stands between two repetitions of a unit of time to mark it as an interval of regular repetition: by.

zi de zi ― day by day, daily

an de an ― year by year, annualy

Minut de minut se aude semnalul.The signal is heard every minute.(literally, “minute by minute”)

Indicates a specific train by its origin station.

Trenul de Timișoara face cincisprezece ore până la Iași.The Timișoara train takes fifteen hours to Iași.

Indicates the recipients of an equal distribution: per.

Rația e de 2 litri de apă de persoană.The ration is 2 litres of water per person.

Usage notes[edit]

In the sense of “from”, de must contract into în (“in”) to form din, into între (“between”) to form dintre, and analogously into all adverbs derived from în. The combination de la is lexicalised.

When in a passive construction, de can be followed by către for clarification and to no change in meaning. This is typical of, but not restricted to, formal language.

The de that connects numerals to nouns may be omitted, but only in very formal, financial or legal language.

Of the constructions using de to mean “because of”, those that are not restricted to colloquial language are those referring to common bodily states: de foame (“because of hunger”), de sete (“because of thirst”), de frig (“because of cold”), de cald (“because of heat”), de frică (“for fear”), de somn (“for lack of sleep”), as well as with the name of any disease.

In the sense of “about”, it can only be used after a verb, and not copulatively (“is about”) or after a noun (“a discussion about”). Despre, however, can be used in any of these situations.

Derived terms[edit]

cum de

de-abia

de ce

de cum

de departe

de la

demult

de parcă

departe

desigur

deși

de toate

de tot

deoarece

de unde

din

dintre

Pronoun[edit]

de m or f or n (indeclinable)

(informal or regional) Relative pronoun: who, whom, to whom.

Synonym: care

Usage notes[edit]

De can replace any form of care in the nominative, accusative and dative case.

Nominative: omul care a sosit — omul de a sosit (“The man who arrived”)

Accusative: casa pe care o văd — casa de o văd (“the house which I see”)

Dative: unul căruia i-am plătit — unul de i-am plătit (“one to whom I paid”)

Genitive constructions cannot be expressed with de.

Replacement of accusative care preceded by a preposition is done with a resumption of the object: filmul la care ne-am uitat — filmul de ne-am uitat la el (“the film we watched”). Stylistically this is much less desirable.

References[edit]

de in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language)

Romansch[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

(Rumantsch Grischun, Sursilvan, Puter, Vallader) di

(Sursilvan, Sutsilvan) gi

Etymology[edit]

From Latin diēs.

Noun[edit]

de m (plural des)

(Surmiran) day

Sardinian[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

'e (aphetic)

d' (apocopic)

di (Campidanese)

Etymology[edit]

From Latin dē, from Proto-Italic *dē, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *de.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /de/

Preposition[edit]

de (Logudorese, Campidanese, Nuorese)

Used to indicate possession, after the thing owned and before the owner; of; ’s

from

by, of, ’s

than

Used in superlative forms; in, of

about, on, concerning

Expresses composition; of, made of, in or more often omitted

(followed by an infinitive) to or omitted

Used in some expressions in a partitive-like function, often without article.

References[edit]

Rubattu, Antoninu (2006) Dizionario universale della lingua di Sardegna, 2nd edition, Sassari: Edes

Wagner, Max Leopold (1960–1964), “de”, in Dizionario etimologico sardo, Heidelberg

Saterland Frisian[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /də/

Hyphenation: de

Article[edit]

Unstressed form of die

Unstressed form of ju

Unstressed form of do

References[edit]

Pyt Kramer (1996) Kute Seelter Sproakleere‎[12], Mildam, page 10

Scottish Gaelic[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

dhe

Etymology[edit]

From Old Irish di. Cognates include Irish de and Manx jeh.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /tʲe/

Preposition[edit]

de (+ dative, triggers lenition of consonants and Dh-prothesis of vowels, combined with the singular definite article dhen)

off

Usage notes[edit]

Before a word beginning with a vowel or fh, the form de dh' may be used:

tha gràine de dh'airgead agam ― I have a little bit of money

In colloquial language and certain set phrases, the reduced form a may be used:

chan eil càil a dh'fhios aige ― he has no idea

Inflection[edit]

Personal inflection of de

Number

Person

Simple

Emphatic

Singular

1st

dhìom

dhìomsa

2nd

dhìot

dhìotsa

3rd m

dheth

dhethsan

3rd f

dhith

dhithse

Plural

1st

dhinn

dhinne

2nd

dhibh

dhibhse

3rd

dhiubh

dhiubhsan

Derived terms[edit]

bhàrr (“down from, from off”)

Serbo-Croatian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Proto-Slavic *kъdě, *kъde, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷu-dʰe.

Adverb[edit]

de (Cyrillic spelling де)

(Kajkavian, regional) where

Pronoun[edit]

de (Cyrillic spelling де)

(Kajkavian, regional) where

Synonyms[edit]

gdje

Seychellois Creole[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From French deux.

Numeral[edit]

two

Southern Ndebele[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Proto-Bantu *-dàì.

Adjective[edit]

-de

tall

Inflection[edit]

This entry needs an inflection-table template.

Spanish[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): (after a pause, 'l', 'm', 'n' and 'ñ') /de/ [d̪e]

Syllabification: de

IPA(key): (elsewhere) /de/ [ð̞e̞]

Rhymes: -e

Homophone: dé

Etymology 1[edit]

Noun[edit]

de f (plural des)

The name of the Latin-script letter D.

Etymology 2[edit]

Spanish preposition “de” written as a ligature in capitals

Hand-painted preposition “DE” in the wild

From Latin dē.

Preposition[edit]

of; 's; used after the thing owned and before the owner

Constitución española de 1812Spanish constitution of 1812

la cola del perrothe dog’s tail

from (with the source or provenance of or at)

Soy de España.I’m from Spain.

agua de manantial ― springwater

of (expressing composition, substance)

una mesa de madera ― a wooden table

about (concerning; with regard to)

Synonyms: sobre, acerca de

Están hablando del pasado.They're talking about the past.

tratarse de ― to be about; to concern

of, from (indicating cause)

Murió de hambre.He died of hunger.

of (indicates a quality or characteristic)

un hombre de fea man of faith

from (with the origin, starting point or initial reference of or at)

Synonym: desde

el vuelo de Miami a Chicagothe flight from Miami to Chicago

of (indicates the subject or cause of the adjective)

harto de ― sick of; tired of

from (with the separation, exclusion or differentiation of)

Nos protege del frío.It protects us from the cold.

than (in certain phrases)

más de ― more than

menos de ― less than, fewer than

used to construct compound nouns (with attributive nouns)

campamento de veranosummer camp

(followed by the infinitive) indicates a conditional desire

De haberlo sabido, no lo habría dicho.If I had known, I wouldn't have said it.

indicates a time of day or period of someone's life

de día ― during the daytime

de niño ― as a child; during childhood

(after a noun and before a verb) indicates the purpose of an object

Synonym: para

goma de mascar ― chewing gum

caña de pescar ― fishing rod

Usage notes[edit]

de combines with el to form del.

Derived terms[edit]

deldequeísmo

Related terms[edit]

desde

Further reading[edit]

“de”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014

Sranan Tongo[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From English there.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /de/

Verb[edit]

(copula) to be.

Particle[edit]

(dated) Alternative form of e.

Swedish[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Old Norse þeir, from Proto-Germanic *þai (with noun ending -r).

Alternative forms[edit]

(informal) dom

(informal, dialectal) di

Pronunciation[edit]

audio(file)

(Sweden) IPA(key): /dɔm/, (formal) /deː/, (dialectal) /diː/, (dialectal) /dɪ/

Homophone: dem (if pronounced /dɔm/)

Homophones: det, D, d (if pronounced /deː/.)

(Finland) IPA(key): /diː/

Rhymes: -ɔm, -eː

Pronoun[edit]

de (third-person plural nominative, dative and accusative dem, genitive deras, reflexive sig)

they

Misspelling of dem.

Usage notes[edit]

In most dialects, de (“they”) and dem (“them”) are no longer distinguished in speech. They are regularly mixed up in writing by native speakers, due to lack of grammatical intuition. The article de is often mixed up with dem as well.

Declension[edit]

Swedish personal pronouns

Number

Person

Type

Nominative

Oblique

Possessive

common

neuter

plural

singular

first

—

jag

mig, mej3

min

mitt

mina

second

—

dig, dej3

din

ditt

dina

third

masculine (person)

han

honom, han2, en5

hans

feminine (person)

hon

henne, na5

hennes

gender-neutral (person)1

hen

hen, henom7

hens

common (noun)

den

dess

neuter (noun)

det

dess

indefinite

man or en4

ens

reflexive

—

sig, sej3

sin

sitt

sina

plural

first

—

oss

vår, våran2

vårt, vårat2

våra

second

—

er, eran2, ers6

ert, erat2

era

archaic

eder

eder, eders6

edert

edra

third

—

de, dom3

dem, dom3

deras

reflexive

—

sig, sej3

sin

sitt

sina

1Neologism. Usage has increased since 2010, and has gained widespread acceptance today.

2Informal

3Colloquial pronunciation spelling.

4Dialectal, also used lately as an alternative to man, to avoid association to the male gender.

5Informal, somewhat dialectal

6Formal address

7Discouraged by the Swedish Language Council

Article[edit]

the, a definite article used in the beginning of noun phrases containing attributive adjectives and nouns in the plural. This article is used together with the definite suffix of the noun to indicate the definiteness of the noun phrase.

de gröna bilarna ― the green cars

Usage notes[edit]

The usage notes for den explain how to express "the [adjective] [noun]."

The same type of noun phrases with singular nouns instead use den (common gender) or det (neuter) for this function. Some definite noun phrases with attributive adjectives may skip these preceding articles. This is the case especially for many lexicalized noun phrases and also for many noun phrases working as proper names of organisations, geographical places, TV shows, events and similar.

Brittiska öarnaThe British Isles

Han har varit inne i Vita husetHe has been inside the White House (where "Han har varit inne i det vita huset" would be expected were "Vita huset" not a proper noun)

While the personal pronoun de has an object form and a genitive form, the definite article de is unaffected by the syntactic role of the noun phrase.

Related terms[edit]

de här

Etymology 2[edit]

From the common pronunciation of this word.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /deː/

Homophones: det, D, d

Pronoun[edit]

(colloquial, text messaging, Internet) Pronunciation spelling of det.

Article[edit]

(colloquial, text messaging, Internet) Pronunciation spelling of det.

References[edit]

den in Svensk ordbok (SO)

den in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)

den in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

Anagrams[edit]

e.d., ed

Tabaru[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): [de]

Conjunction[edit]

coordinating conjunction between two nouns: and

'o 'esa de 'o dea ― mother and father

coordinating conjunction between two clauses: and

'una wigogama de witirine ― he is feverish and he trembles

References[edit]

Edward A. Kotynski (1988), “Tabaru phonology and morphology”, in Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session, volume 32, Summer Institute of Linguistics

Tagalog[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /de/, [dɛ]

Etymology 1[edit]

Borrowed from Spanish de (“of”).

Preposition[edit]

de (Baybayin spelling ᜇᜒ)

(archaic) of (now only used in derived forms)

Synonym: ng

See also[edit]

de-

Etymology 2[edit]

From Spanish de, the Spanish name of the letter D/d.

Noun[edit]

de (Baybayin spelling ᜇᜒ)

(historical) the name of the Latin-script letter D, in the Abecedario.

Synonyms: (in the Filipino alphabet) di, (in the Abakada alphabet) da

Further reading[edit]

Panganiban, José Villa (1973) Diksyunaryo-Tesauro Pilipino-Ingles, Quezon City: Manlapaz Publishing Co., page 360

Tarantino[edit]

Preposition[edit]

Tok Pisin[edit]

This entry has fewer than three known examples of actual usage, the minimum considered necessary for clear attestation, and may not be reliable. Tok Pisin is subject to a special exemption for languages with limited documentation. If you speak it, please consider editing this entry or adding citations. See also Help and the Community Portal.

Etymology[edit]

From English day.

Noun[edit]

day

1989, Buk Baibel long Tok Pisin, Port Moresby: Bible Society of Papua New Guinea, Jenesis 1:5:Tulait em i kolim “De”, na tudak em i kolim “Nait”. Nait i go pinis na moning i kamapage. Em i de namba wan.→New International Version translation

Related terms[edit]

asde

gude

hapasde

olde

olde olde

pede

sande

seven de

tede

tude

See also[edit]

(days of the week) ol de bilong wik; Mande, Tunde, Trinde, Fonde, Fraide, Sarere, Sande (Category: tpi:Days of the week)

Turkish[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

da (after front vowels)

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): (standard) /dɛ/, [d̪ɛ]

IPA(key): (colloquial) /‿dɛ/, [‿d̪ɛ]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Ottoman Turkish ⁧ده⁩ (da, de, “conj. also, and, moreover, again”),[1] from Proto-Turkic *tākı (“conj. and”).[2][3]

Conjunction[edit]

as well, too, also

Özer de sorunun yanıtını biliyor. ― Özer also knows the answer of the question.

Berker de bizimle geliyor. ― Berker is coming with us as well.

Utku da dondurma yemeyi sever. ― Utku likes eating ice cream, too.

however

Herkes iddia ediyor ki boyum uzamış da ben fark etmiyorum. ― Everyone claims that I've gotten taller however I don't really notice it.

Usage notes[edit]

Complies with vowel harmony; takes the form da with vowels "a, ı, o, u" and de with vowels "e, i, ö, ü."

Although generally linked with the word before in conversations, the Turkish Language Association accepts the joined spelling of the word before with "de" as a misspelling.

Etymology 2[edit]

Verb[edit]

second-person singular imperative of demek

Etymology 3[edit]

Noun[edit]

The name of the Latin-script letter D.

See also[edit]

(Latin script letter names) harf; a, be, ce, çe, de, e, fe, ge, yumuşak ge, he, ı, i, je, ke, le, me, ne, o, ö, pe, re, se, şe, te, u, ü, ve, ye, ze (Category: tr:Latin letter names)

References[edit]

^ Redhouse, James W. (1890), “⁧ده⁩”, in A Turkish and English Lexicon, Constantinople: A. H. Boyajian, page 929

^ Starostin, Sergei; Dybo, Anna; Mudrak, Oleg (2003), “*d(i)akɨ”, in Etymological dictionary of the Altaic languages (Handbuch der Orientalistik; VIII.8), Leiden, New York, Köln: E.J. Brill

^ Nişanyan, Sevan (2002–), “de”, in Nişanyan Sözlük

Further reading[edit]

"Bağlaç Olan da, de’nin Yazılışı" - at TDK Sözlük

Volapük[edit]

Preposition[edit]

of, from

Welsh[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /deː/

Rhymes: -eː

Etymology 1[edit]

Contraction of older deau (“right; south”), from Proto-Celtic *dexswos (“right”). Cognate with Cornish dyhow, Breton dehou, Irish deas, Scottish Gaelic deas, Manx jiass.

The sense "south" comes from the fact that the south is on the right-hand side of a person facing east.[1] Compare the relationship between cledd (“left”) and gogledd (“north”).

Adjective[edit]

de (feminine singular de, plural de, not comparable)

right (opposite of left)

south, southern (abbreviation: D)

Derived terms[edit]

Môr y De (“the South Sea”)

Pegwn y De (“the South Pole”)

Noun[edit]

de m or f (uncountable)

right

south

(as y De, when in Wales) South Wales

Usage notes[edit]

The noun has masculine gender when used with the sense of "south" and feminine gender when used with the sense "right".

Mutation[edit]

Welsh mutation

radical

soft

nasal

aspirate

dde

unchanged

Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Antonyms[edit]

(south): gogledd

(right): chwith

Derived terms[edit]

de-ddwyrain (“south-east”)

de-orllewin (“south-west”)

See also[edit]

(compass points)

gogledd-orllewin

gogledd

gogledd-ddwyrain

gorllewin

dwyrain

de-orllewin

de-ddwyrain

References[edit]

^ Evans, D. Silvan (1893) Dictionary of the Welsh Language‎[1], page 1388

Etymology 2[edit]

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Noun[edit]

Soft mutation of te.

Mutation[edit]

Welsh mutation

radical

soft

nasal

aspirate

nhe

the

Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

West Frisian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Compare Dutch and Low German de, English the, German der.

Determiner[edit]

the; definite article

Ik hâld de boek. ― I'm holding the book.

Usage notes[edit]

After one-syllable prepositions ending in a consonant, the variant 'e is used.

Inflection[edit]

Common singular: de

Neuter singular: it

Plural: de

Further reading[edit]

“de”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011

West Makian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Possibly related to the stem found in Ternate ngori.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /d̪e/

Pronoun[edit]

de (possessive prefix ti)

first-person singular pronoun, I

See also[edit]

West Makian personal pronouns

independent

possessive prefix

1st person singular

2nd person singular

3rd person singular

mVan., dVinan.

1st person plural inclusive

ene

1st person plural exclusive

imi

2nd person plural

ini

3rd person plural

eme

V indicates the expected assimilated vowel of the following noun, following standard West Makian vowel harmony.

References[edit]

Clemens Voorhoeve (1982) The Makian languages and their neighbours‎[13], Pacific linguistics

Wyandot[edit]

Etymology[edit]

cf. Mohawk ne.

Article[edit]

the

Xhosa[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Proto-Bantu *-dàì.

Adjective[edit]

-de

tall

Inflection[edit]

Adjective concord, tone L

Modifier

Copulative

positive

negative

positive

negative

1st singular

endimde

endingemde

ndimde

andimde

2nd singular

omde

ongemde

umde

awumde

1st plural

esibade

esingebade

sibade

asibade

2nd plural

enibade

eningebade

nibade

anibade

Class 1

omde

ongemde

mde

akamde

Class 2

abade

abangebade

bade

ababade

Class 3

omde

ongemde

mde

awumde

Class 4

emide

engemide

mide

ayimide

Class 5

elide

elingelide

lide

alilide

Class 6

amade

angemade

made

awamade

Class 7

eside

esingeside

side

asiside

Class 8

ezinde

ezingezinde

zinde

azizinde

Class 9

ende

engende

inde

ayiyinde

Class 10

ezinde

ezingezinde

zinde

azizinde

Class 11

olude

olungelude

lude

alulude

Class 14

obude

obungebude

bude

abubude

Class 15

okude

okungekude

kude

akukude

Class 17

okude

okungekude

kude

akukude

Ye'kwana[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): [de]

Particle[edit]

expresses frustration

References[edit]

Cáceres, Natalia (2011), “de”, in Grammaire Fonctionnelle-Typologique du Ye’kwana, Lyon

Yoruba[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

⁧دعِ⁩

Etymology 1[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /dè/

Verb[edit]

dè

(transitive) to tie down, to constrain

Mo dè é lọ́wọ́ àti lẹ́sẹ̀ ― I tied him on both his hands and legs

to embroider

Mo de ọrùn aṣọ náà ― I embroided the neck of the clothes

Usage notes[edit]

de when coming before a direct object

Derived terms[edit]

dèmọ́dèmọ́lẹ̀ìdè

Etymology 2[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /dè/

Verb[edit]

dè

(intransitive) to deputize, to hold a position for someone temporarily

Ó ń de ipò fún mi ― He was deputizing my position for me

Usage notes[edit]

Usually used with the word ipò (“position”)

de when coming before a direct object

Derived terms[edit]

delédèdèdèfúnìdè

Etymology 3[edit]

Cognate with Igala dè.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /dè/

Verb[edit]

dè

(transitive) to await, to wait for

Mo jókòó dè é ― I sat down and waited for him

Usage notes[edit]

de when coming before a direct object noun

Used as a verb-second element

Etymology 4[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /dé/

Verb[edit]

dé

(intransitive, copulative) to arrive

A ti dé ― We have arrived

(transitive) to attain, to reach a particular point

Derived terms[edit]

dénúàdéìdé

Preposition[edit]

dé

up to, as far as

Ó gùn títí dé Èkó ― It stretched to as far as Lagos

Etymology 5[edit]

Cognate with Igala dé.

Pronunciation[edit]

IPA(key): /dé/

Verb[edit]

dé

(transitive) to cover, to wear a hat

Derived terms[edit]

adé (“crown”)dádéìdé

Zande[edit]

Noun[edit]

woman

Zealandic[edit]

Etymology[edit]

An unstressed variety of Middle Dutch die.

Determiner[edit]

the (definite article)

Inflection[edit]

Masculine: de, d'n (before b, d, t or a vowel)

Feminine: de

Neuter: 't

Plural: de

Zhuang[edit]

Etymology[edit]

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “Proto-Zhuang-Tai *te.A?”)

Pronunciation[edit]

(Standard Zhuang) IPA(key): /te˨˦/

Tone numbers: de1

Hyphenation: de

Pronoun[edit]

de (Sawndip forms 他 or or or 爹 or 佚 or , 1957–1982 spelling de)

he; she; it

See also[edit]

Standard Zhuang personal pronouns

Person

Singular

Plural

1st

exclusive

gou

dou

inclusive

raeuz

2nd

mwngz

sou

3rd

gyoengqde

Zulu[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Proto-Bantu *-dàì. The expected reflex would be -le, however it was changed due to analogy with its class 8, 9, and 10 forms (zinde, inde, zinde).

Adjective[edit]

-de

long

tall, high

Inflection[edit]

Adjective concord, tone L

Modifier

Copulative

positive

negative

positive

negative

1st singular

engimude

engingemude

ngimude

angimude

2nd singular

omude

ongemude

umude

awumude

1st plural

esibade

esingebade

sibade

asibade

2nd plural

enibade

eningebade

nibade

anibade

Class 1

omude

ongemude

mude

akamude

Class 2

abade

abangebade

bade

ababade

Class 3

omude

ongemude

mude

awumude

Class 4

emide

engemide

mide

ayimide

Class 5

elide

elingelide

lide

alilide

Class 6

amade

angemade

made

awamade

Class 7

eside

esingeside

side

asiside

Class 8

ezinde

ezingezinde

zinde

azizinde

Class 9

ende

engende, engeyinde

inde, yinde

ayiyinde

Class 10

ezinde

ezingezinde

zinde

azizinde

Class 11

olude

olungelude

lude

alulude

Class 14

obude

obungebude

bude

abubude

Class 15

okude

okungekude

kude

akukude

Class 17

okude

okungekude

kude

akukude

Derived terms[edit]

-dana

ubude

Verb[edit]

-de

(auxiliary) always [+participial]

Inflection[edit]

This verb needs an inflection-table template.

References[edit]

C. M. Doke; B. W. Vilakazi (1972), “-dé”, in Zulu-English Dictionary, →ISBN: “-dé”

C. M. Doke; B. W. Vilakazi (1972), “-de”, in Zulu-English Dictionary, →ISBN: “-de”

ǃKung[edit]

Noun[edit]

woman

Synonyms[edit]

ǯau

zau

Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=de&oldid=78440191"

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GermanMòcheno terms derived from Proto-GermanicMòcheno lemmasMòcheno articlesNorthern Kurdish lemmasNorthern Kurdish postpositionsNorthern Ndebele terms inherited from Proto-BantuNorthern Ndebele terms derived from Proto-BantuNorthern Ndebele lemmasNorthern Ndebele adjectivesNorthern Ndebele adjectives with tone LNorthern Sami terms with IPA pronunciationNorthern Sami 1-syllable wordsNorthern Sami lemmasNorthern Sami conjunctionsNorthern Sami adverbsNorwegian Bokmål terms with audio linksNorwegian Bokmål terms with IPA pronunciationNorwegian Bokmål lemmasNorwegian Bokmål articlesNorwegian Bokmål pronounsNorwegian Nynorsk terms inherited from Old NorseNorwegian Nynorsk terms derived from Old NorseNorwegian Nynorsk terms derived from Proto-GermanicNorwegian Nynorsk terms derived from Proto-Indo-EuropeanNorwegian Nynorsk terms with IPA pronunciationNorwegian Nynorsk lemmasNorwegian Nynorsk pronounsNorwegian Nynorsk terms derived from FrenchNorwegian Nynorsk terms derived from LatinNorwegian Nynorsk prepositionsMidlandsnormalen NorwegianNorwegian Nynorsk eye dialectNorwegian Nynorsk articlesNorwegian Nynorsk dialectal termsTrøndersk NorwegianNorwegian Nynorsk pronunciation spellingsNupe terms with IPA pronunciationNupe lemmasNupe verbsNupe terms with usage examplesOccitan terms inherited from LatinOccitan terms derived from LatinOccitan lemmasOccitan prepositionsOccitan nounsOccitan feminine nounsOccitan countable nounsoc:Latin letter namesOld French terms inherited from LatinOld French terms derived from LatinOld French lemmasOld French prepositionsOld Galician-Portuguese terms inherited from LatinOld Galician-Portuguese terms derived from LatinOld Galician-Portuguese terms with IPA pronunciationOld Galician-Portuguese lemmasOld Galician-Portuguese prepositionsOld Irish terms with IPA pronunciationOld Irish lemmasOld Irish prepositionsOld Irish terms with quotationsOld Irish non-lemma formsOld Irish prepositional pronounsOld Irish terms with usage examplesOld Occitan terms inherited from LatinOld Occitan terms derived from LatinOld Occitan lemmasOld Occitan prepositionsPennsylvania German terms with IPA pronunciationPennsylvania German non-lemma formsPennsylvania German article formsPennsylvania German lemmasPennsylvania German pronounsPhalura terms with IPA pronunciationPhalura lemmasPhalura verbsPolish 1-syllable wordsPolish terms with IPA pronunciationPolish terms with audio linksRhymes:Polish/ɛRhymes:Polish/ɛ/1 syllablePolish lemmasPolish nounsPolish indeclinable nounsPolish neuter nounsPolish minced oathspl:ButtocksPortuguese terms inherited from Old Galician-PortuguesePortuguese terms derived from Old Galician-PortuguesePortuguese terms inherited from LatinPortuguese terms derived from LatinPortuguese 1-syllable wordsPortuguese terms with IPA pronunciationPortuguese lemmasPortuguese prepositionsPortuguese terms with quotationsPortuguese terms with usage examplesRomanian terms inherited from LatinRomanian terms derived from LatinRomanian terms with IPA pronunciationRomanian terms with audio linksRhymes:Romanian/eRhymes:Romanian/e/1 syllableRomanian lemmasRomanian conjunctionsRomanian informal termsRomanian literary termsRomanian terms with usage examplesRomanian terms with archaic sensesRomanian prepositionsRomanian negative polarity itemsRomanian terms with collocationsRomanian pronounsRomanian indeclinable adjectivesRegional RomanianRomansch terms inherited from LatinRomansch terms derived from LatinRomansch lemmasRomansch nounsRomansch masculine nounsSurmiran RomanschSardinian terms inherited from LatinSardinian terms derived from LatinSardinian terms inherited from Proto-ItalicSardinian terms derived from Proto-ItalicSardinian terms derived from Proto-Indo-EuropeanSardinian terms with IPA pronunciationSardinian lemmasSardinian prepositionsLogudoreseCampidaneseNuoreseSaterland Frisian terms with IPA pronunciationSaterland Frisian non-lemma formsSaterland Frisian article formsScottish Gaelic terms derived from Proto-CelticScottish Gaelic terms inherited from Proto-CelticScottish Gaelic terms derived from Proto-Indo-EuropeanScottish Gaelic terms inherited from Proto-Indo-EuropeanScottish Gaelic terms inherited from Old IrishScottish Gaelic terms derived from Old IrishScottish Gaelic terms with IPA pronunciationScottish Gaelic lemmasScottish Gaelic prepositionsScottish Gaelic prepositions governing the dativeScottish Gaelic terms with usage examplesSerbo-Croatian terms inherited from Proto-SlavicSerbo-Croatian terms derived from Proto-SlavicSerbo-Croatian terms inherited from Proto-Indo-EuropeanSerbo-Croatian terms derived from Proto-Indo-EuropeanSerbo-Croatian lemmasSerbo-Croatian adverbsKajkavian Serbo-CroatianRegional Serbo-CroatianSerbo-Croatian pronounsSeychellois Creole terms inherited from FrenchSeychellois Creole terms derived from FrenchSeychellois Creole lemmasSeychellois Creole numeralsSeychellois Creole cardinal numbersSouthern Ndebele terms inherited from Proto-BantuSouthern Ndebele terms derived from Proto-BantuSouthern Ndebele lemmasSouthern Ndebele adjectivesSpanish 1-syllable wordsSpanish terms with IPA pronunciationRhymes:Spanish/eRhymes:Spanish/e/1 syllableSpanish terms with homophonesSpanish lemmasSpanish nounsSpanish countable nounsSpanish feminine nounses:Latin letter namesSpanish terms inherited from LatinSpanish terms derived from LatinSpanish prepositionsSpanish terms with usage examplesSranan Tongo terms derived from EnglishSranan Tongo terms with IPA pronunciationSranan Tongo lemmasSranan Tongo verbsSranan Tongo particlesSranan Tongo dated termsSwedish terms inherited from Old NorseSwedish terms derived from Old NorseSwedish terms inherited from Proto-GermanicSwedish terms derived from Proto-GermanicSwedish terms with audio linksSwedish terms with IPA pronunciationSwedish terms with homophonesRhymes:Swedish/ɔmRhymes:Swedish/ɔm/1 syllableRhymes:Swedish/eːRhymes:Swedish/eː/1 syllableSwedish lemmasSwedish pronounsSwedish misspellingsSwedish articlesSwedish terms with usage examplesSwedish colloquialismsSwedish text messaging slangsv:InternetSwedish pronunciation spellingsTabaru terms with IPA pronunciationTabaru lemmasTabaru conjunctionsTabaru terms with usage examplesTagalog 1-syllable wordsTagalog terms with IPA pronunciationTagalog terms borrowed from SpanishTagalog terms derived from SpanishTagalog lemmasTagalog prepositionsTagalog terms with Baybayin scriptTagalog archaic termsTagalog nounsTagalog historical termstl:Latin letter namesTarantino lemmasTarantino prepositionsTok Pisin terms derived from EnglishTok Pisin lemmasTok Pisin nounsTok Pisin terms with quotationstpi:Days of the weektpi:TimeTurkish terms with IPA pronunciationTurkish terms inherited from Ottoman TurkishTurkish terms derived from Ottoman TurkishTurkish terms derived from Proto-TurkicTurkish lemmasTurkish conjunctionsTurkish terms with usage examplesTurkish non-lemma formsTurkish verb formsTurkish nounstr:Latin letter namesVolapük lemmasVolapük prepositionsEsperanto 1894 Universala VortaroWords approved by the Akademio de EsperantoWelsh terms with IPA pronunciationRhymes:Welsh/eːRhymes:Welsh/eː/1 syllableWelsh terms inherited from Proto-CelticWelsh terms derived from Proto-CelticWelsh lemmasWelsh adjectivesWelsh uncomparable adjectivesWelsh nounsWelsh uncountable nounsWelsh masculine nounsWelsh feminine nounsWelsh nouns with multiple gendersWelsh non-lemma formsWelsh mutated nounsWelsh soft-mutation formsWest Frisian lemmasWest Frisian determinersWest Frisian terms with usage examplesWest Makian terms with IPA pronunciationWest Makian lemmasWest Makian pronounsWyandot lemmasWyandot articlesXhosa terms inherited from Proto-BantuXhosa terms derived from Proto-BantuXhosa lemmasXhosa adjectivesXhosa adjectives with tone LYe'kwana terms with IPA pronunciationYe'kwana lemmasYe'kwana particlesYoruba terms with IPA pronunciationYoruba lemmasYoruba verbsYoruba transitive verbsYoruba terms with usage examplesYoruba intransitive verbsYoruba copulative verbsYoruba prepositionsZande lemmasZande nounsZealandic terms inherited from Middle DutchZealandic terms derived from Middle DutchZealandic lemmasZealandic determinersZhuang terms with IPA pronunciationZhuang 1-syllable wordsZhuang lemmasZhuang pronounsZulu terms inherited from Proto-BantuZulu terms derived from Proto-BantuZulu lemmasZulu adjectivesZulu adjectives with tone LZulu verbsZulu auxiliary verbsǃKung lemmasǃKung nounskhi-kun:PeopleHidden categories: Latin links with redundant target parametersOld Danish links with redundant target parametersFrench links with redundant alt parametersFrench links with redundant wikilinksFrench links with redundant target parametersFrench nouns with red links in their headword linesRequests for translations of Galician usage examplesHaitian Creole entries with language name categories using raw markupIndonesian terms with redundant script codesPages using lite templatesForms linking to themselvesJapanese terms with non-redundant manual script codesProto-Lolo-Burmese term requestsLahu terms in nonstandard scriptsLashi terms in nonstandard scriptsLatin entries with topic categories using raw markupRequests for translations of Latin usage examplesMiddle Low German links with redundant target parametersOld Saxon links with redundant target parametersMandarin terms with redundant script codesHanyu Pinyin entries without HanziChinese terms in nonstandard scriptsMauritian Creole entries with language name categories using raw markupRequests for etymologies in Northern Sami entriesNupe terms with redundant head parameterOccitan entries with topic categories using raw markupRequests for etymologies in Phalura entriesSeychellois Creole entries with language name categories using raw markupRequests for inflections in Southern Ndebele entriesTabaru terms in nonstandard scriptsTagalog terms with missing Baybayin script entriesRequests for attestation of Tok Pisin termsTok Pisin entries with topic categories using raw markupWest Makian terms in nonstandard scriptsWest Makian links with redundant wikilinksYoruba links with redundant target parametersIgala links with redundant target parametersRequests for etymologies in Zhuang entriesRequests for inflections in Zulu verb entriesRequests for inflections in Zulu entriesǃKung entries with topic categories using raw markup

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(Top)

1Classification

2History

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2.1Old High German

2.2Middle High German

2.3Early New High German

2.4Habsburg Empire

2.5Standardization

3Geographical distribution

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3.1Europe

3.1.1German Sprachraum

3.1.2Outside the German Sprachraum

3.2Africa

3.2.1Namibia

3.2.2Rest of Africa

3.3North America

3.4South America

3.5Oceania

3.6As a foreign language

4Standard German

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4.1Varieties

5Dialects

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5.1Low German

5.2Low Franconian

5.3High German

5.3.1Central German

5.3.1.1West Central German

5.3.1.2East Central German

5.3.2High Franconian

5.3.2.1East Franconian

5.3.2.2South Franconian

5.3.3Upper German

5.3.3.1Alemannic and Swabian

5.3.3.2Austro-Bavarian

6Regiolects

7Grammar

Toggle Grammar subsection

7.1Noun inflection

7.2Verb inflection

7.2.1Verb prefixes

7.3Word order

7.3.1Auxiliary verbs

7.3.2Modal verbs

7.3.3Multiple infinitives

8Vocabulary

9Orthography

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9.1Present

9.2Past

10Consonant shifts

11Literature

12See also

13Notes

14References

15Bibliography

16External links

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German language

261 languages

AcèhАдыгэбзэАдыгабзэAfrikaansAlemannischአማርኛAnarâškielâअंगिकाÆngliscАԥсшәаالعربيةAragonésܐܪܡܝܐԱրեւմտահայերէնArmãneashtiArpetanঅসমীয়াAsturianuअवधीAvañe'ẽАварAymar aruAzərbaycancaتۆرکجهBasa BaliবাংলাBân-lâm-gúBasa BanyumasanБашҡортсаБеларускаяБеларуская (тарашкевіца)भोजपुरीBikol CentralБългарскиBoarischབོད་ཡིགBosanskiBrezhonegБуряадCatalàЧӑвашлаCebuanoČeštinaChiShonaCorsuCymraegDagbanliDanskالدارجةDavvisámegiellaDeitschDeutschދިވެހިބަސްDiné bizaadDolnoserbskiEestiΕλληνικάEmiliàn e rumagnòlЭрзяньEspañolEsperantoEstremeñuEuskaraفارسیFiji HindiFøroysktFrançaisFryskFulfuldeFurlanGaeilgeGaelgGàidhligGalegoГӀалгӀай贛語گیلکیગુજરાતી客家語/Hak-kâ-ngîХальмг한국어HausaHawaiʻiՀայերենहिन्दीHornjoserbsceHrvatskiBahasa HulontaloIdoIlokanoBahasa IndonesiaInterlinguaInterlingueИронIsiXhosaIsiZuluÍslenskaItalianoעבריתJawaKabɩyɛಕನ್ನಡКъарачай-малкъарქართულიकॉशुर / کٲشُرKaszëbscziҚазақшаKernowekIkinyarwandaKiswahiliКомиKongoKreyòl ayisyenKriyòl gwiyannenKurdîКыргызчаLadinLadinoລາວLatgaļuLatinaLatviešuLëtzebuergeschЛезгиLietuviųLigureLimburgsLingálaLingua Franca NovaLivvinkarjalaLa .lojban.LombardMagyarमैथिलीМакедонскиMalagasyമലയാളംMaltiMāoriमराठीმარგალურიمصرىمازِرونیBahasa Melayuꯃꯤꯇꯩ ꯂꯣꯟMinangkabau閩東語 / Mìng-dĕ̤ng-ngṳ̄MirandésМокшеньМонголမြန်မာဘာသာNederlandsNedersaksiesनेपालीनेपाल भाषा日本語NapulitanoНохчийнNordfriiskNorfuk / PitkernNorsk bokmålNorsk nynorskNouormandNovialOccitanОлык марийOʻzbekcha / ўзбекчаਪੰਜਾਬੀPälzischPangasinanپنجابیPapiamentuپښتوPatoisПерем комиភាសាខ្មែរPicardPiemontèisTok PisinPlattdüütschPolskiPortuguêsQaraqalpaqshaQırımtatarcaReo tahitiRipoarischRomânăRomani čhibRumantschRuna SimiРусиньскыйРусскийСаха тылаGagana Samoaसंस्कृतम्ᱥᱟᱱᱛᱟᱲᱤSarduScotsSeelterskSesothoSesotho sa LeboaSetswanaShqipSicilianuසිංහලSimple EnglishسنڌيSiSwatiSlovenčinaSlovenščinaСловѣньскъ / ⰔⰎⰑⰂⰡⰐⰠⰔⰍⰟŚlůnskiکوردیSranantongoСрпски / srpskiSrpskohrvatski / српскохрватскиSundaSuomiSvenskaTagalogதமிழ்TaclḥitTaqbaylitTarandíneТатарча / tatarçaతెలుగుTetunไทยТоҷикӣᏣᎳᎩTsetsêhestâheseತುಳುTürkçeTürkmençeТыва дылУдмуртУкраїнськаاردوئۇيغۇرچە / UyghurcheVahcuenghVènetoVepsän kel’Tiếng ViệtVolapükVõroWalon文言West-VlamsWinaray吴语ייִדישYorùbá粵語ZazakiZeêuwsŽemaitėška中文Batak TobaTolışiⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ ⵜⴰⵏⴰⵡⴰⵢⵜ

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

West Germanic language

Not to be confused with Germanic languages, High German languages, or Standard German.

GermanDeutschNative toGermany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Belgium, NamibiaSpeakersL1: 95 million[1]L2: 80–85 million (2014)[2]Language familyIndo-European

GermanicWest GermanicGermanEarly formsOld High German

Middle High German

Early New High German

Standard forms

Standard German (German, Swiss, Austrian)

Writing system

Latin script (German alphabet)

German Braille

Until the seventh/eighth century: Runic

Until the mid-20th century: Hebrew Alphabet[3][4][5][6][7]

Signed formsSigned GermanOfficial statusOfficial language in

7 countries

Germany

Austria

Belgium

Liechtenstein

Luxembourg

Switzerland

Namibia

1 subdivision

South Tyrol (Italy)

Recognised minoritylanguage in

9 countries

Brazil (6 municipalities)[8]

Czech Republic

Denmark (Syddanmark)

Hungary (Sopron)

Poland (Upper Silesia)

Romania (select localities)

Russia (Azovo German National District)

Slovakia (Krahule)

Language codesISO 639-1deISO 639-2ger (B) deu (T)ISO 639-3Variously:deu – Germangmh – Middle High Germangoh – Old High Germangct – Colonia Tovar Germanbar – Bavariancim – Cimbriangeh – Hutterite Germanksh – Kölschnds – Low German[note 1]sli – Lower Silesianltz – Luxembourgish[note 2]vmf – Mainfränkischmhn – Mòchenopfl – Palatinate Germanpdc – Pennsylvania Dutchpdt – Plautdietsch[note 3]swg – Swabian Germangsw – Swiss Germanuln – Unserdeutschsxu – Upper Saxonwae – Walser Germanwep – Westphalianhrx – Riograndenser Hunsrückischyec – Yenishyid – YiddishGlottologstan1295Linguasphere52-ACB–dl (Standard German) 52-AC (Continental West Germanic) 52-ACB (Deutsch & Dutch) 52-ACB-d (Central German) 52-ACB-e & -f (Upper and Swiss German) 52-ACB-h (émigré German varieties, including 52-ACB-hc (Hutterite German) & 52-ACB-he (Pennsylvania Dutch) 52-ACB-i (Yenish) Totalling 285 varieties: 52-ACB-daa to 52-ACB-i Official language

Co-official language

National language

Minority languageThis article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Map of the German diaspora by population: Germany + 10,000,000 + 1,000,000 + 100,000 + 10,000

Man speaking German

German (Standard High German: Deutsch, pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ⓘ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also an official language of Luxembourg and Belgium, as well as a recognized national language in Namibia. Outside Germany, it is also spoken by German communities in France (Alsace), Czech Republic (North Bohemia), Poland (Upper Silesia), Slovakia (Košice Region, Spiš, and Hauerland), and Hungary (Sopron).

German is part of the West Germanic branch of the Germanic language family, which itself is part of the larger Indo-European language family. It is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Scots. It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group, such as Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. Modern German gradually developed from the Old High German which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic at some point in the Early Middle Ages. German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic and West Germanic language after English as both a first or second language.

Today, German is one of the major languages of the world. It is the most spoken native language within the European Union. German is also widely taught as a foreign language, especially in continental Europe, where it is the third most taught foreign language (after English and French), and the United States. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second-most commonly used scientific language and among the most widely used languages on websites. The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in the world being published in German.

German is an inflected language, with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter); and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs. The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share is partly derived from Latin and Greek, along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English.

German is a pluricentric language; the three standardized variants are German, Austrian, and Swiss Standard German. Standard German is sometimes referred as High German while referring to its regional origin of the High German languages. It is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments.

Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year[10] and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography.

Classification

Anglic languages English Scots Anglo-Frisian languages Anglic and Frisian (West, North, Saterland) North Sea Germanic languages Anglo-Frisian and Low German/Low Saxon West Germanic languages North Sea Germanic and Dutch; in Africa: Afrikaans ...... German (High): Central; in Lux.: Luxembourgish Upper ...... Yiddish

Maurer's classification of German tribes (German)

The Germanic languages in contemporary Europe

German is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages. The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic, East Germanic, and West Germanic. The first of these branches survives in modern Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Icelandic, all of which are descended from Old Norse. The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch, Yiddish, Afrikaans, and others.[11]

Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf-Benrath and Krefeld-Uerdingen, respectively) serve to distinguish the Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic, Ingvaeonic, and Istvaeonic, respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by the Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group).[11]

Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian-Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects) and Yiddish. Also closely related to Standard German are the Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries, such as Swiss German (Alemannic dialects) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est, such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian).

After these High German dialects, standard German is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are the Frisian languages—North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland)—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language.

History

Main article: History of German

Old High German

Main article: Old High German

The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period, which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon. This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants (b, d, g, and p, t, k, respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below.

Voiceless stops became long (geminated) voiceless fricatives following a vowel;

Voiceless stops became affricates in word-initial position, or following certain consonants;

Voiced stops became voiceless in certain phonetic settings.[12]

Voiceless stopfollowing a vowel

Word-initialvoiceless stop

Voiced stop

/p/→/ff/

/p/→/pf/

/b/→/p/

/t/→/ss/

/t/→/ts/

/d/→/t/

/k/→/xx/

/k/→/kx/

/g/→/k/

The approximate extent of Germanic languages in the early 10th century: Old West Norse Old East Norse Old Gutnish Old English (West Germanic) Continental West Germanic languages (Old Frisian, Old Saxon, Old Dutch, Old High German). Crimean Gothic (East Germanic)

While there is written evidence of the Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c. 765–775), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans, the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in the ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli, Merseburg charms, and Hildebrandslied, and other religious texts (the Georgslied, Ludwigslied, Evangelienbuch, and translated hymns and prayers).[13] The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment, and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from the pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied, a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from the Alamanni, Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group (Irminones), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration.[12]

In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as a result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary.[12] At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing.

Middle High German

Main article: Middle High German

While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350.[14] This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as the Ostsiedlung). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature.[14] A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to a greater need for regularity in written conventions.

While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house")→haus (regionally in later MHG)→Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→tage (MHG)).[15]

A great wealth of texts survives from the MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied, an epic poem telling the story of the dragon-slayer Siegfried (c. thirteenth century), and the Iwein, an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue (c. 1203), lyric poems, and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan. Also noteworthy is the Sachsenspiegel, the first book of laws written in Middle Low German (c. 1220). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms.

The Middle High German period is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population.[16]

Early New High German

Main article: Early New High German

German language area and major dialectal divisions around 1900[17]

Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which the Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War.[16] This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in the German states. While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire, and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout the German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language.

The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch, used in the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and the other being Meißner Deutsch, used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg.[18]

Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages (Druckersprachen) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible.[19] The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in the written form of German.

Modern High German translation of the Christian Bible by the Protestant reformer Martin Luther (1534).[20] The widespread popularity of the Bible translated into High German by Luther helped establish modern Standard German.[20]

One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534).[20] Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony, spending much time among the population of Saxony researching the dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method:One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in the home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says 'ex abundantia cordis os loquitur,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund. But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No, the mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über.[21] Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German.[20] The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany,[20] and promoted the development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area.[22] With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy.[23] Nevertheless, even with the influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century.[24]

Habsburg Empire

Map of Central Europe in 1648: Territories under the Holy Roman Empire, comprising the Alpine heartland (Erblande) of the Habsburg monarchy.

Ethnolinguistic map comprising the territories of Austria-Hungary (1910), with German-speaking areas shown in red

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-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality.

Prague (German: Prag) and Budapest (Buda, German: Ofen), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg (Pozsony, now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach), contained significant German minorities.

In the eastern provinces of Banat, Bukovina, and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg (Timișoara), Hermannstadt (Sibiu), and Kronstadt (Brașov)—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas.[25]

Standardization

In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of the Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition.[26] Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process.

Participants of Meetings of German-speaking countries (2004-present)

The Deutsche Bühnensprache (lit. 'German stage language') had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres,[27] three years earlier; however, this was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially the pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century.

Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries.[28] Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which is understood in all areas where German is spoken.

Geographical distribution

See also: List of countries and territories where German is an official language and German-speaking world

Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide:

Germany (78.3%) Austria (8.4%) Switzerland (5.6%) Brazil (3.2%) Italy (South Tyrol) (0.4%) Other (4.1%)

As a result of the German diaspora, as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language,[29][30] the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents.

However, an exact, global number of native German speakers is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German.[9] With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language,[31][page needed][32] 10–25 million speak it as a second language,[31][page needed] and 75–100 million as a foreign language.[2] This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide.[33]

German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker.[34]

Europe

The German language in Europe: German Sprachraum: German is the official language (de jure or de facto) and first language of the majority of the population German is a co-official language but not the first language of the majority of the population German (or a German dialect) is a legally recognized minority language (squares: geographic distribution too dispersed/small for map scale) German (or a variety of German) is spoken by a sizeable minority but has no legal recognition

Most of Austria lies in the Bavarian dialect area; only the very west of the country is Alemannic-speaking.Map shows Austria and South Tyrol, Italy.

(Swiss) German is one of the four national languages of Switzerland.

Luxembourg lies in the Moselle Franconian dialect area.

In Belgium, German is spoken in the country's German-speaking Community, in the very east of the country.

As of 2012[update], about 90 million people, or 16% of the European Union's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second-most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language.[2]

German Sprachraum

The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language is called the "German Sprachraum". German is the official language of the following countries:

Germany

Austria

17 cantons of Switzerland

Liechtenstein

German is a co-official language of the following countries:

Belgium (as majority language only in the German-speaking Community, which represents 0.7% of the Belgian population)

Luxembourg, along with French and Luxembourgish

Switzerland, co-official at the federal level with French, Italian, and Romansh, and at the local level in four cantons: Bern (with French), Fribourg (with French), Grisons (with Italian and Romansh) and Valais (with French)

Italy, (as majority language only in the Autonomous Province of South Tyrol, which represents 0.6% of the Italian population)

Outside the German Sprachraum

Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum.

Within Europe, German is a recognized minority language in the following countries:[35]

Czech Republic (see also: Germans in the Czech Republic)

Denmark (see also: North Schleswig Germans)

Hungary (see also: Germans of Hungary)

Poland (see also German minority in Poland; German is an auxiliary and co-official language in 31 communes)[36]

Romania (see also: Germans of Romania)

Russia[37] (see also: Germans in Russia)

Slovakia (see also: Carpathian Germans)

In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as "regional languages", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government.[38]

Africa

Namibia

Main article: German language in Namibia

Bilingual German-English sign at a bakery in Namibia, where German is a national language

Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as a native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers.[39] The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called "Namibian Black German", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it.[40]

German remained a de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans, and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time.[39] German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country.

Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of the Sprachraum in Europe.[41] German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK)), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation). The Allgemeine Zeitung is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa.[39]

Rest of Africa

An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries.[42] One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch",[43] a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg. The South African constitution identifies German as a "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it.[44]

Cameroon was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 to 1916. However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I. Nevertheless since the 21st century, German has become a popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020.[45] Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German.[46]

North America

Main articles: German language in the United States, Pennsylvania Dutch language, Plautdietsch, and Hutterite German

In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish, French, and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers.[47] In the states of North Dakota and South Dakota, German is the most common language spoken at home after English.[48] As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country, German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region, such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions.[49]

A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German.

South America

Main articles: Brazilian German and Colonia Tovar dialect

In Brazil, the largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina, and Espírito Santo.[50]

German dialects (namely Hunsrik and East Pomeranian) are recognized languages in the following municipalities in Brazil:

Espírito Santo (statewide cultural language): Domingos Martins, Laranja da Terra, Pancas, Santa Maria de Jetibá, Vila Pavão[51]

Rio Grande do Sul (Riograndenser Hunsrückisch German is a designated cultural language in the state): Santa Maria do Herval, Canguçu[52]

Santa Catarina: Antônio Carlos, Pomerode (standard German recognized)[50]

Small concentrations of German-speakers and their descendants are also found in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Venezuela, and Bolivia.[42]

Oceania

In Australia, the state of South Australia experienced a pronounced wave of Prussian immigration in the 1840s (particularly from Silesia region). With the prolonged isolation from other German speakers and contact with Australian English, a unique dialect known as Barossa German developed, spoken predominantly in the Barossa Valley near Adelaide. Usage of German sharply declined with the advent of World War I, due to the prevailing anti-German sentiment in the population and related government action. It continued to be used as a first language into the 20th century, but its use is now limited to a few older speakers.[53]

As of the 2013 census, 36,642 people in New Zealand spoke German, mostly descendants of a small wave of 19th century German immigrants, making it the third most spoken European language after English and French and overall the ninth most spoken language.[54]

A German creole named Unserdeutsch was historically spoken in the former German colony of German New Guinea, modern day Papua New Guinea. It is at a high risk of extinction, with only about 100 speakers remaining, and a topic of interest among linguists seeking to revive interest in the language.[55]

As a foreign language

Self-reported knowledge of German as a foreign language in the EU member states (+Turkey and UK), in per cent of the adult population (+15), 2005

Like English, French, and Spanish, German has become a standard foreign language throughout the world, especially in the Western World.[2][56] German ranks second on par with French among the best known foreign languages in the European Union (EU) after English,[2] as well as in Russia,[57] and Turkey.[2] In terms of student numbers across all levels of education, German ranks third in the EU (after English and French)[30] and in the United States (after Spanish and French).[29][58] In British schools, where learning a foreign language is not mandatory, a dramatic decline in entries for German A-Level has been observed.[59] In 2020, approximately 15.4 million people were enrolled in learning German across all levels of education worldwide. This number has decreased from a peak of 20.1 million in 2000.[60] Within the EU, not counting countries where it is an official language, German as a foreign language is most popular in Eastern and Northern Europe, namely the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Sweden, Poland, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.[2][61] German was once, and to some extent still is, a lingua franca in those parts of Europe.[62]

Standard German

Main article: Standard German

Self-reported knowledge of German within the nations of the European Union

The basis of Standard German developed with the Luther Bible and the chancery language spoken by the Saxon court, part of the regional High German group.[63] However, there are places where the traditional regional dialects have been replaced by new vernaculars based on Standard German; that is the case in large stretches of Northern Germany but also in major cities in other parts of the country. It is important to note, however, that the colloquial Standard German differs from the formal written language, especially in grammar and syntax, in which it has been influenced by dialectal speech.

Standard German differs regionally among German-speaking countries in vocabulary and some instances of pronunciation and even grammar and orthography. This variation must not be confused with the variation of local dialects. Even though the national varieties of Standard German are only somewhat influenced by the local dialects, they are very distinct. German is thus considered a pluricentric language, with currently three national standard varieties of German: Standard German German, Standard Austrian German and Standard Swiss German. In comparison to other European languages (e.g. Portuguese, English), the multi-standard character of German is still not widely acknowledged.[64] However, 90% of Austrian secondary school teachers of German consider German has having "more than one" standard variety.[65] In this context, some scholars speak of a One Standard German Axiom that has been maintained as a core assumption of German dialectology.[66]

In most regions, the speakers use a continuum, e.g. "Umgangssprache" (colloquial standards) from more dialectal varieties to more standard varieties depending on the circumstances.

Varieties

The national and regional standard varieties of German[67]

In German linguistics, German dialects are distinguished from varieties of Standard German.

The varieties of Standard German refer to the different local varieties of the pluricentric German. They differ mainly in lexicon and phonology, but also smaller grammatical differences. In certain regions, they have replaced the traditional German dialects, especially in Northern Germany.

German Standard German

Austrian Standard German

Swiss Standard German

In the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, mixtures of dialect and standard are very seldom used, and the use of Standard German is largely restricted to the written language. About 11% of the Swiss residents speak Standard German at home, but this is mainly due to German immigrants.[68] This situation has been called a medial diglossia. Swiss Standard German is used in the Swiss education system, while Austrian German is officially used in the Austrian education system.

Dialects

Main article: German dialects

The German dialects are the traditional local varieties of the language; many of them are not mutually intelligible with standard German, and they have great differences in lexicon, phonology, and syntax. If a narrow definition of language based on mutual intelligibility is used, many German dialects are considered to be separate languages (for instance by ISO 639-3). However, such a point of view is unusual in German linguistics.

The German dialect continuum is traditionally divided most broadly into High German and Low German, also called Low Saxon. However, historically, High German dialects and Low Saxon/Low German dialects do not belong to the same language. Nevertheless, in today's Germany, Low Saxon/Low German is often perceived as a dialectal variation of Standard German on a functional level even by many native speakers.

The variation among the German dialects is considerable, with often only neighbouring dialects being mutually intelligible. Some dialects are not intelligible to people who know only Standard German. However, all German dialects belong to the dialect continuum of High German and Low Saxon.

Low German

Main article: Low German

The Low German dialects

Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League. It was the predominant language in Northern Germany until the 16th century. In 1534, the Luther Bible was published. It aimed to be understandable to a broad audience and was based mainly on Central and Upper German varieties. The Early New High German language gained more prestige than Low German and became the language of science and literature. Around the same time, the Hanseatic League, a confederation of northern ports, lost its importance as new trade routes to Asia and the Americas were established, and the most powerful German states of that period were located in Middle and Southern Germany.

The 18th and 19th centuries were marked by mass education in Standard German in schools. Gradually, Low German came to be politically viewed as a mere dialect spoken by the uneducated. The proportion of the population who can understand and speak it has decreased continuously since World War II.

Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the area: most of the Ruhr (Dortmund, Essen, Bochum, Gelsenkirchen, Hagen, Herne, Bottrop, Recklinghausen), Hamburg, Bremen, Hanover, Bielefeld, Münster, Braunschweig, Kiel, Groningen, Lübeck, Rostock, Hamm, Oldenburg, Osnabrück, Enschede, Paderborn, Wolfsburg, Göttingen, Bremerhaven, Salzgitter, Gütersloh, Hildesheim, and historically also Berlin, Halle (Saale), Magdeburg and Potsdam.

Low Franconian

Further information: Low Franconian

The Low Franconian dialects fall within a linguistic category used to classify a number of historical and contemporary West Germanic varieties most closely related to, and including, the Dutch language. Consequently, the vast majority of the Low Franconian dialects are spoken outside of the German language area. Low Franconian dialects are spoken in the Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa, Suriname and Namibia, and along the Lower Rhine in Germany, in North Rhine-Westphalia. The region in Germany encompasses parts of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region and of the Ruhr.

The Low Franconian dialects have three different standard varieties: In the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname, it is Dutch, which is itself a Low Franconian language. In South Africa, it is Afrikaans, which is also categorized as Low Franconian. During the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, the Low Franconian dialects now spoken in Germany, used Middle Dutch or Early Modern Dutch as their literary language and Dachsprache. Following a 19th-century change in Prussian language policy, use of Dutch as an official and public language was forbidden; resulting in Standard German taking its place as the region's official language.[69][70] As a result, these dialects are now considered German dialects from a socio-linguistic point of view.[71]

The Low Franconian dialects in Germany are divided by the Uerdingen line (north of which "i" is pronounced as "ik" and south of which as "ich") into northern and southern Low Franconian. The northern variants comprise Kleverlandish, which is most similar to Standard Dutch. The other ones are transitional between Low Franconian and Ripuarian, but closer to Low Franconian.

Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the area: Cape Town, Pretoria, Brussels,[a] Gqeberha, Amsterdam, Düsseldorf*, Rotterdam, The Hague, Antwerp, Duisburg*, Utrecht, Wuppertal*, Mönchengladbach*, Ghent, Bloemfontein, Eindhoven, Paramaribo, Krefeld*, Almere, Oberhausen*, Tilburg, Nijmegen, Mülheim an der Ruhr*, Arnhem, Haarlem, Amersfoort, Solingen*, Neuss*, Breda, Apeldoorn, Zwolle, Zoetermeer, Leiden, Maastricht, Dordrecht, Bruges, Remscheid*, 's-Hertogenbosch, Delft, Moers*, Leuven, Willemstad, and the south of Essen*.

* city with German as standard language

High German

Main article: High German languages

The Central German dialects

The Franconian dialects(The Rhenish fan) 1. Low Franconian Northern Low Franconian ik–ich line Southern Low Franconian maken–machen line 2. Middle Franconian Ripuarian Dorp–Dorf line Moselle Franconian* Moselle: Luxembourgish* dat–das line Rhenish: Hessian Rhenish: Palatine* Appel–Apfel line 3. High Franconian East Franconian South Franconian** *Lorraine Franconian in France**Alsatian in France

The High German dialects consist of the Central German, High Franconian and Upper German dialects. The High Franconian dialects are transitional dialects between Central and Upper German. The High German varieties spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews have several unique features and are considered as a separate language, Yiddish, written with the Hebrew alphabet.

Central German

The Central German dialects are spoken in Central Germany, from Aachen in the west to Görlitz in the east. Modern Standard German is mostly based on Central German dialects.

West Central German

The West Central German dialects are the Central Franconian dialects (Ripuarian and Moselle Franconian) and the Rhenish Franconian dialects (Hessian and Palatine). These dialects are considered as

German in Germany and Belgium

Luxembourgish in Luxembourg

Lorraine Franconian in Moselle, France

Alsatian (in a Rhenish Franconian variant) in Alsace bossue, France

Limburgish or Kerkrade dialect in the Netherlands.

Transylvanian Saxon in Transylvania, Romania (considered a variant of German)

Banat Swabian in Banat, Romania (considered a variant of German)

Luxembourgish as well as Transylvanian Saxon and Banat Swabian are based on Moselle Franconian dialects.

Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the area: Cologne, Frankfurt am Main, Bonn, Mannheim, Wiesbaden, Aachen, Mainz, Kassel, Saarbrücken, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Leverkusen, Heidelberg, Darmstadt, Offenbach am Main, Luxembourg City, Koblenz, Bergisch Gladbach, Trier, Siegen, Hanau, Kaiserslautern, the south of Düsseldorf, and in Romania: Cluj-Napoca (German: Klausenburg),[b] Timișoara (Temeschburg),[c] Brașov (Kronstadt),[d] Oradea (Großwardein),[e] Arad,[f] Sibiu (Hermannstadt)[g] and Târgu Mureș (Neumarkt am Mieresch).[h]

East Central German

Further east, the non-Franconian, East Central German dialects are spoken (Thuringian, Upper Saxon, Erzgebirgisch (dialect of the Ore Mountains) and North Upper Saxon–South Markish, and earlier, in the then German-speaking parts of Silesia also Silesian, and in then German southern East Prussia also High Prussian).

Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the area: Berlin,[i] Leipzig, Dresden, Halle (Saale),[j] Magdeburg,[k] Erfurt, Potsdam,[l] Chemnitz and Jena.

High Franconian

The Upper German and High Franconian (transitional between Central and Upper German)

The High Franconian dialects are transitional dialects between Central and Upper German. They consist of the East and South Franconian dialects.

East Franconian

The East Franconian dialects are spoken in the region of Franconia. Franconia consists of the Bavarian districts of Upper, Middle, and Lower Franconia, the region of South Thuringia (those parts of Thuringia south of the Thuringian Forest), and the eastern parts of the region of Heilbronn-Franken (Tauber Franconia and Hohenlohe) in northeastern Baden-Württemberg. East Franconian is also spoken in most parts of Saxon Vogtland (in the Vogtland District around Plauen, Reichenbach im Vogtland, Auerbach/Vogtl., Oelsnitz/Vogtl. and Klingenthal). East Franconian is colloquially referred to as "Fränkisch" (Franconian) in Franconia (including Bavarian Vogtland), and as "Vogtländisch" (Vogtlandian) in Saxon Vogtland.

Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the area: Nuremberg, Fürth, Würzburg and Erlangen.

South Franconian

South Franconian is spoken in northern Baden-Württemberg and in the northeasternmost tip of Alsace (around Wissembourg) in France. In Baden-Württemberg, they are considered dialects of German, and in Alsace a South Franconian variant of Alsatian.

Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the area: Karlsruhe and Heilbronn.

Upper German

The Upper German dialects are the Alemannic and Swabian dialects in the west and the Austro-Bavarian dialects in the east.

Alemannic and Swabian

Swiss German restaurant sign in Andermatt: "Chuchichäschtli", in Standard German "Küchenkästlein"

Alemannic dialects are spoken in Switzerland (High Alemannic in the densely populated Swiss Plateau including Zürich and Bern, in the south also Highest Alemannic, and Low Alemannic in Basel), Baden-Württemberg (Swabian and Low Alemannic, in the southwest also High Alemannic), Bavarian Swabia (Swabian, in the southwesternmost part also Low Alemannic), Vorarlberg/Austria (Low, High, and Highest Alemannic), Alsace/France (Low Alemannic, in the southernmost part also High Alemannic), Liechtenstein (High and Highest Alemannic), and in the district of Reutte in Tyrol, Austria (Swabian). The Alemannic dialects are considered

German in Baden-Württemberg and Bavarian Swabia, Germany

Vorarlbergerisch in Vorarlberg, Austria (considered dialects of German)

Swiss German in Switzerland and Liechtenstein

Alsatian in Alsace, France

In Germany, the Alemannic dialects are often referred to as Swabian in Bavarian Swabia and in the historical region of Württemberg, and as Badian in the historical region of Baden.

The southernmost German-speaking municipality is in the Alemannic region: Zermatt in the Canton of Valais, Switzerland, as is the capital of Liechtenstein: Vaduz.

Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the area: Stuttgart, Zürich, Augsburg, Strasbourg (Alsatian: Strossburi),[m] Freiburg im Breisgau, Basel, Bern, Ulm, Pforzheim, Reutlingen, Winterthur and Mulhouse (Alsatian: Mìlhüsa).[n]

Austro-Bavarian

The Austro-Bavarian dialects

The Austro-Bavarian dialects are spoken in Austria (Vienna, Lower and Upper Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Burgenland, and in most parts of Tyrol), southern and eastern Bavaria (Upper and Lower Bavaria as well as Upper Palatinate), and South Tyrol. Austro-Bavarian is also spoken in southwesternmost Saxony: in the southernmost tip of Vogtland (in the Vogtland District around Adorf, Bad Brambach, Bad Elster and Markneukirchen), where it is referred to as Vogtländisch (Vogtlandian), just like the East Franconian variant that dominates in Vogtland. There is also one single Austro-Bavarian village in Switzerland: Samnaun in the Canton of the Grisons.

The northernmost Austro-Bavarian village is Breitenfeld (municipality of Markneukirchen, Saxony), the southernmost village is Salorno sulla Strada del Vino (German: Salurn an der Weinstraße), South Tyrol.

Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the area: Vienna, Munich, Graz, Linz, Regensburg, Salzburg, Ingolstadt, Innsbruck, Bolzano (German: Bozen) and Klagenfurt am Wörthersee.

Regiolects

Berlinian, the High German regiolect or dialect of Berlin with Low German substrate

Missingsch, a Low-German-coloured variety of High German.

Ruhrdeutsch (Ruhr German), the High German regiolect of the Ruhr area.

Grammar

Main article: German grammar

German is a fusional language with a moderate degree of inflection, with three grammatical genders; as such, there can be a large number of words derived from the same root.

Noun inflection

Declension of the Standard German definite article

Case

Masc.

Neu.

Fem.

Plural

Nominative

der

das

die

Dative

dem

der

den

Genitive

des

der

Accusative

den

das

die

Further information: Grammatical gender in German

German nouns inflect by case, gender, and number:

four cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative.

three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Word endings sometimes reveal grammatical gender: for instance, nouns ending in -ung (-ing), -schaft (-ship), -keit or heit (-hood, -ness) are feminine, nouns ending in -chen or -lein (diminutive forms) are neuter and nouns ending in -ismus (-ism) are masculine. Others are more variable, sometimes depending on the region in which the language is spoken. And some endings are not restricted to one gender, for example: -er (-er), such as Feier (feminine), celebration, party; Arbeiter (masculine), labourer; and Gewitter (neuter), thunderstorm.

two numbers: singular and plural.

This degree of inflection is considerably less than in Old High German and other old Indo-European languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit, and it is also somewhat less than, for instance, Old English, modern Icelandic, or Russian. The three genders have collapsed in the plural. With four cases and three genders plus plural, there are 16 permutations of case and gender/number of the article (not the nouns), but there are only six forms of the definite article, which together cover all 16 permutations. In nouns, inflection for case is required in the singular for strong masculine and neuter nouns only in the genitive and in the dative (only in fixed or archaic expressions), and even this is losing ground to substitutes in informal speech.[72] Weak masculine nouns share a common case ending for genitive, dative, and accusative in the singular. Feminine nouns are not declined in the singular. The plural has an inflection for the dative. In total, seven inflectional endings (not counting plural markers) exist in German: -s, -es, -n, -ns, -en, -ens, -e.

Like the other Germanic languages, German forms noun compounds in which the first noun modifies the category given by the second: Hundehütte ("dog hut"; specifically: "dog kennel"). Unlike English, whose newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written "open" with separating spaces, German (like some other Germanic languages) nearly always uses the "closed" form without spaces, for example: Baumhaus ("tree house"). Like English, German allows arbitrarily long compounds in theory (see also English compounds). The longest German word verified to be actually in (albeit very limited) use is Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, which, literally translated, is "beef labelling supervision duties assignment law" [from Rind (cattle), Fleisch (meat), Etikettierung(s) (labelling), Überwachung(s) (supervision), Aufgaben (duties), Übertragung(s) (assignment), Gesetz (law)]. However, examples like this are perceived by native speakers as excessively bureaucratic, stylistically awkward, or even satirical.

Verb inflection

Main article: German verbs

The inflection of standard German verbs includes:

Two main conjugation classes: weak and strong (as in English). Additionally, there is a third class, known as mixed verbs, whose conjugation combines features of both the strong and weak patterns.

Three persons: first, second and third.

Two numbers: singular and plural.

Three moods: indicative, imperative and subjunctive (in addition to infinitive).

Two voices: active and passive. The passive voice uses auxiliary verbs and is divisible into static and dynamic. Static forms show a constant state and use the verb to be (sein). Dynamic forms show an action and use the verb to become (werden).

Two tenses without auxiliary verbs (present and preterite) and four tenses constructed with auxiliary verbs (perfect, pluperfect, future and future perfect).

The distinction between grammatical aspects is rendered by combined use of the subjunctive or preterite marking so the plain indicative voice uses neither of those two markers; the subjunctive by itself often conveys reported speech; subjunctive plus preterite marks the conditional state; and the preterite alone shows either plain indicative (in the past), or functions as a (literal) alternative for either reported speech or the conditional state of the verb, when necessary for clarity.

The distinction between perfect and progressive aspect is and has, at every stage of development, been a productive category of the older language and in nearly all documented dialects, but strangely enough it is now rigorously excluded from written usage in its present normalised form.

Disambiguation of completed vs. uncompleted forms is widely observed and regularly generated by common prefixes (blicken [to look], erblicken [to see – unrelated form: sehen]).

Verb prefixes

The meaning of basic verbs can be expanded and sometimes radically changed through the use of a number of prefixes. Some prefixes have a specific meaning; the prefix zer- refers to destruction, as in zerreißen (to tear apart), zerbrechen (to break apart), zerschneiden (to cut apart). Other prefixes have only the vaguest meaning in themselves; ver- is found in a number of verbs with a large variety of meanings, as in versuchen (to try) from suchen (to seek), vernehmen (to interrogate) from nehmen (to take), verteilen (to distribute) from teilen (to share), verstehen (to understand) from stehen (to stand).

Other examples include the following:

haften (to stick), verhaften (to detain); kaufen (to buy), verkaufen (to sell); hören (to hear), aufhören (to cease); fahren (to drive), erfahren (to experience).

Many German verbs have a separable prefix, often with an adverbial function. In finite verb forms, it is split off and moved to the end of the clause and is hence considered by some to be a "resultative particle". For example, mitgehen, meaning "to go along", would be split, giving Gehen Sie mit? (Literal: "Go you with?"; Idiomatic: "Are you going along?").

Indeed, several parenthetical clauses may occur between the prefix of a finite verb and its complement (ankommen = to arrive, er kam an = he arrived, er ist angekommen = he has arrived):

Er kam am Freitagabend nach einem harten Arbeitstag und dem üblichen Ärger, der ihn schon seit Jahren immer wieder an seinem Arbeitsplatz plagt, mit fraglicher Freude auf ein Mahl, das seine Frau ihm, wie er hoffte, bereits aufgetischt hatte, endlich zu Hause an.

A selectively literal translation of this example to illustrate the point might look like this:

He "came" on Friday evening, after a hard day at work and the usual annoyances that had time and again been troubling him for years now at his workplace, with questionable joy, to a meal which, as he hoped, his wife had already put on the table, finally home "to".

Word order

German word order is generally with the V2 word order restriction and also with the SOV word order restriction for main clauses. For yes–no questions, exclamations, and wishes, the finite verb always has the first position. In subordinate clauses, the verb occurs at the very end.

German requires a verbal element (main verb or auxiliary verb) to appear second in the sentence. The verb is preceded by the topic of the sentence. The element in focus appears at the end of the sentence. For a sentence without an auxiliary, these are several possibilities:

Der alte Mann gab mir gestern das Buch. (The old man gave me yesterday the book; normal order)

Das Buch gab mir gestern der alte Mann. (The book gave [to] me yesterday the old man)

Das Buch gab der alte Mann mir gestern. (The book gave the old man [to] me yesterday)

Das Buch gab mir der alte Mann gestern. (The book gave [to] me the old man yesterday)

Gestern gab mir der alte Mann das Buch. (Yesterday gave [to] me the old man the book, normal order)

Mir gab der alte Mann das Buch gestern. ([To] me gave the old man the book yesterday (entailing: as for someone else, it was another date))

The position of a noun in a German sentence has no bearing on its being a subject, an object or another argument. In a declarative sentence in English, if the subject does not occur before the predicate, the sentence could well be misunderstood.

However, German's flexible word order allows one to emphasise specific words:

Normal word order:

Der Direktor betrat gestern um 10 Uhr mit einem Schirm in der Hand sein Büro.

The manager entered yesterday at 10 o'clock with an umbrella in the hand his office.

Second variant in normal word order:

Der Direktor betrat sein Büro gestern um 10 Uhr mit einem Schirm in der Hand.

The manager entered his office yesterday at 10 o'clock with an umbrella in the hand.

This variant accentuates the time specification and that he carried an umbrella.

Object in front:

Sein Büro betrat der Direktor gestern um 10 Uhr mit einem Schirm in der Hand.

His office entered the manager yesterday at 10 o'clock with an umbrella in the hand.

The object Sein Büro (his office) is thus highlighted; it could be the topic of the next sentence.

Adverb of time in front:

Gestern betrat der Direktor um 10 Uhr mit einem Schirm in der Hand sein Büro. (aber heute ohne Schirm)

Yesterday entered the manager at 10 o'clock with an umbrella in the hand his office. (but today without umbrella)

Both time expressions in front:

Gestern um 10 Uhr betrat der Direktor mit einem Schirm in der Hand sein Büro.

Yesterday at 10 o'clock entered the manager with an umbrella in the hand his office.

The full-time specification Gestern um 10 Uhr is highlighted.

Another possibility:

Gestern um 10 Uhr betrat der Direktor sein Büro mit einem Schirm in der Hand.

Yesterday at 10 o'clock entered the manager his office with an umbrella in the hand.

Both the time specification and the fact he carried an umbrella are accentuated.

Swapped adverbs:

Der Direktor betrat mit einem Schirm in der Hand gestern um 10 Uhr sein Büro.

The manager entered with an umbrella in the hand yesterday at 10 o'clock his office.

The phrase mit einem Schirm in der Hand is highlighted.

Swapped object:

Der Direktor betrat gestern um 10 Uhr sein Büro mit einem Schirm in der Hand.

The manager entered yesterday at 10 o'clock his office with an umbrella in the hand.

The time specification and the object sein Büro (his office) are lightly accentuated.

The flexible word order also allows one to use language "tools" (such as poetic meter and figures of speech) more freely.

Auxiliary verbs

When an auxiliary verb is present, it appears in second position, and the main verb appears at the end. This occurs notably in the creation of the perfect tense. Many word orders are still possible:

Der alte Mann hat mir heute das Buch gegeben. (The old man has me today the book given.)

Das Buch hat der alte Mann mir heute gegeben. (The book has the old man me today given.)

Heute hat der alte Mann mir das Buch gegeben. (Today has the old man me the book given.)

The main verb may appear in first position to put stress on the action itself. The auxiliary verb is still in second position.

Gegeben hat mir der alte Mann das Buch heute. (Given has me the old man the book today.) The bare fact that the book has been given is emphasized, as well as 'today'.

Modal verbs

Sentences using modal verbs place the infinitive at the end. For example, the English sentence "Should he go home?" would be rearranged in German to say "Should he (to) home go?" (Soll er nach Hause gehen?). Thus, in sentences with several subordinate or relative clauses, the infinitives are clustered at the end. Compare the similar clustering of prepositions in the following (highly contrived) English sentence: "What did you bring that book that I do not like to be read to out of up for?"

Multiple infinitives

German subordinate clauses have all verbs clustered at the end. Given that auxiliaries encode future, passive, modality, and the perfect, very long chains of verbs at the end of the sentence can occur. In these constructions, the past participle formed with ge- is often replaced by the infinitive.

Man nimmt an, dass der Deserteur wohl erschossenV wordenpsv seinperf sollmod

One suspects that the deserter probably shot become be should.

("It is suspected that the deserter probably had been shot")

Er wusste nicht, dass der Agent einen Nachschlüssel hatte machen lassen

He knew not that the agent a picklock had make let

Er wusste nicht, dass der Agent einen Nachschlüssel machen lassen hatte

He knew not that the agent a picklock make let had

("He did not know that the agent had had a picklock made")

The order at the end of such strings is subject to variation, but the second one in the last example is unusual.

Vocabulary

Most German vocabulary is derived from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.[73] However, there is a significant amount of loanwords from other languages, in particular Latin, Greek, Italian, French, and most recently English.[74] In the early 19th century, Joachim Heinrich Campe estimated that one fifth of the total German vocabulary was of French or Latin origin.[75]

Latin words were already imported into the predecessor of the German language during the Roman Empire and underwent all the characteristic phonetic changes in German. Their origin is thus no longer recognizable for most speakers (e.g. Pforte, Tafel, Mauer, Käse, Köln from Latin porta, tabula, murus, caseus, Colonia). Borrowing from Latin continued after the fall of the Roman Empire during Christianisation, mediated by the church and monasteries. Another important influx of Latin words can be observed during Renaissance humanism. In a scholarly context, the borrowings from Latin have continued until today, in the last few decades often indirectly through borrowings from English. During the 15th to 17th centuries, the influence of Italian was great, leading to many Italian loanwords in the fields of architecture, finance and music. The influence of the French language in the 17th to 19th centuries resulted in an even greater import of French words. The English influence was already present in the 19th century, but it did not become dominant until the second half of the 20th century.

Thus, Notker Labeo translated the Aristotelian treatises into pure (Old High) German in the decades after the year 1000.[76] The tradition of loan translation revitalized in the 17th and 18th century with poets like Philipp von Zesen or linguists like Joachim Heinrich Campe, who introduced close to 300 words, which are still used in modern German. Even today, there are movements that promote the substitution of foreign words that are deemed unnecessary with German alternatives.[77]

As in English, there are many pairs of synonyms due to the enrichment of the Germanic vocabulary with loanwords from Latin and Latinized Greek. These words often have different connotations from their Germanic counterparts and are usually perceived as more scholarly.

Historie, historisch – "history, historical", (Geschichte, geschichtlich)

Humanität, human – "humaneness, humane", (Menschlichkeit, menschlich)[note 4]

Millennium – "millennium", (Jahrtausend)

Perzeption – "perception", (Wahrnehmung)

Vokabular – "vocabulary", (Wortschatz)

Diktionär – "dictionary, wordbook", (Wörterbuch)[note 5]

probieren – "to try", (versuchen)

proponieren – "to propose", (vorschlagen)

The Deutsches Wörterbuch (1st vol., 1854) by the Brothers Grimm

The size of the vocabulary of German is difficult to estimate. The Deutsches Wörterbuch (German Dictionary), initiated by the Brothers Grimm (Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm) and the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language, already contained over 330,000 headwords in its first edition. The modern German scientific vocabulary is estimated at nine million words and word groups (based on the analysis of 35 million sentences of a corpus in Leipzig, which as of July 2003 included 500 million words in total).[78]

Orthography

Main articles: German orthography and German braille

Austria's standardized cursive

Germany's standardized cursive

Written texts in German are easily recognisable as such by distinguishing features such as umlauts and certain orthographical features, such as the capitalization of all nouns, and the frequent occurrence of long compounds. Because legibility and convenience set certain boundaries, compounds consisting of more than three or four nouns are almost exclusively found in humorous contexts. (English also can string nouns together, though it usually separates the nouns with spaces: as, for example, "toilet bowl cleaner".)

In German orthography, nouns are capitalized, which makes it easier for readers to determine the function of a word within a sentence. This convention is almost unique to German today (shared perhaps only by the closely related Luxembourgish language and several insular dialects of the North Frisian language), but it was historically common in Northern Europe in the early modern era, including in languages such as Danish which abolished the capitalization of nouns in 1948, and English for a while, into the 1700s.

Present

Before the German orthography reform of 1996, ß replaced ss after long vowels and diphthongs and before consonants, word-, or partial-word endings. In reformed spelling, ß replaces ss only after long vowels and diphthongs.

Since there is no traditional capital form of ß, it was replaced by SS (or SZ) when capitalization was required. For example, Maßband (tape measure) became MASSBAND in capitals. An exception was the use of ß in legal documents and forms when capitalizing names. To avoid confusion with similar names, lower case ß was sometimes maintained (thus "KREßLEIN" instead of "KRESSLEIN"). Capital ß (ẞ) was ultimately adopted into German orthography in 2017, ending a long orthographic debate (thus "KREẞLEIN and KRESSLEIN").[79]

Umlaut vowels (ä, ö, ü) are commonly transcribed with ae, oe, and ue if the umlauts are not available on the keyboard or other medium used. In the same manner, ß can be transcribed as ss. Some operating systems use key sequences to extend the set of possible characters to include, amongst other things, umlauts; in Microsoft Windows this is done using Alt codes. German readers understand these transcriptions (although they appear unusual), but they are avoided if the regular umlauts are available, because they are a makeshift and not proper spelling. (In Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, city and family names exist where the extra e has a vowel lengthening effect, e.g. Raesfeld [ˈraːsfɛlt], Coesfeld [ˈkoːsfɛlt] and Itzehoe [ɪtsəˈhoː], but this use of the letter e after a/o/u does not occur in the present-day spelling of words other than proper nouns.)

German alphabet

(Listen to a German speaker recite the alphabet in German)

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There is no general agreement on where letters with umlauts occur in the sorting sequence. Telephone directories treat them by replacing them with the base vowel followed by an e. Some dictionaries sort each umlauted vowel as a separate letter after the base vowel, but more commonly words with umlauts are ordered immediately after the same word without umlauts. As an example in a telephone book Ärzte occurs after Adressenverlage but before Anlagenbauer (because Ä is replaced by Ae). In a dictionary Ärzte comes after Arzt, but in some dictionaries Ärzte and all other words starting with Ä may occur after all words starting with A. In some older dictionaries or indexes, initial Sch and St are treated as separate letters and are listed as separate entries after S, but they are usually treated as S+C+H and S+T.

Written German also typically uses an alternative opening inverted comma (quotation mark) as in „Guten Morgen!“.

Past

A Russian dictionary from 1931, showing the "German alphabet" – the 3rd and 4th columns of each half are Fraktur and Kurrent respectively, with the footnote explaining ligatures used in Fraktur

Further information: 2nd Orthographic Conference (German), Antiqua–Fraktur dispute, and German orthography reform of 1944

Until the early 20th century, German was printed in blackletter typefaces (in Fraktur, and in Schwabacher), and written in corresponding handwriting (for example Kurrent and Sütterlin). These variants of the Latin alphabet are very different from the serif or sans-serif Antiqua typefaces used today, and the handwritten forms in particular are difficult for the untrained to read. The printed forms, however, were claimed by some to be more readable when used for Germanic languages.[80] The Nazis initially promoted Fraktur and Schwabacher because they were considered Aryan, but they abolished them in 1941, claiming that these letters were Jewish.[81] It is believed that this script was banned during the Nazi régime,[who?] as they realized that Fraktur would inhibit communication in the territories occupied during World War II.[82]

The Fraktur script however remains present in everyday life in pub signs, beer brands and other forms of advertisement, where it is used to convey a certain rusticality and antiquity.

A proper use of the long s (langes s), ſ, is essential for writing German text in Fraktur typefaces. Many Antiqua typefaces also include the long s. A specific set of rules applies for the use of long s in German text, but nowadays it is rarely used in Antiqua typesetting. Any lower case "s" at the beginning of a syllable would be a long s, as opposed to a terminal s or short s (the more common variation of the letter s), which marks the end of a syllable; for example, in differentiating between the words Wachſtube (guard-house) and Wachstube (tube of polish/wax). One can easily decide which "s" to use by appropriate hyphenation, (Wach-ſtube vs. Wachs-tube). The long s only appears in lower case.

Consonant shifts

Further information: High German consonant shift

German does not have any dental fricatives (as English ⟨th⟩). The ⟨th⟩ sounds, which the English language still has, disappeared on the continent in German with the consonant shifts between the 8th and 10th centuries.[83] It is sometimes possible to find parallels between English and German by replacing the English ⟨th⟩ with ⟨d⟩ in German, e.g. "thank" → Dank, "this" and "that" → dies and das, "thou" (old 2nd person singular pronoun) → du, "think" → denken, "thirsty" → durstig, etc.

Likewise, the ⟨gh⟩ in Germanic English words, pronounced in several different ways in modern English (as an ⟨f⟩ or not at all), can often be linked to German ⟨ch⟩, e.g. "to laugh" → lachen, "through" → durch, "high" → hoch, "naught" → nichts, "light" → leicht or Licht, "sight" → Sicht, "daughter" → Tochter, "neighbour" → Nachbar. This is due to the fact that English ⟨gh⟩ was historically pronounced in the same way as German ⟨ch⟩ (as /x/ and /ç/ in an allophonic relationship, or potentially as /x/ in all circumstances as in modern Dutch) with these word pairs originally (Up until around the mid to late 16th century) sounding far more similar than they do today.

Literature

Main article: German literature

The German language is used in German literature and can be traced back to the Middle Ages, with the most notable authors of the period being Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach.

The Nibelungenlied, whose author remains unknown, is also an important work of the epoch. The fairy tales collected and published by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 19th century became famous throughout the world.

Reformer and theologian Martin Luther, who translated the Bible into High German (a regional group or German varieties at southern and therefore higher regions), is widely credited for attibuted to the basis for the modern Standard German language. Among the best-known poets and authors in German are Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Hoffmann, Brecht, Heine and Kafka. Fourteen German-speaking people have won the Nobel Prize in literature: Theodor Mommsen, Rudolf Christoph Eucken, Paul von Heyse, Gerhart Hauptmann, Carl Spitteler, Thomas Mann, Nelly Sachs, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Böll, Elias Canetti, Günter Grass, Elfriede Jelinek, Herta Müller and Peter Handke, making it the second-most awarded linguistic region (together with French) after English.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe(1749–1832)

Friedrich Schiller(1759–1805)

Brothers Grimm(1785–1863)

Thomas Mann(1875–1955)

Hermann Hesse(1877–1962)

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DE- | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary

DE Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

DE Definition & Usage Examples | Dictionary.com

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de- | Etymology of prefix de- by etymonline

de- - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

de- prefix - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com

de - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

deutschland.de - Your link to Germany

German language - Wikipedia

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