Reviewed by Louisa Buckingham, Sabanci University Writing Center, Turkey

This monograph provides an approachable overview of the evolution of the German language and a history of its speakers, beginning with the prehistoric settlement of central Europe and ending with a brief description of German as spoken in four European countries and as an international language at the beginning of the twenty-first century. While intended for undergraduate students of German, it has parts relevant to students of linguistics and the history of English and is well suited to a general reader with no specific background in history or linguistics. It comprises six chapters, an introduction, and an index; each chapter contains excerpts of texts in Germanic languages or early forms of German and concludes with a timeline of relevant key dates in German history.

In the first chapter, S describes human settlement, agriculture, and social customs in Central Europe, together with a brief introduction to Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Germanic, and the first Germanic sound shift. The second chapter focuses on the survival of Germanic tribes during the expansion of the Roman Empire and their later incursions into surrounding lands, such as the British Isles, with a particular focus on the Goths and the Vikings. Ch. 3 discusses the emergence of high and low German dialects, a product of the second sound shift, which divided Western Germanic languages around 600 AD, and describes the emergence of Yiddish.

This is followed by a chapter on the role of Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible and Johann Gutenberg’s printing press in standardizing German, and the growing literacy of the populace. Ch. 5 describes the impact of German unification in 1871 on the language, the emergence of High German as the standard language and prestige dialect, and its coexistence with a variety of other dialects. Certain prominent phonological characteristics of High German are provided, and S describes the expansion of its vocabulary through the coinage of words for official functions.

The final chapter contrasts the importance of German as a language of scholarship and trade in the nineteenth century with the loss of prestige of German as an international language after the twentieth century’s two world wars. S then describes how twentieth century German literature contributed to a renewed national pride in the German language. She closes with a brief mention of the German spelling reform in 2005 and an overview of the different national standards of the German language existing in Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, and Switzerland.

As S describes social life and mores as they relate to the evolution of language and literacy, she has a general rather than specifically linguistic focus. The careful reader will find a few errors (e.g. the percentage of Germans who voted for Hitler, p.212). It is primarily oriented towards students in the US, as shown by excerpts on German migration to the US and the influence of American English on German, but is also suited to other English-speaking students.