German language
* city with German as standard language

High German: 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), Timișoara (Temeschburg), Brașov (Kronstadt), Oradea (Großwardein), Arad, Sibiu (Hermannstadt) and Târgu Mureș (Neumarkt am Mieresch).

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, Leipzig, Dresden, Halle (Saale), Magdeburg, Erfurt, Potsdam, Chemnitz and Jena.

High Franconian: 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: 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), Freiburg im Breisgau, Basel, Bern, Ulm, Pforzheim, Reutlingen, Winterthur and Mulhouse (Alsatian: Mìlhüsa).

Austro-Bavarian: 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: 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: 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.