English

Proper noun

Deutsch

1. (Germanism) German (the language)
   • 1997, Thomas E. Q. Williams, James Whitcomb Riley: the poet as flying islands of the night, page 76:

     Riley's father, Reuben, spoke Deutsch in his boyhood home and did not learn to speak English until after his childhood even though he came from Irish roots. Riley's ancestors kept alive many of the old folktales and stories of their lives. Few of these Deutsch tales survive.

   • 2002, Richard Braden, Escape from Europe, page 102:

     This letter had to be written in Deutsch because neither Paul nor Harriet knew Danish.

   • 2012, Rosalind Lauer, A Simple Spring: A Seasons of Lancaster Novel, page 163:

     “We sing our Sunday hymns a cappella, too,” Sadie said. “But Amish songs are very different from yours. They're written in Deutsch, and there's no harmony.”

2. A surname​.

Adjective

Deutsch ‎(comparative more Deutsch, superlative most Deutsch)

1. (rare, Germanism) German, in the German language
   • 1997, Thomas E. Q. Williams, James Whitcomb Riley: the poet as flying islands of the night, page 76:

     Riley's father, Reuben, spoke Deutsch in his boyhood home and did not learn to speak English until after his childhood even though he came from Irish roots. Riley's ancestors kept alive many of the old folktales and stories of their lives. Few of these Deutsch tales survive.

German

Etymology

See deutsch.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɔɪ̯ʧ/

Noun

Deutsch n ‎(genitive Deutschen or Deutsch or Deutschs, no plural)

1. the German language

   Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

   Do you speak German?

   • 1922, Eduard Engel, Deutsche Stilkunst, page 65:

     Das Deutsche ist formenreicher als das Englische, […]

     German has a greater wealth of [inflected] forms than English, […]

   • 1965, Edith Hallwass, Wer ist im Deutschen sattelfest?: Sprachlehre in Frage und Antwort, page 13:

     Das Deutsch ist immer nur ein Teil des Deutschen: gutes oder schlechtes, falsches oder richtiges Deutsch, das Deutsch unserer Klassiker und das Deutsch, das wir heute sprechen, das Deutsch, das man lernt, schreibt, versteht […]

     [The] German [idiolect] is always only a part of the German language: good or bad, wrong or right German, the German of our classics and the German that we speak today, the German that one learns, writes, understands […]

   • 2002, Neue deutsche Sprachgeschichte: mentalitäts-, kultur- und sozialgeschichtliche Zusammenhänge (Dieter Cherubim, Karlheinz Jakob, Angelika Linke), page 396:

     Die Besonderheiten sind auf die Zeit, den Raum und den gesprochenen Charakter seines Deutschs zurückzuführen.

     The idiosyncrasies are attributable to the era, the area and spoken character of his German [idiolect].

   • 2007, Ulrich Ammon, Klaus J. Mattheier, Sprachliche Folgen der EU-Erweiterung, page 135:

     Statt der institutionellen Stärkung des Deutschen ist eher die umgekehrte Wirkung festzustellen, nämlich dass die fortdauernde institutionelle Schwäche des Deutschen seinen Wert in den Augen der Ostmitteleuropäer mindert […]

     Not the institutional strengthening of [the] German [language] but the opposite effect can be seen, namely that the persistent institutional weaknesses of German reduce its worth in the eyes of the East-Central Europeans […]

Usage notes

• Different forms are used in different circumstances, as explained here.

Hyponyms

• Hochdeutsch, Standarddeutsch
• Schriftdeutsch
• Papierdeutsch
• Amtsdeutsch, Beamtendeutsch
• Juristendeutsch

Derived terms

• Judendeutsch

Declension

German

the inscription "dem deutschen Volke" on the Reichstag

Alternative forms

• teutsch (obsolete)

Adjective

deutsch ‎(comparative deutscher, superlative am deutschesten)

1. German: of or pertaining to the German people

   Meine Mutter ist deutscher Herkunft, aber mein Vater ist Schwede.

   My mother is of German origin but my father is a Swede.

2. German: of or pertaining to Germany

   der deutsche Außenminister — das deutsche Patentamt

   the German foreign minister — the German patent office

3. German: of or pertaining to the German language

   ein paar deutsche Wörter

   a few German words

Declension

Derived terms

Related terms

• Deutsch
• (adjective capitalized in breed name) Deutsche Dogge
• Deutscher
• Deutschland
• (adjectives capitalized) Neue Deutsche Härte
• (adjectives capitalized) Neue Deutsche Welle

Descendants

• Japanese: ドイツ
• Lojban: dotco