German borrowings.

English and German both descended from the West Germanic language, though their relationship has been obscured by the great influx of Norman French words to English as a consequence of the Norman Conquest in 1066, and the second Germanic sound shift. In recent years, however, many English words have been borrowed directly from German. Typically, English spellings of German loanwords suppress any umlauts (the superscript, double-dot diacritic in Ä, Ö, Ü, ä, ö and ü) of the original word or replace the umlaut letters with Ae, Oe, Ue, ae, oe, ue, respectively (influenced by Latin: æ, œ.)

German words have been incorporated to English usage for many reasons: common cultural artefacts, especially foods, have spread to English-speaking nations and often are identified either by their original German names or by German-sounding English names; the history of academic excellence of the German-speaking nations in science, scholarship, and classical music has led to the academic adoption of much German for use in English context; discussion of German history and culture requires knowing German words. Lastly, some German words are used simply to a fictionalise an English narrative passage, implying that the subject expressed is in German, i.e. using Frau, Reich, et cetera, although sometimes usage of German words holds no German implication, as in doppelgänger or angst.

There are about a hundred German borrowings used by ordinary American English speakers; obviously, however, there are far more in regional use... in parts of Pennsylvania, for example.

German borrowings can be divided into three main groups, plus a separate group of German-related words borrowed into American English via Yiddish. The three groups are:

- Pennsylvania Dutch words, that were usually first recorded before the middle of the 19th century, and generally apply to food and way of life.

- Mainstream German borrowings that were made thanks to the influence of the '48ers. These were generally first recorded between 1850 and 1915 or so. They often relate to education and way of life. It is important to notice that they include interjections, verbs, and complete expressions.

- The third group of German borrowings contains those terms from the two World Wars that are related to war and military strategy. There are also ethnic insults... Many of these expressions were also borrowed by the British and the French, etc., and are not bona fide Americans, so few if any are included here.

Because English itself is a Germanic language, American English found it easy to integrate German borrowings with minor phonological changes: [ scht ] > [ st ] (stein), [v] > [w] for "w", [b] often became [p]...

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