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Upper German The High German languages or High German dialects ( German : hochdeutsche Mundarten ) is a variant of the Germanic languages . It is spoken south of the Benrath and Uerdingen isoglosses in central and southern Germany , Austria , Liechtenstein , Switzerland , Luxembourg , and eastern Belgium .

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.

As a technical term, the "high" in High German is a geographic reference to Southern German. In the same way, the "low" in Low German refers to the geographic North. The reason behind that is the positions of the language areas on maps which, at the time when the terms were coined, hat the South at their high ends, and the North at their low ends.

The following innovations are common to the Ingvaeonic subgroup of the West Germanic languages, which includes English, Frisian, and in a few cases Dutch and Low German, but not High German: The so-called Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law , with loss of /n/ before voiceless fricatives: e.g. *munþ , *gans > Old English mūþ, gōs > "mouth, goose", but German Mund, Gans .