High German Consonants
Hochdeutsch is the German dialect encountered by most second language learners, and by native speakers in school. Many Low German dialects have become heavily influenced by the standard language, which is based on High German. The main dialect division is between southern dialects which participated in the Second or High German Consonant Shift and northern dialects which did not participate in this shift. There is also a large corpus of writings in Rocket German, on literature, philosophy, psychology, mathematics, and other fields, that is of interest to a wide international audience. Americans interested in the language as a link to their forefathers, to business people, politicians and students who need to communicate with their customers, colleagues and peers.
