th Standard German zwei ([t] to [t͡s]), English/Low German make/maken with Standard German machen ([k] to [x]). In the southernmost High Alemannic dialects, there is a further shift; Sack (like English/Low German "sack/Sack") is pronounced [z̥ak͡x] ([k] to [k͡x]).
Old High German evolved from about 500 AD, around 1200 the Swabian and East Franconian varieties of Middle High German became dominant as a court and poetry language (Minnesang) under the rule of the House of Hohenstaufen.
The term "High German" as spoken in central and southern Germany (Upper Saxony, Franconia, Swabia, Bavaria) and Austria was first documented in the 15th century. Gradually driving back Low German variants since the Early modern period, the Early New High German varieties, especially the East Central German of the Luther Bible, formed an important basis for the development of Standard German.
Note that divisions between subfamilies within Germanic are rarely precisely defined, because most form continuous clines, with adjacent dialects being mutually intelligible and more separated ones not. In particular, there has never been an original "Proto-High German". For this and other reasons, the idea of representing the relationships between West Germanic language forms in a tree diagram at all is controversial among linguists. What follows should be used with care in the light of this caveat.
- Central German (German: Mitteldeutsch)
- East Central German, including the Standard German variant
- West Central German
- High Franconian, in the transitional area between Central and Upper German
- Upper German (German: Oberdeutsch)
- Alemannic, including Swiss German dialects
- Bavarian, including Austrian German dialects
- Yiddish, evolved from Middle High German
- Lombardic, extinct, categorization disputed
- Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "High German". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- See the definition of "high" in the Oxford English Dictionary (Concise Edition): "... situated far above ground, sealevel, etc; upper, inland, as ... High German".
- Russ, Charles. The Dialects of Modern German: A Linguistic Survey. Routledge, 1989
- Robinson, Orrin. Old English and its Closest Relatives. Routledge, 1994.
- Russ, Charles. The German Language Today: A Linguistic Introduction. Routledge, 1994.
- "Ethnologue: East Middle German". Retrieved 2010-11-24.
- Friedrich Maurer (1942), Nordgermanen und Alemannen: Studien zur germanischen und frühdeutschen Sprachgeschichte, Stammes- und Volkskunde, Strasbourg: Hünenburg, [designation of High German languages as Irminonic].