German language
The German language
belongs to the Indo-Germanic group of languages, and within these, to the Germanic languages. It is one of the ten most widely spoken languages in the worlds and next to Russian the most widely spoken mother tongue in Europe (about 100 million native speakers). Seven European countries use German as their only or regional official tongue: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy and Liechtenstein. The German minorities in Poland, Rumania, and in the CIS, too, have in part maintained their language.
On the internet German is second place to English (based on the number of websites in certain languages). German is the most important working language next to English and French in the European Union.
Ruhrdeutsch/The Ruhr area German
In Bochum, as in the whole Ruhr area, no distinctive dialect is spoken. The population speak High German, depending on the region with a slight lower Rhine- or Westphalian accent.
Nonetheless, some linguistic varieties that are often summarised unter the term "Ruhrdeutsch" have developed in the Ruhr area. The "Ruhrdeutsch" came into existence when the older lower-Rhine dialects of the region became mixed up with the language of the immigrants from Eastern Prussia and Poland during the Industrialisation.
In Ruhr German, the diminutive is made, as in Low German, with "-ken" instead of "-chen", for example in "Männeken" instead of "Männchen" or "Häusken" instead of "Häuschen". Typical also is the changing of "was" and "das" to "wat" and "dat" or the merging of expressions such as "kannst Du" zu "kannze" ("could you?") and of "Hör mal" to "Hömma" ("listen!").
Some expressions from Eastern Prussia or Poland were kept, for example the Polish "Mottek" for "hammer" or Yiddish words such as "malochen" for "to work" or "Mischpoke" as a derogatory term for relations.
Ruhr German is only used colloquially. Sometimes some typical expressions are used at the universities or can be found in newspapers. If you are unsure about the exact use of these expressions, you are better off not using them.