Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft
Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft is a compound word that serves as an example of the virtually unlimited compounding of nouns that is possible in many Germanic languages. According to the 1996 "Guinness Book of World Records", it is the longest word published in the German language.
Proto-Germanic language
By the end of the Proto-Germanic period, word-final long vowels were shortened to short vowels. Following that, overlong vowels were shortened to regular long vowels in all positions, merging with originally long vowels except word-finally (because of the earlier shortening), so that they remained distinct in that position. This was a late dialectal development, because the end result was not the same in all Germanic languages: word-final "ē" shortened to "a" in East and West Germanic but to "i" in Old Norse, and word-final "ō" shortened to "a" in Gothic but to "o" (probably ) in early North and West Germanic, with a later raising to "u" (the 6th century Salic law still has "maltho" in late Frankish).