German is the world’s second most widely spoken scientific language. In Germany, around 80.6 million people speak the language. In the European Union, German is the most frequently spoken mother tongue, and it is an official language in seven nations.
In addition, more than 7.5 million individuals speak German as a second language in 42 countries. Here is a list of the top German speaking countries in the world.
1. Germany
German is Germany’s national and official language, and over 95 percent of the people speak it as their primary language. Germany’s dominant language is standard German. Accordingly, speakers of Northern Low Saxon, a West Low German dialect, are included in this figure.
Low German, French, Flemish, Afrikaans, and Frisian are all closely related to German. Precisely, the Latin alphabet is used in the German writing system. Furthermore, low German is one of Germany’s linguistic minorities. Northern Germany is home to the West Germanic language.
The language is considerably different from Standard German, and it has more in common with English, Frisian, and Dutch. In Germany, there are around 5 million native speakers of Low German.
2. Austria
Austria (officially the Republic of Austria) is a solitary Central European nation with a distinctive linguistic mix. It has a population of almost nine million people, who mostly speak German, the country’s main language. Everybody in Austria speaks German (98 percent), making it a useful common language as well as the government’s national language.
Additionally, except for the federal state of Vorarlberg and some portions of Tyrol’s Reutte District, Austria has about seven million speakers of Austro-Bavarian, a collection of Upper German dialects spoken across the nation. Meanwhile, Austrian German varies from Standard German in that it has been formed by Austro-Bavarian. The different languages (Austrian and Standard German, respectively) are, nonetheless, identical.
At least, for the most part. When it comes to mutual understanding, it’s reasonable to claim that regional dialects play a role in some regions of Austria. As a result, German is the most spoken language in Austria, and it is spoken by the state, the corporate media, and educational institutions, from elementary schools to universities across the country.
3. Switzerland
Swiss German is the northern, northeastern, and central portions of the nation, and it is the dominant language in Switzerland, with 63 percent of the people speaking it. Local residents refer to Swiss German as Schwyzerdütsch, a group of Alemannic languages which are no longer spoken in Germany or Austria.
Meanwhile, Swiss Germans actively promote the diverse range of languages that exist within their society, making it impossible to argue that there is a single unified spoken form of Swiss German. The Swiss have educated “Standard German” (Hochdeutsch) from a young age in education, and, as a consequence, they are able to interact with Germans, Austrians, and other German speakers with ease, switching to standard German practically immediately when speaking with non-Swiss German speakers.
Furthermore, because the different Swiss German languages have no common written form, all legislation, publications, newspapers, and other kinds of written correspondence are composed in Standard German. This reveals why so many Swiss Germans refer to the Standard German they learned in high school as Schriftdeutsch — literally “written German.”
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4. Belgium
German is the Belgian national and official language with the most speakers. Belgium has just 75,000 native speakers of this language, virtually all of whom live in the eastern area of Liege, which lies close to Belgium’s German border. Belgium is situated on the crossroads of Germanic and Romance-speaking European, and its governmental, historical, and linguistic composition reflects this.
Since these areas were only integrated into Belgium after World War I, the German spoken here seems to be remarkably similar to that spoken over the boundary. Belgian German has had significantly less time to evolve separately than the other languages spoken in Belgium.
5. Luxembourg
Luxembourg, is a tiny Western European nation. In its two-hundred-year history since declaring independence from the French, the nation has not only created its own national language, but has also maintained its acceptance of the former French and German as national languages.
Nowadays, all three languages are taught in schools and are utilized in public and private administration. Luxembourg’s official language is Luxembourgish. As a second language, learners understand French, German, and English. Approximately 90 percent of the population speaks French or German. Luxembourgish is a Moselle Franconian language that forms a language continuity with the other languages spoken in the German Saarland and Trier areas.
As a result, it corresponds to the linguistic region of Central Germany. It isn’t distinct enough from the other dialects of West Central Germany to be designated a separate language. Luxembourgish is also closer to Standard German than many of the high German languages spoken in Bavaria, Austria, and Switzerland. These are not distinct languages, but rather language groups of Germany.
6. Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein is a territory situated between Austria and Switzerland. Other German-related languages, such as Swiss German, Walser, Alemannic, and English, are spoken here. In addition, Liechtenstein’s native and official language is Standard German, often known as German. It is spoken by the majority of the population. High German, East Middle German, and Germanic German are the four types of standard German.
The Standard German spoken here is quite similar to that spoken in Vorarlberg, the Austrian and Swiss regions.This language is spoken by around 29,000 people in the nation. It, like Standard German, has a categorization system. The usage of Swiss German has grown in popularity in recent years, and it is continuing to increase in Liechtenstein. The reason for this is that the Swiss-German media, as well as their primary school instructors who primarily speak the language, have a strong effect on them.
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7. Brazil
German is the second most widely spoken language in Brazil (after Portuguese), with 1.9 percent of people speaking it. Meanwhile, two-thirds of German immigrants’ kids speak German as their first language at home. Furthermore, Brazilian German is vastly different from European German, much more so than Brazilian Portuguese is from European Portuguese. Pomeranian German is indeed spoken in Brazil, mostly in Espirito Santo, and there are 1.5 million normal German speakers in the nation.
8. Denmark
Danish is spoken by almost 98 percent of the population. In the bordering German state of Nord-Schleswig, German is recognized as an official regional language. The Danish language in addition to the Indo-European language family’s Germanic branch, or more precisely, to the Indo-European language children’s Germanic branch.
In addition, Denmark is bordered in the south by Germany. It’s also why the two nations have always maintained a strong commercial and cultural relationship. Today, a little under 20,000 individuals in southern Denmark are identified as Germans, and about 50,000 people in northern Germany consider themselves Danes.
However, the number of Danes who speak German as a second language is more significant. According to some studies, up to 47 percent of Danes are at least conversational in German.
9. Czech Republic
In Prague and the rest of the Czech Republic, the German language is standard. However, because German is studied as a second language in Czechia, many Czechs may be able to communicate in it to some extent. According to some estimates, over 8% of the Czech population speaks German, and many people working in the tourism industry in places like Prague will be able to communicate in German.
Around 0.4% of the Czech population identified themselves as being ethnically German in 2001. Since 2004, when Czechia entered the European Union and the Schengen zone, the number of German citizens entering the Czech Republic has increased, and the figure may now be much greater.
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10. Namibia
Approximately 31,000 Namibians consider German as their first language, while tens of thousands more speak German as a second language, whether they are white natural English or Afrikaans speakers or urbanized black Namibians. Around 2,580 German-speaking students were enrolled in 13 Namibian private and public institutions, as well as German sections in several government schools.
Every day for ten hours, the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) distributes a German regional radio service to Windhoek, Swakopmund, Keetmanshoop, and a variety of cities, towns, ranches, and rest-camps.
To conclude, German is one of the top ten most widely used languages on the planet. It is also a Central and Eastern European predominant language. With roughly 155 million speakers, German is the world’s 11th most spoken language.
