2023-04-24 14:00:00
No English?
In these holiday countries you can also get by with German
From the USA to Namibia – an analysis shows the countries in which most people speak German. Useful to know for the next vacation.
published
German is still spoken in many countries today, which makes traveling easier.
Pexels/cottonbro studio
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134 million people worldwide speak German – almost half of them call it their mother tongue. This puts the language in twelfth place, ahead of Italian and Japanese. Aside from the obvious countries where German is a national language, a significant number of people speak the language in more than three dozen countries.
Our neighbors are particularly familiar with German
Unsurprisingly, due to their shared history, France takes first place. About 1.2 million people speak German. The language is particularly widespread in the Alsace-Lorraine region.
Over time, many German words have also been integrated into everyday French, such as “le rucksac” (the backpack) or “kaputt”.
As another country neighboring Switzerland, Italy also made it high up the rankings. Since South Tyrol belonged to Tyrol until the end of the First World War, German is the native language of most of the inhabitants. The dialect is strongly characterized by Austrian and Bavarian influences.
And according to a survey by the Goethe-Institut, around thirteen percent of the Polish population state that they have a knowledge of German. After English, German is the second most commonly learned foreign language.
The language is particularly widespread in the regions bordering Germany. Words that have crept into everyday Polish are, for example, «urlop» (holiday) or «bad luck».
Historical background common language
According to estimates, around 44 million people in the USA have German ancestors, which corresponds to fourteen percent of the total population. Of these, 1.1 million Americans speak German. Originally immigrated in the 19th century, many Americans with German roots still maintain the traditions and culture today.
In the state of Pennsylvania, some even still speak the German dialect Pennsylvania Dutch. There, for example, the word “backcountry” means remote regions.
In Israel, the German language is closely linked to the Holocaust: After the Second World War, many Jewish immigrants from German-speaking countries found a new home in Israel – and kept their mother tongue or passed it on as a second language. Around 200,000 people speak German. The Yiddish language in particular has a lot in common with German.
In South America, German is mainly present in some parts of Brazil with around 1.1 million German speakers and in Argentina with around 400,000. Here, too, there were waves of immigration from Germany at the beginning of the 20th century and before the First World War. In Argentina there are still influences of the German language. For example: «el kuchen» (the cake).
And in the African countries of Namibia and South Africa, German is an important minority language. About 100,000 people in Namibia and 50,000 in South Africa speak German. This is due to the German colonial history in the region. In Namibia there is still a German-language daily newspaper as well as radio and television stations.
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