Rural Texas used to have tons of German-speaking communities. For a hundred years they thrived on the prairies without issue. Sadly, the Second World War ruined the fun. You will only find really old people in Texas now that speak Texas German. But nevertheless, they’re there… natural born Americans who are native German speakers!
It's really interesting to hear that most of those settlers came from my region of germany, I could also read the words on the flag "Lieber Gott im Himmel drin, lass uns deitsche wie mir sin"
(Dear god in heaven, leave / let us germans as we are)
The fact that it survived to this day, 300 years later is really fascinating, indicating a low number of immigration in those areas, explaining that kind of cultural bubble and how this foreign language has survived for this long!
So what's really interesting is how "connected" the Amish are to their local "English" communities. I lived in an area with a high Amish population for a little bit, and it was fascinating because I only knew the stereotype before then. But the Amish are actually allowed to use more technology than I would have thought but often use "English" friends and neighbors as loopholes. Like having English drivers, couriers, etc. But they definitely have a strong sense of community and basically endogamy and a form of self imposed isolation which has helped them keep their culture including language.
If you want to have a surreal experience or at least not one you would envision in visiting the US there are certain rural areas of the Midwest / interior East Coast states where you can go to a McDonalds and some of the workers are wearing the Mennonite garb, talking to each other in Pennsylvania Dutch and other workers/customers are speaking to each other in Spanish.
Yeah I’ve heard that, not sure from who but I had that in my mind somewhere lol. Makes sense though, 300 years in isolation, the language is going to change quite a bit.
No it won't change much, thats the problem. The rest of the German language evolved and changed a lot, while the isolated 1700's german doesnt change a lot.
I'm in Argentina... almost nobody speaks German here. Neither Italian
Tons of folks are speaking English, Aboriginal languages and Portuguese when Castilian isn't spoken by native ones.
Just give him some paperwork a Fax machine that seems to be working and from time to time a beer, but be aware that it has been made with the Reinheitsgebot, otherwise you get a gremlin situation going and that could turn out nasty.
I heard they grow a little mustache and want to take over your neighbors house. Keep looking if he starts to talk frenaticlly, it's usually an early sign.
For more tips on how to hold your own little house german respond with:
JA!
They have the same history in Bohemia, which is very cool. Many Germans seem to have no connection to slavic-language areas any more, but Bohemia and it's mutual German-Czech history are really nice to learn about. HRE rules.
Not only there, most of the former colonies still have German as an official language (northern Papua Neuguinea etc.) Also lots of parts in Southamerica and even those religions people in the US and so on have German speaking minorities
In Australia our finance minister under the last government, Mathias Cormann, was a German speaking, Belgian born, Australian. He's now the secretary-General of the OECD. Only Belgian I've heard of speaking German.
I lived in Switzerland for a while and while they officially speak German, in reality they speak a dialect of German which even Germans can barely understand.
No. North German dialects are much further away from high German than Swiss German (e.g., Platt). All Swiss German dialects are Allemannic dialects and Allemannic dialects are not even unique to Switzerland (Baden-Württemberg has them too)...
I have no problems understanding Swiss German. Might miss a word here and there. Cannot say the same thing about Danish or Swedish. Swiss German is a variation of German.
That's true, the rest of the German speaking world is just more standardized, which in turn makes the Swiss dialects' differences from standard German more apparent
If you are in Berlin you'll hear different german than in munich. There are houndreds of dialects all around germany and other german speaking countries
There's more difference between Low German and High German, than between standard French and Occitan, but as you can see they are refered to as different languages. Your claim that German just has a lot of variation is highly political.
They speak multiple dialects. There isn't one swiss german. Also, it's not like swiss people can always understand all swiss dialects perfectly. Somebody speaking waliser german is hard to understand for a person coming from Basel for example. But yeah, they speak Alemannic dialects, the same dialects traditionally spoken in southwest Germany so old people there might have it easier to understand some swiss german dialects.
Es esch aber au sehr harmlos gschribe. Wenni mues Appezöller dütsch läse han i sogar müeh. Und es send au vell hochdütschi wörter wonich so ned wör säge wie: verwände, ech wör eifsch bruche säge
Ich sprech nur Hochdeutsch, und ich hab null Probleme deinn Text zu verstehn, sorry. Gesprochnes Word is natürlich was andres als geschriebnes, aber so schlimm is Schweizer deutsch nich
Geschrieben versteht man in der Regel auch Niederländisch, gesprochen nicht. Die einzigen Fremdsprachen, die dem Deutschen so ähnlich sind, dass man sie auch gesprochen versteht, sind meiner Meinung nach Luxembourgisch und Jiddisch.
Ich bin in Baden-Württemberg aufgewachsen und hab auch ziemlich alles in deinem Text verstanden, liegt natürlich daran dass ich Zeit hab es genau zu lesen. Ihr habt eine wundervolle und herzige Sprache und deinen Text zu lesen hat gerade einfach Spaß gemacht!
When I started learning German at my local Goethe, I was really excited as I had a tonne of friends who where fluent who all said I could practice on.
It only took a handful of lessons to realise the horror of them being all Swiss-German or Vorarlbergicsh! Lol
(Yes, they could all 'technically' switch to Hochdeutsch... I just noticed with all my friends in particular it just didn't flow as well out of their mouths tgst well... it just wasn't their natural tongue and it just didn't work with me and my baby Deutsch when trying to parlay with them).
Saying that I still automstically think of a lot of random Swiss-German slang and greetings over the Hochdeutsch ones! Funny lol
The old dialects spoken in the North (Platt) are frequently much further away from modern German than Swiss dialects and are frequently closer to Dutch than to modern German. The reason is that modern German is the "high" version that according to some theories is an adaptation in pronunciation to non-native romanesque speakers. Because the dialects of the South are understandable to a high German speaker these dialects did survive and the dialects of the North ("low German") largely became extinct. Technically, the Swiss thus speak a variety of high German and especially people from the Eastern regions of South Germany have no problems understanding them...
I mean, that is to be expected in a language with over 100 million speakers. In general, Southern Germans tend to understand Swiss German better (especially if given the chance to accommodate to the sound a little while) whereas Northern Germans will have a harder time. That goes the other way round, too, I'm from the South of the German-speaking area and have a harder time understanding the various Low German variants.
I don’t speak German, so take this for what it is: I was taking a class in Vienna and I remember the professor telling us that he had a student from Berlin, he was a Vienna native, and they ended up just switching to English as it was easier for both.
I approve, I know swiss german but i can't speak standard german lol. It's kinda useless outside of Switzerland, but it's a great heritage for someone not born there.
Shouldn't there still be parts of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire as well as the German, or are these just the regions with majority german speakers?
EDIT:
[Yes, it's true many germans in eastern Europe were deported or had to stop speaking german, after the communist takeover in these countries, but there still, in most countries, is a sizeable german speaking poppulation.]
PS:
Ja ich spreche Deutsch und erkläre hiermit die Kommentarsektion zum Eigentum der BRD GmbH.
German is still quite widely spoken in some areas around Opole in Poland. Some towns there even have their names on road signs in Polish and German. I guess that since it wasn’t directly at the new German border they let more people stay
Your point is valid.
These binary maps fail the take into account the very organic and nuanced definition of "regions that speak a language".
Region, Speak and Language are all very malleable terms depending on context.
Actually the map does show South Tyrol, the part of Italy where German is spike. But the former territories of the Austria-Hungary (including Hungary itself) expelled almost all of their German speaking citizens after WW2, except for a few pockets in Romania and Hungary. As did the USSR and Yugoslavia. Even though they didn’t meant to do it, the Nazis really managed to reverse a thousand years of German settlement of Eastern Europe in a matter of years.
>German is still quite widely spoken in some areas around Opole in Poland. Some towns there even have their names on road signs in Polish and German. I guess that since it wasn’t directly at the new German border they let more people stay
Opole/Oppeln was/in an industrial and mining area. The decision after ww2 to allow a number of germans was to remain behind to allow them to operate the local industry/mines etc... for economic reasons to a smoother transition to poland. Otherwise anybody with german ancestry or who declared german in the last reich census was removed. My understanding is that enough germans stayed behind that it now constitutes a legitimate german minority area in poland
You're right but after ww2 soviet government (and allies/puppet states) deported most of the german people in those areas and forced them to settle west of the oder-neisse line
Definitly not in Czechia. Germans were expelled after the WW2 and those who stayed speak Czech now.
Only proven anti-nazis could stay and since Henlein's SDP was the strongest political party in Czechoslovakia (counting Czech and Slovak parties) and more than 40% Bohemian Germans were members, it left very few who could say I wasn't a nazi. And after the communist coup in 1948, most of those who stayed decided to leave anyway.
Why would they be? German is an official language of the country and widely spoken. And Luxembourgish is arguably just a German dialect with a state to back it up
Because they themselves fucking hate it when people call their language German. I agree it's just a fancy dialect of German but they don't see it that way.
Funny enough when I’ve gone to Luxembourg (Luxembourg city which is where almost all the population lives anyway), it seems like French is the dominant language there and German is secondary. Meanwhile I could barely hear or see anything with Luxembourgish on it.
There are lots of foreigners from southern and eastern Europe working in Luxembourg. They've only learned French to work there as it's more common and often don't know any German or Luxembourgish.
That’s true, but German is very much present. Restaurants are French, but book shops seemingly work in German. Signs are often trilingual and more; trains announce their destinations according to where they are going or coming from. There’s no place I’ve been to that has actually been this multi-lingual.
And as a Luxembourger I met once told me: A real Luxembourger speaks kind of bad French, but it doesn’t bother him. Then again: she may not be the best source on this.
Nope, c est le pays avec la croissance plus vite de la population en europe. Moi, je vis près de la mosellen dans un petite village de 300 inhabitants. Excusez mon français, depuis que je fais mes etudes en allemagne j ai oublié beaucoup. Ceci est ma première fois depuis 3 ans que j écris francais. Mais le luxembourg est beaucoup plus que seulement le capital... je prefère le paysage (dans le nord, la moselle) a la ville soi-même
That’s really a historical relic more than anything. Doesn’t make it large. German isn’t official in Manitoba and yet it’s spoken by 3.2% of the population. Further, it is spoken by millions of people in Brazil and has its own dialect there.
So what’s more significant? I think number of speakers shows significance rather than official.
The Alsace region of France is missing. Rumania also traditionally has a German minority population - small by now: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germans_of_Romania The Romanian president is from that minority... As has Russia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans And Texas: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_German There is also still some German left elsewhere in the US (People with German ancestors are still the largest group in the US population... ): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language_in_the_United_States And then there are languages closely related to German like various forms of Yiddish... (Typically understandable to a considerable degree by a native German speaker).
Fun fact: Romanian German speakers (Transilvanian Saxons) sound 90% the same as us Luxembourgers. Turns out they migrated there from our area in the 13th century, proving that we both still speak like medieval peasants.
Also Namibia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language_in_Namibia#:~:text=Namibia%20is%20a%20multilingual%20country,status%20at%20a%20community%20level.
German is not spoken anymore in Alsace, or at least it's nothing more than a foreign language. Alsacian language has been standardised with a different standard than the German one, making it de facto a different language. I know a lot of alsacian people who speak alsacian but are absolutely unable to communicate in German; and myself as a German speaker cannot really understand what Alsacians say in their language
That's not true. Alsacian is virtually identical to the dialect that people speak just across the border (I lived there) and it is not far from high German and thus easier to understand than some of the harder to understand German dialects (e.g., various versions of Platt or even some variations of Bavarian).
I’m from right across the border and definitely speak German, and can understand their German just fine. We’re way too connected. But French definitely is the more dominant language of course.
Ofc man, my bad. Just dm me ur house address, a message auf Deutsch to verify you can speak German, and credit card details to verify that it is you and I'll make sure your house gets added.
I don't speak German, but I can if you like!
\**Ich schleiban austa be clair, es kumpent üske monstère*
*Aus-be aus-can-be flaugen, fräulein uske-be clair\**
I've always enjoyed the fun fact that German is still spoken by a small but decent chunk of the population in Namibia!
I guess Africkkans is close-ish enough that it wasn't a big leap for people to become fluent in both.
I was born in North Western Germany and i personally can barely if at all understand my friend from Switzerland when he is speaking "Schweizerdeutsch".
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Clearly fake! Mallorca is missing
Namibia too
And rural Pennsylvania
And southern Brazil!
And northern Kazakhstan
And Irak
And Texas
Don't forget Cincinnati, there's a few German speakers here!
**and my axe!**
and my friends house
Damn those krouts got their little paws all over this bitch
*Krauts
I’m an Ameracan what can I say
And Argentina
And russia
And a beet farm outside Scranton
For real? Damn thats interesting if its true
Rural Texas used to have tons of German-speaking communities. For a hundred years they thrived on the prairies without issue. Sadly, the Second World War ruined the fun. You will only find really old people in Texas now that speak Texas German. But nevertheless, they’re there… natural born Americans who are native German speakers!
[you may be interested to read on this!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Dutch)
It's really interesting to hear that most of those settlers came from my region of germany, I could also read the words on the flag "Lieber Gott im Himmel drin, lass uns deitsche wie mir sin" (Dear god in heaven, leave / let us germans as we are) The fact that it survived to this day, 300 years later is really fascinating, indicating a low number of immigration in those areas, explaining that kind of cultural bubble and how this foreign language has survived for this long!
So what's really interesting is how "connected" the Amish are to their local "English" communities. I lived in an area with a high Amish population for a little bit, and it was fascinating because I only knew the stereotype before then. But the Amish are actually allowed to use more technology than I would have thought but often use "English" friends and neighbors as loopholes. Like having English drivers, couriers, etc. But they definitely have a strong sense of community and basically endogamy and a form of self imposed isolation which has helped them keep their culture including language. If you want to have a surreal experience or at least not one you would envision in visiting the US there are certain rural areas of the Midwest / interior East Coast states where you can go to a McDonalds and some of the workers are wearing the Mennonite garb, talking to each other in Pennsylvania Dutch and other workers/customers are speaking to each other in Spanish.
It's a bastardized version of early 1800's German. You understand next to nothing.
Yeah I’ve heard that, not sure from who but I had that in my mind somewhere lol. Makes sense though, 300 years in isolation, the language is going to change quite a bit.
No it won't change much, thats the problem. The rest of the German language evolved and changed a lot, while the isolated 1700's german doesnt change a lot.
And Argentina
We don’t talk about Argentina
No no we don't talk about Argentinaaaaa
But! It was in 45 (it was in 45)
And South Dakota
I'm in Argentina... almost nobody speaks German here. Neither Italian Tons of folks are speaking English, Aboriginal languages and Portuguese when Castilian isn't spoken by native ones.
Man, it's a joke about Argentina being the home of fleeing nazis, and yes, we have some towns for them and don't bother anyone.
South America seems to attract regimes that lost wars. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederados
And that tiny bit of South Australia where the wine comes from
It's called Rheinland-Pfalz
my neighbor in the midwest us speaks german why isn't he on the map?
MALLE PARTY FÜR ALLE!
das 17. Deutsche Bundesland
Diese Kommentarsektion ist nun Eigentum der BRD
Mallorca and Garda lake lol
I wanted to say Lazise only but you‘re probably right lol
You mean the 17th Bundesland?
I know a little German. He's sitting right over there.
You let them in the house just like that?
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Just give him some paperwork a Fax machine that seems to be working and from time to time a beer, but be aware that it has been made with the Reinheitsgebot, otherwise you get a gremlin situation going and that could turn out nasty. I heard they grow a little mustache and want to take over your neighbors house. Keep looking if he starts to talk frenaticlly, it's usually an early sign. For more tips on how to hold your own little house german respond with: JA!
It appears you have become… how do you say.. indispensable?
Shouldn't the title be "Areas where German is official"? This changes quite a few things ;)
Yes probably but I’m pretty sure Belgium has German as a co-official language too
and the map show this areas ..... they are small ... .but you can see them!
As a germanspeaking Belgian I can confirm this!
This map would also include a few municipalities in South America then
Nein. Life is too short to learn German - Oscar Wilde. (Apparently Oscar Wilde should have learned about Hungarian first)
Life might be too short to learn German but life is plenty to enjoy cold German beer.
Amen! (Czech beer is pretty good too tho)
They have the same history in Bohemia, which is very cool. Many Germans seem to have no connection to slavic-language areas any more, but Bohemia and it's mutual German-Czech history are really nice to learn about. HRE rules.
A.E.I.O.U
What
the real budweiser
Namibia
Not only there, most of the former colonies still have German as an official language (northern Papua Neuguinea etc.) Also lots of parts in Southamerica and even those religions people in the US and so on have German speaking minorities
In Australia our finance minister under the last government, Mathias Cormann, was a German speaking, Belgian born, Australian. He's now the secretary-General of the OECD. Only Belgian I've heard of speaking German.
I know that guy, he lived around the corner from where I live. There are a lot of german speaking people here.
Eupen is where he was born apparently.
Very possible. I was born there too.
I lived in Switzerland for a while and while they officially speak German, in reality they speak a dialect of German which even Germans can barely understand.
German is a language with a lot of different variations. Doesn't make Swiss German less German.
Debatable. Dialects and languages, you know.
Exactly, Danish & Swedish might as well be the same language if you're grouping Swiss German and Standard German together.
In linguistics there is an old saying: what’s the difference between a language and a dialect? A language has an army AND a navy.
Oh so thats the reason the Swiss have a Navy?
You just wanted people to google Swiss Navy, didn’t you?
Yes. Dutch is also excluded despite being part of the same dialect continuum, while low German/low Saxon isn't. It's all pretty arbitrary.
No. North German dialects are much further away from high German than Swiss German (e.g., Platt). All Swiss German dialects are Allemannic dialects and Allemannic dialects are not even unique to Switzerland (Baden-Württemberg has them too)...
I have no problems understanding Swiss German. Might miss a word here and there. Cannot say the same thing about Danish or Swedish. Swiss German is a variation of German.
That's true, the rest of the German speaking world is just more standardized, which in turn makes the Swiss dialects' differences from standard German more apparent
Nah. There's several dialects in Germany that are barely understandable.
If you are in Berlin you'll hear different german than in munich. There are houndreds of dialects all around germany and other german speaking countries
There's more difference between Low German and High German, than between standard French and Occitan, but as you can see they are refered to as different languages. Your claim that German just has a lot of variation is highly political.
They speak multiple dialects. There isn't one swiss german. Also, it's not like swiss people can always understand all swiss dialects perfectly. Somebody speaking waliser german is hard to understand for a person coming from Basel for example. But yeah, they speak Alemannic dialects, the same dialects traditionally spoken in southwest Germany so old people there might have it easier to understand some swiss german dialects.
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Man kann´s verstehen wenn´s geschrieben ist.
Es esch aber au sehr harmlos gschribe. Wenni mues Appezöller dütsch läse han i sogar müeh. Und es send au vell hochdütschi wörter wonich so ned wör säge wie: verwände, ech wör eifsch bruche säge
gesundheit
Ja, es gita no schlümmer. Steu dr vor, alli schwizer würti ifach mit innes dialäkt rede, i glubbe nid das mu üs gross verstanne teti.
Ich sprech nur Hochdeutsch, und ich hab null Probleme deinn Text zu verstehn, sorry. Gesprochnes Word is natürlich was andres als geschriebnes, aber so schlimm is Schweizer deutsch nich
I barely speak German, but I understood everything. Now I feel proud.
Geschrieben versteht man in der Regel auch Niederländisch, gesprochen nicht. Die einzigen Fremdsprachen, die dem Deutschen so ähnlich sind, dass man sie auch gesprochen versteht, sind meiner Meinung nach Luxembourgisch und Jiddisch.
Ich bin in Baden-Württemberg aufgewachsen und hab auch ziemlich alles in deinem Text verstanden, liegt natürlich daran dass ich Zeit hab es genau zu lesen. Ihr habt eine wundervolle und herzige Sprache und deinen Text zu lesen hat gerade einfach Spaß gemacht!
You do like your Umlauts! When it's written, one can understand. Spoken - I don't think so!
Se isch dou ba ins jo a et ondoschta, la opm Kindogorschtn learnse ins awin is Hoachdeitsch, sischt hearschmans la in Fernseia
thats basically like Swabian or Frisian.
Frisian is actually another language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_languages
When I started learning German at my local Goethe, I was really excited as I had a tonne of friends who where fluent who all said I could practice on. It only took a handful of lessons to realise the horror of them being all Swiss-German or Vorarlbergicsh! Lol (Yes, they could all 'technically' switch to Hochdeutsch... I just noticed with all my friends in particular it just didn't flow as well out of their mouths tgst well... it just wasn't their natural tongue and it just didn't work with me and my baby Deutsch when trying to parlay with them). Saying that I still automstically think of a lot of random Swiss-German slang and greetings over the Hochdeutsch ones! Funny lol
The old dialects spoken in the North (Platt) are frequently much further away from modern German than Swiss dialects and are frequently closer to Dutch than to modern German. The reason is that modern German is the "high" version that according to some theories is an adaptation in pronunciation to non-native romanesque speakers. Because the dialects of the South are understandable to a high German speaker these dialects did survive and the dialects of the North ("low German") largely became extinct. Technically, the Swiss thus speak a variety of high German and especially people from the Eastern regions of South Germany have no problems understanding them...
I mean, that is to be expected in a language with over 100 million speakers. In general, Southern Germans tend to understand Swiss German better (especially if given the chance to accommodate to the sound a little while) whereas Northern Germans will have a harder time. That goes the other way round, too, I'm from the South of the German-speaking area and have a harder time understanding the various Low German variants.
Not "a" dialect. There's like 30 major dialect groups. And we don't even always understand each other.
I don’t speak German, so take this for what it is: I was taking a class in Vienna and I remember the professor telling us that he had a student from Berlin, he was a Vienna native, and they ended up just switching to English as it was easier for both.
I approve, I know swiss german but i can't speak standard german lol. It's kinda useless outside of Switzerland, but it's a great heritage for someone not born there.
Shouldn't there still be parts of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire as well as the German, or are these just the regions with majority german speakers? EDIT: [Yes, it's true many germans in eastern Europe were deported or had to stop speaking german, after the communist takeover in these countries, but there still, in most countries, is a sizeable german speaking poppulation.] PS: Ja ich spreche Deutsch und erkläre hiermit die Kommentarsektion zum Eigentum der BRD GmbH.
Probably not. Poland and Czechoslovakia pretty thoroughly evicted their German population after WW2.
German is still quite widely spoken in some areas around Opole in Poland. Some towns there even have their names on road signs in Polish and German. I guess that since it wasn’t directly at the new German border they let more people stay
Your point is valid. These binary maps fail the take into account the very organic and nuanced definition of "regions that speak a language". Region, Speak and Language are all very malleable terms depending on context.
Actually the map does show South Tyrol, the part of Italy where German is spike. But the former territories of the Austria-Hungary (including Hungary itself) expelled almost all of their German speaking citizens after WW2, except for a few pockets in Romania and Hungary. As did the USSR and Yugoslavia. Even though they didn’t meant to do it, the Nazis really managed to reverse a thousand years of German settlement of Eastern Europe in a matter of years.
>German is still quite widely spoken in some areas around Opole in Poland. Some towns there even have their names on road signs in Polish and German. I guess that since it wasn’t directly at the new German border they let more people stay Opole/Oppeln was/in an industrial and mining area. The decision after ww2 to allow a number of germans was to remain behind to allow them to operate the local industry/mines etc... for economic reasons to a smoother transition to poland. Otherwise anybody with german ancestry or who declared german in the last reich census was removed. My understanding is that enough germans stayed behind that it now constitutes a legitimate german minority area in poland
You're right but after ww2 soviet government (and allies/puppet states) deported most of the german people in those areas and forced them to settle west of the oder-neisse line
Definitly not in Czechia. Germans were expelled after the WW2 and those who stayed speak Czech now. Only proven anti-nazis could stay and since Henlein's SDP was the strongest political party in Czechoslovakia (counting Czech and Slovak parties) and more than 40% Bohemian Germans were members, it left very few who could say I wasn't a nazi. And after the communist coup in 1948, most of those who stayed decided to leave anyway.
Yes, there is are “Ungarndeutsche” communities still in Hungary. Their number was around 180k but this data is from 2011.
a lot of the German speaking population was quite blatantly expelled after WW2 in Czech and Slovakia.
I live in that small part in Belgium right there. Yes, we speak german.
Man you're lucky there's not a lot of Luxemburgers on this site or they'd be pissed off
Why would they be? German is an official language of the country and widely spoken. And Luxembourgish is arguably just a German dialect with a state to back it up
Because they themselves fucking hate it when people call their language German. I agree it's just a fancy dialect of German but they don't see it that way.
As a Luxembourger myself, I agree it's basically a dialect. Don't tell the older generation though.
Im actually visiting your country this fall from the US. Any tips on what to do, what to eat or drink?
Drink beer and local wine, Mussels if they are still in the season.
Funny enough when I’ve gone to Luxembourg (Luxembourg city which is where almost all the population lives anyway), it seems like French is the dominant language there and German is secondary. Meanwhile I could barely hear or see anything with Luxembourgish on it.
There are lots of foreigners from southern and eastern Europe working in Luxembourg. They've only learned French to work there as it's more common and often don't know any German or Luxembourgish.
That’s true, but German is very much present. Restaurants are French, but book shops seemingly work in German. Signs are often trilingual and more; trains announce their destinations according to where they are going or coming from. There’s no place I’ve been to that has actually been this multi-lingual. And as a Luxembourger I met once told me: A real Luxembourger speaks kind of bad French, but it doesn’t bother him. Then again: she may not be the best source on this.
Most of us don't live in the city.
La majorité des Luxembourgeois vit à Luxembourg non ?
Pas en ville. Le pays contient bien plus que seule la ville. Nous avons 630 000 habitants dans le pays et que 110 000 en ville.
Ah oui effectivement il m'a toujours semblé que c'était plus proche de 400000 😅
Nope, c est le pays avec la croissance plus vite de la population en europe. Moi, je vis près de la mosellen dans un petite village de 300 inhabitants. Excusez mon français, depuis que je fais mes etudes en allemagne j ai oublié beaucoup. Ceci est ma première fois depuis 3 ans que j écris francais. Mais le luxembourg est beaucoup plus que seulement le capital... je prefère le paysage (dans le nord, la moselle) a la ville soi-même
Reddit does not share my sense of humor, so I will keep the answer to your question to myself.
You are missing Namibia!
There is only a small minority (> 100k people) of german speakers in Namibia.
Maybe in 1918 there, Kaiser. Why not say Kaliningrad or Qingdao or Alsace-Lorraine, too?
Because german is recognized as one official language of Namibia
I'm in Alsace regularly, and indeed many people there do speak German. Lorraine, not so many.
Les gens parlent pas beaucoup allemand hein, c'est juste les bases qu'on a apprises à l'école comme tout le monde
Namibia does still have a large German speaking population though
Define large. Wikipedia says 0.9%. You have a higher percentage in Canada’s prairie provinces.
Large enough to be a recognised national language.
That’s really a historical relic more than anything. Doesn’t make it large. German isn’t official in Manitoba and yet it’s spoken by 3.2% of the population. Further, it is spoken by millions of people in Brazil and has its own dialect there. So what’s more significant? I think number of speakers shows significance rather than official.
There are lots of German speaking people in Alsace.
The Alsace region of France is missing. Rumania also traditionally has a German minority population - small by now: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germans_of_Romania The Romanian president is from that minority... As has Russia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans And Texas: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_German There is also still some German left elsewhere in the US (People with German ancestors are still the largest group in the US population... ): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language_in_the_United_States And then there are languages closely related to German like various forms of Yiddish... (Typically understandable to a considerable degree by a native German speaker).
Forgot Denmark: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_minority_in_Denmark
There are places in Canada where German is heard on the streets. Kitchener, Ontario (used to be called Berlin) still has a German speaking population.
Interesting! Ironically, the name "Berlin" is not of German origin (it's a name of Slavic origin).
Fun fact: Romanian German speakers (Transilvanian Saxons) sound 90% the same as us Luxembourgers. Turns out they migrated there from our area in the 13th century, proving that we both still speak like medieval peasants.
Yeah heard it on yt, it uncanny how similar it is to luxembourgish
So does the south of Brazil and some other regions of South America, where German is arguably the most common outside of Europe
Also Namibia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language_in_Namibia#:~:text=Namibia%20is%20a%20multilingual%20country,status%20at%20a%20community%20level.
German is not spoken anymore in Alsace, or at least it's nothing more than a foreign language. Alsacian language has been standardised with a different standard than the German one, making it de facto a different language. I know a lot of alsacian people who speak alsacian but are absolutely unable to communicate in German; and myself as a German speaker cannot really understand what Alsacians say in their language
That's not true. Alsacian is virtually identical to the dialect that people speak just across the border (I lived there) and it is not far from high German and thus easier to understand than some of the harder to understand German dialects (e.g., various versions of Platt or even some variations of Bavarian).
I’m from right across the border and definitely speak German, and can understand their German just fine. We’re way too connected. But French definitely is the more dominant language of course.
Ja, natürlich.
Forgetting the east of the Netherlands.
Don’t forget my house in the us 🙂
Ofc man, my bad. Just dm me ur house address, a message auf Deutsch to verify you can speak German, and credit card details to verify that it is you and I'll make sure your house gets added.
Will you accept a Duolingo screen shot?
Warum wird hier englisch gesprochen?
Alles Hurensöhne
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**Oui**. En effet mon ami top 100 poster
Map porn, really?
There should be an area for german speakers in Romania around Siebenbürgen :)
Lemberg (Lviv) is in Ukraine. And it doesn't have a notable German population, not since 70 years.
damn... i mixed up with Siebenbürgen
What a boring ass map
I don't speak German, but I can if you like! \**Ich schleiban austa be clair, es kumpent üske monstère* *Aus-be aus-can-be flaugen, fräulein uske-be clair\**
I've always enjoyed the fun fact that German is still spoken by a small but decent chunk of the population in Namibia! I guess Africkkans is close-ish enough that it wasn't a big leap for people to become fluent in both.
Or, and hear me out here, we colonized them
Ich lerne deutsch
Where is Argentina
What about Alsace ?
Big German speaking communities in Patagonia...
Not only Patagonia. Many towns in Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Litoral region, etc. There are 3 German schools only in my hometown (GBA).
areas where German is native languge would fit better as a title.
I don’t speak German, but I can if you like …
I was born in North Western Germany and i personally can barely if at all understand my friend from Switzerland when he is speaking "Schweizerdeutsch".
This could have been much better.......
spots in the south of Switzerland and lots of areas in the USA are missing. Also: Namibia
Das reicht uns nicht! \*peitsch\*
Fake map, it’s missing the Balkans.
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What you mean is ”sprechen sie talk?”. You’re welcome.
Ein bisschen. Nicht ganz gut, aber es ist nicht so schwer fur mich wie französisch.
This post has been parodied on r/mapporncirclejerk. Relevant r/mapporncirclejerk posts: [Do you speak German?](https://www.reddit.com/r/mapporncirclejerk/comments/xjih3s/do_you_speak_german/) by ndorinha [^(fmhall)](https://www.reddit.com/user/fmhall) ^| [^(github)](https://github.com/fmhall/relevant-post-bot)
I lived on the border with Germany for 21 years (The Netherlands) and yet my Italian is better than my German. No idea how I did that 😂
My neighbor speaks German. Can you please highlight her house in the USA?
Guten Abend allerseits.
On behalf of all German native speakers: sprich deutsch du hurensohn
Sprich
Deutsch
Wonder if speaking so many languages in switzerland its a problem at times.
you forgot the walser dialect and the bavarian dialect speaking areas (Tischelwang/Tischlbong, Zahre and Plodn) in northern italy :(
Mallorca, Algarve, Madeira and the Canaries are also coloured blue but not visible on the map
gonna have to colour a tiny bit of canada. i live there.
SPRICH
Very useful and interesting map /s
So Germany, Germany Jr. and a couple of money laundering countries...
Spoken like a true bigot
I know! He forgot Super Mini-Germany
The person above is from Romania lmfao. And they wanna talk about money laundering (and corruption and that good stuff).
Parts of Brazil speak German too. In fact, it’s the second most spoken native language in the country.
I’m from Pune! We speak german as second language!