German Language Facts

German is one of the main cultural languages of the Western world, spoken by approximately 100 million people. It is the national language of Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and is one of the four official languages of Switzerland. Additionally it is spoken in eastern France, in the region formerly known as Alsace-Lorraine, in northern Italy in the region of Alto Adige (Südtirol), and also in eastern Belgium (Eupen) and Luxembourg. There are about one and a half million speakers of German in the United States, 500,000 in Canada and sizable colonies as well in South America and such far-flung countries as Namibia and Kazakhstan Like the other Germanic languages, German is a member of the Indo-European family. Written German is quite uniform but spoken dialects vary considerably, sometimes to the point where communication becomes a problem. The dialects fall within two general divisions: High German (Hochdeutsch), spoken in the highlands of the south, and Low German (Plattdeutsch), spoken in the lowlands of the north. High German is the standard written language, used almost exclusively in books and newspapers, even in the regions where Low German is more commonly spoken.