As one of the most influential languages of the Western hemisphere, German gained prominence in Europe through the works and thoughts of its greatest writers such as Goethe, Kafka and G?nter Grass. Famous to German learners as a hard language to master, the countries listed below have German as their native or part-native language:
| Country | Languages (%) |
|---|---|
| Argentina | Spanish (official), Italian, English, German, French |
| Austria | German (official nationwide) 88.6%, Turkish 2.3%, Serbian 2.2%, Croatian (official in Burgenland) 1.6%, other (includes Slovene, official in Carinthia, and Hungarian, official in Burgenland) 5.3% (2001 census) |
| Belgium | Dutch (official) 60%, French (official) 40%, German (official) less than 1%, legally bilingual (Dutch and French) |
| Belize | Spanish 46%, Creole 32.9%, Mayan dialects 8.9%, English 3.9% (official), Garifuna 3.4% (Carib), German 3.3%, other 1.4%, unknown 0.2% (2000 census) |
| Brazil | Portuguese (official and most widely spoken language); note - less common languages include Spanish (border areas and schools), German, Italian, Japanese, English, and a large number of minor Amerindian languages |
| Chile | Spanish (official), Mapudungun, German, English |
| Croatia | Croatian 96.1%, Serbian 1%, other and undesignated 2.9% (including Italian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, and German) (2001 census) |
| Denmark | Danish, Faroese, Greenlandic (an Inuit dialect), German (small minority)
note: English is the predominant second language |
| European Union | Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Gaelic, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish
note: only official languages are listed; German, the major language of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, is the most widely spoken mother tongue - over 19% of the EU population; English is the most widely spoken language - about 49% of the EU population is conversant with it (2007) |
| Germany | German |
| Iceland | Icelandic, English, Nordic languages, German widely spoken |
| Italy | Italian (official), German (parts of Trentino-Alto Adige region are predominantly German speaking), French (small French-speaking minority in Valle d'Aosta region), Slovene (Slovene-speaking minority in the Trieste-Gorizia area) |
| Liechtenstein | German (official), Alemannic dialect |
| Luxembourg | Luxembourgish (national language), German (administrative language), French (administrative language) |
| Namibia | English 7% (official), Afrikaans common language of most of the population and about 60% of the white population, German 32%, indigenous languages 1% (includes Oshivambo, Herero, Nama) |
| Switzerland | German (official) 63.7%, French (official) 20.4%, Italian (official) 6.5%, Serbo-Croatian 1.5%, Albanian 1.3%, Portuguese 1.2%, Spanish 1.1%, English 1%, Romansch (official) 0.5%, other 2.8% (2000 census)
note: German, French, Italian, and Romansch are all national and official languages |
| World | Mandarin Chinese 13.22%, Spanish 4.88%, English 4.68%, Arabic 3.12%, Hindi 2.74%, Portuguese 2.69%, Bengali 2.59%, Russian 2.2%, Japanese 1.85%, Standard German 1.44%, French 1.2% (2005 est.)
note: percents are for "first language" speakers only |
Source: CIA – The World Factbook