Jump to content

German-speaking Europe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Moorstone (talk | contribs) at 10:30, 9 March 2009 (→Official status). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

German language skills of European Union citizens (plus Croatia, Switzerland, Turkey and some Microstates).

The German language (both as an official language and as a minority language) is spoken in a number of countries and territories in West and Central Europe (Deutscher Sprachraum). To cover this speech area they are often referred to as the German speaking countries, the German speaking area, or equivalently German-speaking Europe (the few overseas territories which speak German are not commonly included in the concept). Together with English-speaking Europe, the Nordic countries and the Dutch-speaking area, German-speaking Europe forms Germanic Europe.

German is the main language of about 90–95 million people in Europe (as of 2004), or 13.3% of all Europeans, being the second most spoken native language in Europe after Russian, above French (66.5 million speakers in 2004) and English (64.2 million speakers in 2004).

The European countries with German-speaking majorities are Germany (95%, 78.3 million), Austria (89%, 7.4 million), Switzerland (64%, 4.6 million) ("D-A-CH"), Luxembourg (0.48 million) and Liechtenstein (0.03 million).

D-A-CH

D-A-CH
Location of D-A-CH
Official languagesGerman
Membership
Website
www.d-a-ch.org[dead link]

D-A-CH or DACH is an acronym used to represent the dominant states of the German language Sprachraum. It is based on the official automobile license plate abbreviations for:

"Dach" is also the German word for "roof", and is used in linguistics in the term Dachsprache, which standard German arguably is in relation to some outlying dialects of German, especially in Switzerland and Austria.

The term is sometimes extended to D-A-CH-Li or DACHL to include Liechtenstein.

DACH is also the name of an Interreg IIIA project, which focuses on crossborder cooperation in planning.[1]

Official status

Official language power torque top speed (saloon) years
Petrol engines

German speaking minorities without official status

Main articles: German as a minority language and German diaspora

Owing to tourism and second-home colonies some areas around the Mediterranean Sea (like the Balearic Islands) have small German-speaking communities.

German as a foreign language

German was once the lingua franca of Central, Eastern and Northern Europe and remains one of the most popular foreign languages in Europe. 32% of citizens of the EU-15 countries say they can converse in German (either as a mother tongue or as a second/foreign language). [1] This is assisted by the widespread availability of German TV by cable or satellite. German competence is highest in the Netherlands and Denmark, where the native languages are most similar to German, making it relatively easy for the natives to learn German; and in Slovenia, due to centuries of political and cultural connections with the German-language area. These two factors also account for relatively high German competence in Sweden, Belgium, (Similar native languages) the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Croatia (historical connections).

German is the third most taught foreign language worldwide, including the United States;[5] it is the second most known foreign language in the EU.[6] It is one of the official languages of the European Union, and one of the three working languages of the European Commission, along with English and French.

The learning of German as a foreign language is promoted by the Goethe Institute, which works to promote German language and culture wordwide. In association with the Goethe Institute, the German foreign broadcasting service, Deutsche Welle offers a range of online German courses and radio broadcasts produced with non-native German speakers in mind.

Culture

Further information: German language literature

German-speaking people include composers (e.g. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Mahler or Schönberg), lyrical poetry and literature (e.g. Walter von der Vogelweide, Goethe, the Brothers Grimm, Schiller, Heine, Brecht or Thomas Mann as well as important works written by authors as the Nibelungenlied or Ludwigslied) and scientific philosophy (e.g. Albertus Magnus, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Wittgenstein or Adorno).

These cultures are quite diverse as a result of the varied history of the German speaking people. The German speaking world has consisted of independent principalities (e.g: Liechtenstein), of larger confederations, (e.g: the Holy Roman Empire, Prussia or the Confederation of the Rhine), or of political units (e.g:Bohemia), or of political states (e.g:Germany, Austria; etc.)

The German language was once the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe, and remains one of the most popular foreign languages taught worldwide, and in Europe it is the second most popular after English [7]

See also

References

  1. ^ "DACH+ Raumentwicklung im Grenzraum von Deutschland, Österreich, Schweiz und Liechtenstein" (in German). DACH. Retrieved 2008-03-22. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)[dead link]
  2. ^ http://portal.monks.ba/kongres/OBiH/JezikuBiH/tabid/246/Default.aspx
  3. ^ http://www.prolog-berlin.com/en/german-language-course-german-language.htm
  4. ^ http://wikitravel.org/en/Bosnia_and_Herzegovina#Talk
  5. ^ After Spanish and French
  6. ^ After English; "Europeans and Language" (PDF). European Commission. 2005. Retrieved 2007-12-08.
  7. ^ Eurobarometer: Europeans and Languages from September 2005 (Languages most commonly used in the EU: 47% English, 30% German, 23% French)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=German-speaking_Europe&oldid=276006661"