German (lang: Deutsch, ) is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by about 80 million non-native speakers. Standard German is widely taught in schools, universities and Goethe Institutes worldwide.

Europe

main: German-speaking Europe see: German as a minority language German is spoken primarily in Germany (first language for more than 95% of the population), Austria (89%) and Switzerland (64%) together with Liechtenstein, Luxembourg (D-A-CH-Li-Lux) constituting the countries where German is the majority language.

Other European German-speaking communities are found in Northern Italy (Bolzano-Bozen), in the East Cantons of Belgium, in the French Alsace region which often was traded between Germany and France in history and in some border villages of the former South Jutland County (in German, Nordschleswig, in Danish, Sønderjylland) of Denmark.

Some German-speaking communities still survive in parts of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and above all Russia and Kazakhstan, although forced expulsions after World War II and massive emigration to Germany in the 1980s and 1990s have depopulated most of these communities. It is also spoken by German-speaking foreign populations and some of their descendants in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Italy, Morocco, Netherlands, Portugal, Scandinavia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia and Slovenia).

A considerable proportion of the native population speak German dialects in Luxembourg and the surrounding areas. Some people also master standard German (especially in Luxembourg), although in the French regions of Alsace (German: Elsass) and Lorraine (German: Lothringen) French has replaced the local German dialects as the official language, even though it has not been fully replaced on the street.

Overseas

main: German diaspora

South America

In Brazil the largest concentrations of German speakers are in Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch was developed), Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo and Espírito Santo, and large German-speaking descendant communities in Argentina, Paraguay and Chile. In the 20th century, over 100,000 German political refugees and invited entrepreneurs settled in Latin America, such as Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic to establish German-speaking enclaves, and there is a reportedly small German immigration to Puerto Rico. Nearly all inhabitants of the city of Pomerode in the state of Santa Catarina in Brazil speak German.