German Language
German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and (co-)official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol (Italy), the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein; it is also an official, but not majority language of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, and English. It is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English.
One of the major languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide and the most widely spoken native language in the European Union.German also is the third most widely taught foreign language in both the US (after Spanish and French) and the EU (after English and French; at lower secondary level),the second most commonly used scientific language as well as the third most widely used language on websites (after English and Russian) The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one tenth of all books (including e-books) in the world being published in the German language.
German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.A portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants (German, Austrian, and Swiss Standard German), German is a pluricentric language. Like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world.Due to the limited intelligibility between certain varieties and Standard German, as well as the lack of an undisputed, scientific difference between a "dialect" and a language some German varieties or dialect groups (e.g. Low German or Plautdietsch) are alternatively referred to as languages and dialects.
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