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German is also widely taught as a foreign language, especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, [ 11 ] and the third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 ...
Due to the German diaspora, many other countries with sizable populations of (mostly bilingual) German L1 speakers include Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Peru, Paraguay, as well as the United States. [21] However, in none of these countries does German or a German variety have any legal status.
Mostly depending on the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties with a disputed status as separate languages or which were later acknowledged as separate languages (e.g., Low German/Plautdietsch [1]), it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language, [2] [3] [4] 10–25 million as a second language ...
In some contexts, people of German descent are also called Germans. [2] [1] In historical discussions the term "Germans" is also occasionally used to refer to the Germanic peoples during the time of the Roman Empire. [1] [9] [10] The German endonym Deutsche is derived from the Old High German term diutisc, which means "ethnic" or "relating to ...
Germanic religion is principally defined as the religious traditions of speakers of Germanic languages (the Germanic peoples). [2] The term "religion" in this context is itself controversial, Bernhard Maier noting that it "implies a specifically modern point of view, which reflects the modern conceptual isolation of 'religion' from other ...
The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. [13] The German term Deutschland, originally diutisciu land ('the German lands'), is derived from deutsch (cf. Dutch), descended from Old High German diutisc 'of the people' (from diot or diota 'people'), originally used to distinguish the language of ...
Around the world, German has approximately 100 million native speakers and also about 80 million non-native speakers. [5] German is the main language of about 90 million people (18%) in the EU. 67% of German citizens claim to be able to communicate in at least one foreign language, 27% in at least two languages other than their first. [1]
One of the major languages of the world, German is the first language of almost 100 million people worldwide and the most widely spoken native language in the European Union. [1] Together with French , German is the second most commonly spoken foreign language in the EU after English, making it the second biggest language in the EU in terms of ...