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GERMAN LANGUAGE STATS
German is the official language of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Alsace-Lorraine (France), Northern Italy, East-Belgium, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.
German is the second most spoken native language in Europe after Russian; and it is also the third most taught foreign language worldwide.
German is spoken by approximately 100 million native speakers and another 20 million non-native speakers.
It is also spoken by German-speaking foreign populations in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, Greece, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Scandinavia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.
Several German dialects are spoken in Luxembourg, some French regions of Alsace and parts of Lorraine.
Approximately every 10th book published worldwide is in German language.
Every year between 15 and 18 million people are learning German.
German is part of the West Germanic group of languages within the Indo-European language family and is a close relative of English.
The German vocabulary is formed of an estimated 40,000 words. The major part of these is derived from the Indo-European Language family; the rest is derived from Latin, French and lately English.
German is also one of the most important cultural languages. Many famous musicians and scientists like Goethe, Mozart, Beethoven, Freud and Einstein wrote and spoke German.
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