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Germanic languages, Branch of the Indo-European language family, comprising languages descended from Proto-Germanic. These are divided into West Germanic, including English, German, Frisian, Dutch, Afrikaans, and Yiddish; North Germanic, including Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Faeroese (the language of the Faroe Islands); and East ...
Apr 30, 2024 · German language, official language of both Germany and Austria and one of the official languages of Switzerland. German belongs to the West Germanic group of the Indo-European language family, along with English, Frisian, and Dutch (Netherlandic, Flemish). Learn more about the German language.
All Germanic languages are derived from Proto-Germanic, spoken in Iron Age Scandinavia and Germany. The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa.
German ( Standard High German: Deutsch, pronounced [dɔʏ̯t͡ʃ] ⓘ) [10] is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol.
Today, the Germanic languages are spoken by around 515 million people as a first language. English is the most spoken Germanic language, with 360-400 million native speakers. The Germanic languages are the East Germanic languages (all extinct), the North Germanic languages, and the West Germanic languages.
Now, let’s talk about the Germanic languages. They belong to the bigger Indo-European language family, which comes from Western Eurasia. There are around 520 million people who speak a Germanic language as their first language, and another two billion people speak one as a second language.
Germanic languages are spoken by about 500 million native speakers. They constitute a medium-large subgroup of the Indo-European language family and were originally located in Northern Europe, owing much of their current distribution to the recent expansion of English.
