19 The German-Speaking World 

The German-Speaking World 

German (Deutsch) is the official language in Germany (Deutschland) and Austria (Österreich), and one of 4 official languages in Switzerland (die Schweiz).

Both Germany, Austria, and Switzerland recognize their own variety of standard German as the official language, therefore there are 3 standard German languages. The differences between them are relatively minor.

In our course, you will be learning the standard German as used in Germany.

German is also the official language in Lichtenstein and one of several official languages in Luxemburg and Belgium. It is also spoken as the majority language in the province of South Tyrol in Northern Italy (with over 300,000 native speakers in 2011).

In Southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland many people speak ‘upper German’ dialects (called so because of the mountainous landscape) which is often incomprehensible to speakers of standard German. In northern Germany, many people speak ‘low German’ (Niederdeutsch) dialects as well as Standard German.

While Switzerland is mostly German-speaking (65% of the population), the first language of the German-speaking Swiss is Schweizerdeutsch (Swiss German) which is incomprehensible to speakers of Standard German. Most Swiss learn Standard German later in school and use it only for work and official purposes. Many Germans working in Switzerland take courses in Schweizerdeutsch to be able to communicate informally with the locals.