Where Is German Spoken Around the World?

German isn't exacly as widely spoken as English or French, but there are still several perhaps surprising places where one can hear German spoken (well... not counting any German tourists)

MUSIC:
“Descending Mount Everest” by Trailer Worx*
“Dusty Wheels” by Kikoru*
“Crusaders” by Adriel Fair*
“A King’s Ransom” by Bonnie Grace*
“Oh Motherland” by Sight of Wonders*
“Caravan Trails” by Sight of Wonders*
“Grenadine” by West & Zander*
“Suvaco do Cristo” by Kevin Macleod
“A Celtic Blessing” by Bonnie Grace*
(*via EpidemicSound)

📖 SOURCES:

Bulcsú Farmasi, Nif Lindsay, Rebanics, Tobi Burch-Rates

[LukejbButterworth]

U missed out on Italy which has a whole region of German speakers as well as other smaller groups .

[parmentier]

I am Dutch and in 2015 I visited friends who live in the south of Brazil (Porto Alegre region). I don't speak Portuguese, but many (young) Brazilians don't speak English either. I speak a little Spanish, so I was able to make myself understood a little. And then I stayed in Santa Cruz, where I met (old) relatives of my friends who spoke German. So it was a crazy but fun situation that I spoke German in Brazil. the older generations Brazilians who spoke German were born in Brazil, but their parents were German immigrants.

[JohnyJ]

I was waiting on Mallorca, way to keep me waiting till the end 😂😂😂

[ZaKRo-bxlp]

Here in Panama we have a small German community in the capital, mostly coming in recent years. I have also begun learning German myself.

[giuseppelogiurato]

I've noticed that you've adopted a slower mode of speech/narration.. I REALLY appreciate you taking your time and enunciating the words slowly enough for old folks like me to hear and understand (we actually need ALL the syllables and phonemes and aspirated dental fricatives, unlike the younger crowd)... Your content is always REALLY interesting and entertaining, so I'm glad that you are slowing down your cadence for those of us ESL folks who were having a tough time keeping up with the extremely shortened form of speech that you previously used. Thank you, and please know that I'll always be a subscriber, no matter how fast and garbled you might speak. Khanubis channel is gonna go places; is about to get BIG! 😊❤

[TakaD]

'Speaking German' is, well, often debatable. I once chatted to a woman in Florida that told me she knew a little German. When I waited for her to actually say something in German or elaborate on her statement, she just stared at me. When I tried to ease her in and said something in German, she left.

[tysonplett]

You mentioned Mennonites in passing a bunch of times. If you want a cool video idea, Mennonite migration is a truly fascinating topic. There are Mennonite communities all over the globe, and I am from a historically Mennonite area in Manitoba, Canada. My dad's family is from Mexico, and my wife's parents were from a Mennonite colony in Paraguay. They bring a type of Low German wherever they go, which is a fascinating language.

[LucasSchimmel]

I'm a German-speaking Brazilian. My family speaks standard high german. We're still around, not as large part of population as it was 100 years ago and despite the best attempts by the Brazilian government, but we're here. From Paraná, still in the south but not SC or RS, where we are mostly associated with Italians and Slavs. Honestly, the reason why we still speak it is simply because my grandparents were late arrivals - my mother side of the family has been in here for longer, from 19th century, but they lost the language around the 1940s when Brazil made speaking german, teaching german, german publications, etc, illegal. However, my paternal grandparents came here in the 1950s to work in the wood extraction industry as the eastern part of my state was settled, and since by the time they got here the worst of Brazil's supression of foreign languages was done, we managed to preserve it. It's my home language, and my children go to a bilingual German-Portuguese school, so we persevere.

[joklit]

I come from Brazil and my father's side grandpa claims a somewhat unclear German anscestry, all because of one of our surnames. Despite no clear indications of a direct German anscestor, my grandpa took it upon himself to honour it and many years ago he settled down in a tiny little town in the southwest corner of Minas Gerais (a state in the southeast part of the country). He built a house there along with a quaint little brewery, where he rekindled his hobby of brewing beer (lager, pilsner, schwarzbier, etc.) at a more industrial scale. The buildings were all done in a South-German/Austrian style and the townsfolk really dug it. Many years later, now the town has tons of buildings done in this style and tourists now think that it was originally settled by German immigrants. I think a lot of cases like this happened throughout the Americas in the last half century or so.

[JoeBidenOfficial]

I have german speaking family in São Paulo, Brazil! They originate in Austria (Although they were originally Protestants fleeing France many centuries ago)

[pangolimazul]

Albeit less known another state in Brazil has a really big german community, Espirito Santo. Espirito Santo even has many municipalities which hold a pomeranian dialect of german as a recognized language. Other comunities of germans can be found across the country as well in olaces like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, though with less numbers and percentages.

[GreenPartyofMalaysia]

I deeply in appreciation and gratitude for the amount of research you had put in for this video, which was the reason I decided to subscribe. Thank you!

[MarcHarder]

I'm from northern Paraguay, where a large chunk of the population speaks Plautdietsch. My dad lived there until his thirties and never learned either of the country's official languages, only Plautdietsch and German.

Ek sie fon nórd Paraguay, wór en gooder deel fon de menshe Platdietsh ryden. Mien fåder wånd dór bot siene daartger jare en lierd niemålz eint fon de twee afitziaale sprake fon dat lant, må Platdietsh en Hódietsh.

[caseclosed]

I’m glad you mentioned that there are Germans in Latin America. I actually dated a girl in college whose family was from Brazil and part of her family was German (she didn’t speak German but some of her grandparents did).

Also, I went to college with an international student from Mexico who was German Mexican. I would have never guessed she was Mexican because she was a brunette with light skin. I think she could speak German though I never heard her speak it (she spoke English really well in addition to Spanish).

[MrTom-xkvh]

You totally forgot SUED TIROL! And Colonia Tovar in Venezuela and South Australia with Hahndorf still featuring plenty of German speakers.

[michaelengelhardt]

A few towns in Minnesota used German as the primary language in school into the early 1900s

[samstromberg]

Hey man you make really good videos, keep up the good work!

[AlejoToro-fw]

I’m from Colombia and my great grandmother was German, here in Colombia we also had some German immigration but mostly located to Bogota (my city) and Baranquilla although there has also been Mennontie migration to certain Rural Areas. The germans have left a mark as our main airline Avianca was founded by WW1 veterans and there is a famous beer brewery named Bavaria which is one of the most popular beer brands here in Colombia. 🇨🇴🇩🇪

[khetoun]

I know I am late and they don't speak much German anymore there, but a courious place to mention is Qingdao (Schantung Halbinsel) in China. A former German colony wich still has some City parts looking like a typical German 19'th century city. This city also spawned the "Tsingtao" brewery, the bigest beer producing company on Earth.

[jonathanr]

Prior to the Soviet takeover, when the region of Galicia was still in Poland (instead of Belarus/Ukraine as it is today) there were German speaking Poles living there. My father and paternal Grandfather were among them.