17 Weird Places They Speak German

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⏱ TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 - Intro
0:12 - Europe
0:13 - Germany
3:00 - Africa
3:01 - Namibia
3:49 - South Africa
6:11 - South America
6:12 - Argentina
7:12 - Brazil
9:51 - Venezuela
10:19 - North America
10:20 - Canada
10:50 - United States
13:33 - Mexico
14:30 - Australia

📜 SOURCES & ATTRIBUTIONS:

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🖼 Images:

“Walsergemeinschaft Oberlystal AO.jpg” by Tenam2 is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

[guidodebacker]

I'm Belgian but I live in Brazil’s most southern state: Rio Grande do Sul, our village Sinimbu was founded around 1850 by German colonists, and German is still used on a daily basis in the village and in our region. My wife learned Portuguese only when she went to school. German was repressed during WW2 and lost popularity at the end of last century as it was considered 'the language of poor farmers on the countryside' but in recent years there is a revival. It's teached again on schools and people realise now that it offers possibilities to study or work abroad. It’s estimated 200.000 brazilians still spreak german. Here in my region (around Santa Cruz do Sul) Oktoberfest is bigger than samba ! My brother in law plays in a band named ‘Munich’

[Robob]

About 25 years ago I visited Brazil to see the falls at Iguassu. I stayed on the Brazilian side but nobody in my hotel spoke English but the front desk clerk spoke Spanish so I was able to get by. One day I asked about restaurants nearby and he suggested I used the hotel's restaurant which I had never seen with the lights on so assumed it was closed. He said that the only problem was that the waitress did not speak Spanish, only Portuguese and German. I speak some German and so decided to give it a try. Sitting in the restaurant with my English only speaking friend it occurred to me that here we were, two native English speaking people, sitting in an hotel in a Portuguese speaking country, speaking German, having been told in Spanish, where to eat.

[quatsch]

I am a German who lived in Namabia for some time and coming fom a country in which most people speak 2 or maybe 3 languages the language proficiency of the average Namibian was a bit mind boggling. Many people could speak 3-5 languages often very fluently. I met a guy who' first language was Oshivambo, but his German was so incredibly good that I thought he was a fellow tourist from Germany when first meeting him, it was astonishing to learn that his only structured German classes had been in High-School.

[tamyresmartines]

My father in law and his siblings only learned portuguese in school, cause at home they only spoke german.
The city that they are from in south of Brazil is literally called " New Hamburg". The migration to Brazil happened mostly to rural areas and before 1930, so the communities were very isolated, favoring the preservation of culture and language.

[chileball]

Chile is missing, which is the 3rd Latin American country with the most German descendants.

[Neversa]

I'm from north Kazakhstan and we had German neighbors. They spoke German at home and Kazakh with others.

[alfonsmelenhorst]

Don't forget the Netherlands. Many Dutch dialects spoken in de east of this country can be considered as dialects of German, closer to standard German as Switzer-Deutsch. Or the dialects in the western part of Germany are dialects of Dutch. There is a dialect-continuum.

[ospider]

I am Brazilian and I live in south region here. I would say at least 20% of the population have some German ancestry (in some places is more than 60%!) 🤔😯🤪

[julieenglert]

I grew up in the Barossa Valley in South Australia, the area known for it’s German speaking settlers. Hahndorf is a little further south of the Barossa, but still settled by the same Germans in the 1800s. Unfortunately there are no longer people who can speak that original dialect. WW2 put an end to that. My mother’s generation who were born before WW2, were the last to speak that as a mother tongue.

[jbwetzstein]

I was afraid you were going to skip the German population in Texas that immigrated in the mid-1800s. Thanks for including that. They settled not only Fredericksburg, but the towns of New Braunfels, Boerne, Schulenberg, Niederwald, Pflugerville, Brenham, and others.

[spage]

I am an American and grew up near the Amish areas. My wife is German and when we visited my parents she was able to understand them no problem as she is also from Hessen. We went to Fredericksburg and eating our lunch in a dinner two cowboys came in and were speaking German to each other. By this time I could also speak German and could follow their conversation.

[rahimxsh]

Nach 4 Jahren Deutschlernen muss ich sagen, dass die deutsche Sprache trotz der Schwierigkeiten eine wunderschöne Sprache ist.

[lspthrattan]

Glad to see you didn't overlook the German speaking communities of Texas. Interesting to hear about the others; thanks for another entertaining, interesting video.

[karinwenzel]

I don't know if somebody has mentioned this before but "Zwetsch(g)e" versus "Pflaume" is not an example for Austrian German versus High German. Both are plums, but "Zwetschen" are smaller and oval-shaped, "Pflaumen" are bigger and roundish, also their colour is different. Examples for typical Austrian expressions are "Paradeiser" for "Tomate", "Karfiol" for "Blumenkohl" (cauliflower), "Topfen" for "Quark" (curd cheese) and so on.

[edmondpiffard]

Another fantastic video Olly! My Oma was born just outside Berlin Canada before WW1, during which it was renamed Kitchener. She grew up speaking Plattdeutsch and Hochdeutsch at home and English in school. She married my Opa who was from Schleswig Holstein and also spoke Plattdeutsch. This fall I went to the town he was born and took some videos of farmers speaking Platt with me. It’s a threatened dialect as is Texas German sadly.

[ricktaylor]

There is apparently a sizable German speaking community around the Fort Myers FL area. The area is very popular with German tourists and visitors, so I suspect many of them have moved to the area. I was really surprised to see highway billboards and traffic signs in English and German, instead of the more typical English/Spanish seen in the rest of the southern U.S.

[brizejellicle]

There are actually 2 different German dialects in Pennsylvania. The PA Dutch spoken by the Amish and Mennonites and a different Pennsylvania German spoken by descendants of German Lutherans and Moravians. The second one is spoken mostly by older generations but there is a renewed interest in reviving it in the younger generations. There are some interesting videos here on YouTube about the history of Pennsylvania German done by a professor who was researching/studying it.

[ThomasTuttle]

My friend from Minnesota grew up on a farm with his family speaking German at home, at school, at church and in the local community. He first learned English in the first grade, despite him being born in Minnesota, a US state. Everyone in his town spoke German, unless forced to speak English with an outsider/visitor. My friend went on to study French, Latin, Greek and Spanish in addition to his native German and English.

[Izzie]

I'm Brazilian and it's pretty common to find people with German last names, I live in a city where almost 100% of the population are descendents of Italians but I've visited cities where lots of old people still speak German and keep the culture and the food alive.

[hlindner]

Greetings from Namibia. I speak German here on a daily basis.