German continues to thrive
A new report on the state of the German language paints an overwhelmingly positive picture and includes migration as one factors involved.
Cologne (dpa/d.de) – The German Academy for Language and Literature and the Union of Academies have published their Fourth Report on the State of the German Language.
The study covers topics such as where German is spoken in Europe and the social status of the German language.
According to the report, migration is one of the factors which is contributing to the stability of German, due to a rise in the number of people learning and speaking the language. “German can spread through good teaching and people who have recently moved to the country,” said the Project Leader, the linguist Rita Franceschini.
German is spoken in 15 European countries, and is considered an official language in seven. According to Franceschini, the area in which German is spoken extends from southern Denmark to northern Italy, and from eastern Belgium to the Volga river. “In historic terms, no other European language is spoken across such a large area,” she says. German is the first language of 95 million people, with 30 million speaking it as a second language.
Each year the second Saturday in September is German Language Day, which was initiated by the Verein Deutsche Sprache, an association which operates around the world, as a means of raising awareness of the language.