This article details the geographical distribution of speakers of the German language, regardless of the legislative status within the countries where it is spoken. In addition to the Germanosphere (German: Deutscher Sprachraum) in Europe, German-speaking minorities are present in many other countries and on all six inhabited continents.
Mostly depending on the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties with a disputed status as separate languages or which were later acknowledged as separate languages (e.g., Low German/Plautdietsch[1]), it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language,[2][3][4] 10–25 million as a second language,[2][3] and 75–100 million as a foreign language.[2][5] This would imply approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide.[6]
^Jan Goossens: Niederdeutsche Sprache: Versuch einer Definition. In: Jan Goossens (Hrsg.): Niederdeutsch: Sprache und Literatur. Karl Wachholtz, 2. Auflage, Neumünster 1983, S. 27; Willy Sanders: Sachsensprache, Hansesprache, Plattdeutsch: sprachgeschichtliche Grundzüge des Niederdeutschen. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1982, ISBN3-525-01213-6, S. 32 f.; Dieter Stellmacher: Niederdeutsche Sprache. 2. Auflage, Weidler, Berlin 2000, ISBN3-89693-326-4, p. 92.
^ abcCite error: The named reference Ammon, 2014 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ abSum of Standard German, Swiss German, and all German dialects not listed under "Standard German" at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
^Marten, Thomas; Sauer, Fritz Joachim, eds. (2005). Länderkunde – Deutschland, Österreich, Schweiz und Liechtenstein im Querschnitt [Regional Geography – An Overview of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein] (in German). Berlin: Inform-Verlag. p. 7. ISBN3-9805843-1-3.