ABSTRACT
German, together with English, Frisian and Dutch (including Flemish and Afrikaans), is a member of the West Germanic group within the Germanic branch of Indo-European. It is currently used by roughly 95–100 million native speakers worldwide and by over 10 million second language speakers. An estimated 75–100 million people have received some form of instruction in German as a foreign language. Almost 88 million of the German native speakers are citizens of one of the central European countries or regions in which German has official status, together with many second language users (e.g. immigrants with a different L1). German is the sole official language of Germany, Austria, 17 cantons of Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It is a co-official language, along with others, in Belgium, 4 cantons of Switzerland, Luxembourg and Southern Tyrol (Italy).
