ABSTRACT
German is a member of the West Germanic branch of Indo-European and the official language of Germany (nearly 90 million speakers) and Austria (8 million), and is one of the national languages of Switzerland (5 million – about 65% of the population). The language is also spoken by much smaller numbers in Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and (although losing ground lately to French) in Alsace-Lorraine. In addition, political change in Eastern Europe has facilitated the return west of large numbers of German speakers from the former Soviet Union (originally 1.5 million, mostly in Kazakhstan and Siberia, descendants of German settlers on the Volga who were exiled to these regions on the Nazi invasion) and Romania (0.5 million). Significant minorities exist in other European states bordering German-speaking territory, including Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The world total of native German speakers is probably at least 105 million.
