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German ( Standard High German: Deutsch, pronounced [dɔʏ̯t͡ʃ] ⓘ) [ 10] is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol.
The etymology of the Latin word Germani, from which Latin Germania and English Germanic are derived, is unknown, although several proposals have been put forward. Even the language from which it derives is a subject of dispute, with proposals of Germanic, Celtic, and Latin, and Illyrian origins. [10]
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people [nb 1] mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, English, is also the world's most widely spoken language with an estimated 2 billion speakers.
Latin ( lingua Latina, Latin: [ˈlɪŋɡʷa ɫaˈtiːna], or Latinum, Latin: [ɫaˈtiːnʊ̃]) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Classical Latin is considered a dead language as it is no longer used to produce major texts, while Vulgar Latin evolved into the Romance Languages. [ 1]
History portal. v. t. e. The appearance of the German language begins in the Early Middle Ages with the High German consonant shift. Old High German, Middle High German, and Early New High German span the duration of the Holy Roman Empire. The 19th and 20th centuries saw the rise of Standard German and a decrease of dialectal variety.
The modern German alphabet consists of the twenty-six letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet : German uses letter-diacritic combinations ( Ä/ä, Ö/ö, Ü/ü) using the umlaut and one ligature ( ẞ/ß (called eszett (sz) or scharfes S, sharp s)), but they do not constitute distinct letters in the alphabet.
At least 81% of the German primary and secondary students were learning English as their first foreign language in 2017. [19] However, German schoolchildren generally do not speak English as proficiently as their Scandinavian counterparts [20] and, in some cases, French or Latin are taught first. [citation needed]
Romance; Latin/Neo-Latin: Geographic distribution: Originated in Old Latium on the Italian peninsula, now spoken in Latin Europe (parts of Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, and Western Europe) and Latin America (a majority of the countries of Central America and South America), as well as parts of Africa (Latin Africa), Asia, and Oceania.