With a brief German lesson
German as Minority Language
German is a minority language in Belgium (Belgien). About 68,000 Belgian citizens living along the border with Germany and Luxembourg speak German on a daily basis. The total German-speaking population is less than 100,000, or just under one percent of Belgium's 10.2 million people. Sometimes Belgium is called "Europe in miniature" because of its multilingual population: Flemish (Dutch) in the north (Flanders), French in the south (Wallonia), and German in the east (Ostbelgien). The main towns in the German-speaking region are Eupen and Sankt Vith. There is a Belgian German-language television service in the region (the KA3 cable TV service) and the Belgischer Rundfunk (BRF) radio service broadcasts in German. The Grenz-Echo, Belgium's only German-language newspaper, was established in 1927.
Other German-Speakers
Most of the other German-speakers in Europe are scattered across eastern Europe in former Germanic areas of countries such as Poland (Silesia/Schlesien), Romania, and Russia. (Johnny Weissmuller, of Tarzan and Olympic fame, was born to German-speaking parents in what is now Romania!) A very few are in Germany's former colonies, in places that even most Germans don't know: Namibia (former German South West Africa; see the Allgemeine Zeitung Namibia in Windhoek), Ruanda, Burundi, and several other forgotten former outposts in the Pacific. German minority populations (Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites) are also still found in regions of North and South America.
A Brief German Lesson
Now we'll concentrate on Austria, Germany, and Switzerland—and we'll have a short German lesson in the process! (If your German and geography are already at a more advanced level, you may wish to skip over to our German Grammar listings or our annotated English-German Glossaries.)
Austria is the Latin (and English) term for Österreich, literally the "eastern realm." (We'll talk about those two dots over the O, called umlauts, later.) Vienna is the capital city. In German: Wien ist die Hauptstadt. (See the Pronunciation Key below)
Germany is called Deutschland in German (Deutsch). Die Hauptstadt ist Berlin.
Switzerland - Die Schweiz is the German term for Switzerland, but to avoid the confusion that could result from using the country's four official languages, the sensible Swiss opted for the Latin designation "Helvetia" on their coins and stamps. Helvetia is what the Romans called their Swiss province.
The German Umlaut, the two dots sometimes placed over the German vowels a, o, and u (as in Österreich), is a critical element in German spelling. The umlauted vowels ä, ö and ü (and their capitalized equivalents Ä, Ö, Ü) are actually a shortened form for ae, oe and ue respectively. At one time the e was placed above the vowel, but as time went by the e became just two dots ("diaeresis" in English) above the letter. In telegrams and in plain (ASCII) computer text the umlauted forms still appear as ae, oe and ue. A German keyboard includes separate keys for the three umlauted characters (plus the ß, the so-called "sharp s" or "double s" character). The umlauted letters are separate letters in the German alphabet, and they are pronounced differently from their plain a, o, or u cousins. — For more about typing German characters, see Can Your PC Speak German?.
The Swiss-Germans have managed to get along just fine without the ß for many years, and with the new spelling reforms recently introduced in all of the German-speaking countries, Switzerland may not be alone much longer. According to the new rules, words such as daß (that) are now spelled dass. For more about Rechtschreibreform (spelling reform) see Spelling Reform - Double-S Words and Spelling Reform Hits the Newsstand.
German Phrases - Pronunciation Key
- Wien ist die Hauptstadt. (VEEN IST DEE HOWPT-SHTAT) = Vienna is the capital city.
- Deutschland (DOYTSCH-LAHNT) = Germany
- Deutsch (DOYTSCH) = German
- Berlin (BEAR-LEEN)
- die Schweiz (DEE SHVYTZ) = Switzerland
NEXT > Chart of Countries Where German is Spoken - with population