Talk:German language

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the German language article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8Auto-archiving period: 6 months

This  level-3 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Languages Top‑importance Language portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Languages, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of languages on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. Germany Top‑importance Germany portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Germany, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Germany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. France Low‑importance France portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject France, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of France on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Switzerland Top‑importance Switzerland portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Switzerland, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Switzerland on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. Africa: Namibia Low‑importance Africa portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by WikiProject Namibia (assessed as Mid-importance).

German language was a good article, but it was removed from the list as it no longer met the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated. Review: October 13, 2006.

Remember that article talk pages are provided to coordinate the article's improvement only, and are not for engaging in discussion of off-topic matters not related to the main article. User talk pages are more appropriate for non-article-related discussion topics. Please do not use this page as a discussion forum for off-topic matters. See talk page guidelines.

Cluster

From the article:

The Low Franconian dialects [...] Nevertheless, topologically these dialects are structurally and phonologically far more similar to Dutch, than to German and form both the smallest and most divergent dialect cluster within the contemporary German language area.^[1]

Niebaum 2011, p. 98.

• Niebaum, Hermann (2011). "Wege und Schwerpunkte der deutschen Dialektologie" [Ways and focuses of German dialectology]. Einführung in die Dialektologie des Deutschen [Introduction to the dialectology of German] (in German) (2nd ed.). Tübingen: Niemeyer. ISBN 978-3-11-091654-6.

As for the source:

• That's not properly cited, as it lacks the other author Jürgen Macha and as the year or edition is wrong (1st 1999, 2nd 2006, 3rd 2014 - 2011 could only be a reprint or a re-release as e-book or something)
• Quoting from the 3rd ed. as here the text is (basically) the same and as this can still be viewed online:
  Hermann Niebaum, Jürgen Macha, Einführung in die Dialektologie des Deutschen, 3rd ed., 2014, p. 104 ([1])): "Auf der Karte sind ebenfalls drei Hauptgebiete, erkennbar, die sich, wie Nerbonne/Siedle (2005:[...]) festellen, „im Wesentlichen mit den Verteilungen des Nieder-, Ostmittel- und Oberdeutschen (Cluster 1, 4 und 5) nach traditioneller Einteilung decken, sowie ein heterogenes Gebiet im Westen, das in etwa Ripuarisch (Cluster 3) und Niederrheinisch-Westmünderländisch (Cluster 2) entspricht.“

Thus:

• The source doesn't state that Low Franconian is the smallest and most divergent cluster. It's stating that Ripuarisch + Niederrheinisch-Westmünsterländisch form a heterogeneous area. So both the dialect(s) and the degree of comparison (superlative vs. positive) aren't sourced.
• Article stated: "within the contemporary German language area". There's a difference between "in Germany" and "in the German language area". The German language area also comprehends Austria and Switzerland. As the source only considered Germany, the wording in the article wasn't correct.

-06:54, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Germanics

The German article on the Germanics https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanen says, that the concept can be defined historically outside the linguistic sphere. Sarcelles (talk) 19:28, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The very concept of Germanics is disputed by science in Germany, this German article says sourcedly. Furthermore, Germanics hardly is used as a concept for the present by Germans nowadays. Sarcelles (talk) 08:16, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One problem here is that "Germanics" is simply not a term found in the English-language literature, so arguing that there's something wrong with it is entirely beside the point. --Pfold (talk) 08:45, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The word "Germanics" doesn't appear in the article, so why are you discussing this here? Largoplazo (talk) 09:56, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

12 pages link to Germanics, a redirect to German peoples.

Maybe we should discuss this on another talk page. Sarcelles (talk) 04:51, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Luxembourg

@KoreaJAP: Luxembourgish is recognized as an independent language. You can't use its use in Luxembourg to argue that Luxembourgers are really speaking German. Furthermore, your changes have ignored that Luxembourg has three official languages. You can't claim that German is the "most widely spoken" when that is clearly Luxembourgish. Or else provide a source showing that Standard German is more widely spoken than Luxembourgish in Luxembourg.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:59, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have corrected it. KoreaJAP (talk) 18:18, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Recognized minority language in Hungary

The recognized minority languages are not restricted geographically to individual cities or counties and thus German is a recognized minority language in entire Hungary, not just Sopron. This includes for example giving German names to babies, etc. Please correct the lead and the infobox. 2001:4C4E:24A1:FE00:7A14:F228:7166:600D (talk) 10:43, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actual Number of German Native Speakers

Quote: "German is one of the major languages of the world, with nearly 80 million native speakers and over 130 million total speakers as of 2024" (source Ethnologue).

- Acc. to List of countries and territories where German is an official language: 87,875,432 + ca. 400.000 native speakers (South Tyrol + Poland) = 88,275,432 million.

(Plus at least 9,368,947 as second language (= 97,644,378); add another 8,128,752 (source: Template:German_L1_speakers_outside_Europe) = 105,773,130 million.)

- Acc. to Geographical distribution of German speakers: "It is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language [...] ."

(Plus "10–25 million as second language (= 100–120 million), 75–100 million as foreign language". Because I'm getting anal-retentive here.)

So, who is solving the "Native Speaker" riddle?? Being off by about 20% for the group of native speakers alone (80 to 95 million) is truely something to behold. I know, "that's Wp for you", but anyway...

Another question: Can it be that Ethnologue is a bit biased? Maybe more recent sources could be found, as some are from the 2000's and 2010's. 185.16.53.129 (talk) 10:30, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You’re citing other Wikipedia pages for your numbers? And how exactly do you think Ethnologue is “biased” against the total number of German speakers? Ethnologue is from 2024.—-Ermenrich (talk) 11:38, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The real problem here, as I see it, is that the stats in the Infobox are not consistent with the stats from Ethnologue in the lede. The infobox stats are perhaps from more focussed sources, but are less recent, though the fact that they are higher does not suggest that they are for that reason not still more or less accurate. --Pfold (talk) 12:09, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t have access to the actual statistics from Ethnologue (a subscription is needed), but over 80 million people live in Germany alone, so even if we assume not all of them speak German, when you factor in just Austria and Switzerland, the OP is probably right that something is wrong with the 80 million number.—-Ermenrich (talk) 15:02, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]