German

FACT FILE:

Official language in: Germany

Co-language in: Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein

Minority language in: Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Namibia, Poland, Romania, Russia. Also a regional minority language in Brazil (Espirito Santo region) and parts of Slovakia

Spoken by: 95 million (native)

Language family: High German – West Germanic – Germanic – Indo-European

Writing system: Latin (German alphabet)

Fun Fact: In German, all nouns are capitalized. Unlike English, this rule applies not only to proper names, but to all nouns; there are no exceptions.