The German language is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. German is closely related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 100 million native speakers and also about 80 million non-native speakers, and Standard German is widely taught in schools, universities, and Goethe Institutes worldwide.

German is spoken primarily in Germany (95%), Austria (89%) and Switzerland (64%) together with Liechtenstein, Luxembourg (D-A-CH-Li-Lux) constituting the countries where German is the majority language.

Other European German-speaking communities are found in Italy (Bolzano-Bozen), in the East Cantons of Belgium, in the french area Alsace which often was traded between Germany and France in history and in some border villages of the former South Jutland County (in German, Nordschleswig, in Danish, Sønderjylland) of Denmark.