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C U LT U R E & T H E M E D I A
TOPIC
ATTRACTIVE LANGUAGE
German is one of the 15 or so Germanic lan-
economic strength, which makes the lan-
guages, a branch of the Indo-European lan-
guage very desirable. This desirability is
guage family. About 130 million people in
helping drive an active policy of spreading
Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxem-
the German language: by supporting lan-
bourg, Belgium, Liechtenstein and South Ty-
guage teaching facilities in Germany and
rol (Italy) speak German natively or as a regu-
abroad; providing scholarships or making
larly used second language. It is therefore the
academic offers to mobile international stu-
most widely spoken native language in the
dents. It is also clear from the significantly
EU and one of the ten most widely spoken
increasing interest in German, especially in
languages. The 2015 survey on ‘German as a
the rising powers of China, India and Brazil
foreign language worldwide’ refers to a total
as well as in other fast-growing areas of the
of 15.4 million people currently learning
Asian continent, where in places demand has
German as a second language. The number of
quadrupled since 2010.
people globally who actually speak German
as a foreign language can only be roughly es-
Important institutions for German learning
timated at about 100 million.
include the 140 German schools outside
Germany and the almost 2,000 schools that
One reason why German’s importance is dis-
lay emphasis on German lessons, which
proportionally high relative to the number of
are included in the Federal Foreign Office’s
people speaking it stems from the country’s
initiative, Schools: Partners for the Future
(PASCH). In 2014, around 228,000 people
took language courses at the Goethe-Institut,
which offers German as a foreign language
NUMBER
16
major dialect associations exist in
Germany, including, for example,
Bavarian, Alemannic, Westphalian,
Brandenburg and Northern Low
German. The regional differe