@Foofie,
Though it's Christmas already here, I was a bit ironic, Foofie
Foofie wrote:
And, I thought German is spoken in a few little known towns in South America, in addition to Switzerland and Germany?
You're correct, nearly:
- it's spoken in Germany,
- but only in a part of Switzerland (the so-called
German-speaking Swistzerland ).
And then, all Austria thinks that they speak German.
German is spoken as official well as in the 'German-speaking Community' (a small state in the Belgian federation) and in Denmark by the
tyske mindretal. In Luxembourg it's one of the three official languages, in Liechtenstein it's the only official language. In the French departments of the Alsdace and the department Moselle German is an "offical regional language". In Italy (South-Tyrol), German and Italian are the official languages.
Then, there are still some hundred thousands German speaking people in various East European countries, minorities, descendents from immigrants in 17th/18th/19th century.
I suppose the number of German speaking people in South America is less that on the US-East coast.