• In Deutschland 81,5 Mio., 
• in Österreich 7,6 Mio
• und in der Schweiz 4,2 Mio. 
• Auch im restlichen Europa gibt es deutsche Sprachgebiete. So gibt es in Frankreich (Elsass) etwa 1,2 Mio. Deutschsprachige
• 700.000 in Polen, 
• 370.000 in Luxemburg, 
• 280.000 in Italien (Südtirol), 
• 250.000 in Ungarn, 
• 150.000 in Tschechien, 
• 67.000 in Belgien, 
• 78.000 im europäischen Teil Russlands
• und 39.500 in den Niederlanden. 
• In Asien wird ebenfalls in einigen Gebieten Deutsch gesprochen, und zwar von 950.000 Menschen in Kasachstan,
•  von 760.000 im asiatischen Teil Russlands (Sibirien)
• und von 96.000 in Israel. 
• Selbst in Afrika kann man fündig werden. In Südafrika sprechen 39.500 Menschen Deutsch, 
• in Namibia 25.000. 
• Die USA bringen es auf 1,6 Mio. Deutschsprachige.
  
  Aus dem Duden-Newsletter vom 11. Juni 2004. Weitere Infos unter: http://www.duden.de/newsletter 

 

Fun-time: Official Language

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezitu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.