Romans on the West Coast of Europe

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

Ron, Karl, Jaga, John, Jeanne and Ludwig,

The latest video is very interesting, but I have to make a remark and put things into perspective. In about 2 millenia, the various Germanic tribes have developped into distighuished peoples, linguistic traditions, cultures with their own destinct customs, architectures, fine art, political systems, infra structures and societies. Dutch people do not automatically understand German for instance and amongst the present day Dutch younger generations the knowledge of German is poor and their skills in English better due to Amemerican, British, Canadian, Australian and maybe also New Zealandic Anglo-Saxon and American influences. The Dutch share linguistic, cultural, religious and ethnic ties with the Flemish and Afrikaander (South-African) people and with the Frisian, Low Saxon (Niedersächsisch (Nedersaksisch), Low German (in the language itself: Plattdütsch, and other names; German: Plattdeutsch), the Niederdeutsche Sprache (Low German language), Surinamese, Carribean and Indonesian former colonies.


West Low German area in yellow

In the German speaking world I see some linguistic unity or a linguistic cultural area of Germany, Luxemburg, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein and German Volksdeutsche minorities in other European countries like Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and the Black Sea Germans (German: Schwarzmeerdeutsche), Russlanddeutsche (Russian Germans), Bessarabia Germans (German: Bessarabiendeutsche), Crimea Germans (German: Krimdeutsche), the Volga Germans ((German: Wolgadeutsche or Russlanddeutsche), Volhynian Germans (Wolhyniendeutsche) and Volksdeutsche (Peoples Germans) in Eastern Europe. The 33,302 Germans in Ukraine, the Baltic States (Baltic Germans (German: Deutsch-Balten or Deutschbalten, later Baltendeutsche; and остзейцы ostzeitsy 'Balters' in Russian), the 394 000 Russia Germans (in German, Russlanddeutsche, Lit. "Germans of Russia") in the Russian Federation, the 2,474 Ethnic Germans in Belarus, the 178,409 Germans in Kazakhstan, and the 43,038,145 German Americans in the USA, 3,322,405 German Canadians (German: Deutsch-Kanadier or Deutschkanadier) in Canada, the about 1 million German Australians (German: Deutsch-Australier) in Australia and the large German community in Cape Town in South Africa. In the South Africa of 2020 around 17,000 German Nationals are living. In Belgium, there is an ethnic German minority. It is the majority in its region of 71,000 inhabitants. Ethnologue puts the national total of German speakers at 150,000, not including Limburgish and Luxembourgish. There are about 40,000 Germans in the Czech Republic and the remaining German minority in Poland (109,000 people were registered in the 2011 census) enjoys minority rights according to Polish minority law. There are German speakers throughout Poland, and most of the Germans live in the Opole Voivodship in Silesia. Bilingual signs are posted in some towns of the region. In addition, there are bilingual schools and German can be used instead of Polish in dealings with officials in several towns. In Romania, 40,000 Germans live in the meantime. Around 178,000 Germans live in Hungary. In Denmark, the part of Schleswig that is now South Jutland County (or Northern Schleswig) is inhabited by about 12,000–20,000 ethnic Germans They speak mainly Standard German and South Jutlandic. A few speak Schleswigsch, a Northern Low Saxon dialect. In Norway, there are 27,770 Germans making Germans the ninth largest ethnic minority in the country, making up 0.52% of Norway's total population, and 2.94% of all foreign residents in Norway. Around 29,505 German Citizens living in Sweden in 2020. n the United Kingdom, a German-Briton ethnic group of around 300,000 exists. In Namibia there are 30,000 ethnic Germans, though it is estimated that only a third of those retain the language.

German-speaking Europe



The German language is spoken in a number of countries and territories in Europe, where it is used both as an official language and as a minority language in various countries. To cover this language area, they are often referred to as the German-speaking countries, the German-speaking area (Deutscher Sprachraum), or equivalently German-speaking Europe (non-European German-speaking communities are not commonly included in the concept).

German is the main language of approximately 95 to 100 million people in Europe, or 13.3% of all Europeans, being the second most spoken native language in Europe after Russian (with 144 million speakers), above French (with 66.5 million), and English (with 64.2 million).

The European countries with German-speaking majorities are Germany (95%, 78.3 million), Austria (89%, 8.9 million), and Switzerland (65%, 4.6 million), also known as the "D-A-CH" countries. Other European countries and regions with a German-speaking majority include Liechtenstein (30,000), the Italian autonomous region of South Tyrol (0.5 million), and the German-speaking Community of Belgium with around 90,000 native speakers, constituting around 1% of the total population of Belgium.

Since 2004, there has been an annual informal meeting of the heads of state of German-speaking countries including the Presidents of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and the Hereditary Prince of Liechtenstein. Since 2014, the King of Belgium and the Grand Duke of Luxembourg have also been taking part.

D-A-CH or DACH is an acronym used to represent the dominant states of the German language Sprachraum. It is based on the international vehicle registration codes for:

- Germany (D for Deutschland)
- Austria (A for Austria, in German "Österreich")
- Switzerland (CH for Confoederatio Helvetica, in German "(die) Schweiz")

"Dach" is also the German word for "roof", and is used in linguistics in the term Dachsprache, which standard German arguably is in relation to some outlying dialects of German, especially in Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, and Austria.

The term is sometimes extended to D-A-CH-Li, DACHL, or DACH+ to include Liechtenstein. Another version is DACHS (with Dachs meaning "Badger" in German) with the inclusion of the German-speaking region of South Tyrol in Italy.

DACH is also the name of an Interreg IIIA project, which focuses on crossborder cooperation in planning.

Personally I am in the border region of the German languages, because Dutch, English and German play are role in my life. German was a communication tool in the past with some older Polish family members who knew German due to the Austrian occupation and influence in Southern Poland and the Prussian influence in Western Poland. I learned German at high school as a subject and thus had to read German literature (Goethe, Grass, Böll, Dürrenmatt and Kafka in the German language -oral German high school exams-) and saw a lot of German/Austrian and Swiss German movies, actors and actresses. But the differences of Dutch and German stay and the linguistic and language border creates subtle, but significant challanges and stereotypical things. As a Dutchman in a group of Germans I will stick out like a flashlight at night due to my Dutch accent and sometimes difficulties in finding a certain German word. Why is that. It is because I live a practically Dutch language dialy and social life. My second and most used language next to Dutch is English, and German is the third language and French the forth language. I know a few words of Polish, but had great difficulties learning Polish due to the orthography (spelling) and grammar, and because Slavic and Germanic languages have little similarities. Probable the differences between Dutch and German could be compared to the differences between Polish and Czech, Polish and Russian, Danish and Swedish, French and English and for instance Italian and Spanish.

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

[karl]

Pieter and Kai

A most historic presentation I must say. My self especially enjoyed the historic reply of Pieters with,"How the Dutch made the Netherlands". It is most amazing how the fight against the sea has not diminished the Dutch way of life, but in that stead, to instill the manner of rebuilding and developing the various manners of removing the sea from the land that is the Netherlands, to emagine the land is but only one meter above sea level, is some thing..

With the Romans occupation of the land of now Netherland is what we as children learnt in our school history,, but my self just do not remember these studies to be so vast as shown. Life continues to be a road of learning no matter our respective age as shown in this reality..

Good work in research I must say to you both...

Karl

[pieter]