german-speaking minorities (ethnic germans) live in many countries and on all six inhabited continents: the countries of the former soviet union, poland, romania, hungary, the czech republic, denmark, france, belgium, italy, canada, chile, the united states, latin america, namibia, south africa, israel, and australia. these german minorities, through their ethno-cultural vitality, exhibit an exceptional level of heterogeneity: variations concerning their demographics, their status within the majority community, the support they receive from institutions helping them to support their identity as a minority. among them are small groups (such as those in namibia) and many very large groups (such as the almost 1 million non-evacuated germans in russia and kazakhstan or the near 500,000 germans in brazil), groups that have been greatly "folklorised" and almost completely linguistically assimilated (such as most people of german descent in the usa, canada, australia, argentina and brazil), and others, such as the true linguistic minorities (like the still german-speaking minorities in the usa, argentina and brazil, in western siberia or in romania and hungary); other groups, which are classified as religio-cultural groups rather than ethnic minorities, (such as the eastern-low german speaking mennonites in paraguay, mexico, belize or in the altay region of siberia) and the groups who maintain their status thanks to strong identification with their ethnicity and their religious sentiment (such as the groups in upper silesia, poland or in south jutland in denmark). ==latin america== at least one million german speakers live in latin america. there are german speaking minorities in almost every latin american country, including argentina, belize, bolivia, brazil, chile, colombia, dominican republic, ecuador, guatemala, mexico, paraguay, peru, uruguay and venezuela.in the eighteenth century only isolated or small groups of german emigrants left for latin america. however this pattern was reversed at the start of the last century as a tidal wave of german emigration began. german emigration to the americas totalled 200,000 people during the eighteenth century. during the 1880s, during the wave of mass emigration, this figure was reached annually. the handbuch des deutschtums im ausland (the germans abroad handbook) from 1906 puts a figure of 11 million people in north and south america with a knowledge of the german language, of which 9 million were in the usa. although the usa was the focal point for emigration in the 19th century, emigration to latin america was also significant for differing economic and political reasons. the majority of german emigrants to latin ameri
German_language Linguistic_minorities