page_title: List of Indo-European languages
section_title: Germanic languages
hierarchical_section_title: List of Indo-European languages / Germanic languages
context_page_description: The Indo-European languages include some 449 language families spoken by about or more than 3.5 billion people. Most of the major languages belonging to language branches and groups of Europe, and Western and southern Asia, belong to the Indo-European language family. Therefore, Indo-European is the biggest language family in the world by number of mother tongue speakers. Eight of the top ten biggest languages, by number of native speakers, are Indo-European. One of these languages, English, is the de facto World Lingua Franca with an estimate of over one billion second language speakers.
  Each subfamily or linguistic branch in this list contains many subgroups and individual languages. Indo-European language family has 10 known branches or subfamilies, of which eight are living and two are extinct. The relation of Indo-European branches, how they are related to one another and branched from the ancestral proto-language is a matter of further research and not yet well known. There are some individual Indo-European languages that are unclassified within the language family, they are not yet classified in a branch and could be members of their own branch.
context_section_description: Proto-Germanic (extinct)
  East Germanic (most archaic and divergent Germanic group) (all extinct)
  Gothic (𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌹𐍃𐌺𐌰/𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌹𐍃𐌺𐌰 𐍂𐌰𐌶𐌳𐌰 – Gutiska/Gutiska Razda) (mainly recorded in Ulfilas Bible)
  Visigothic (the variant, dialect or language, spoken by the Visigoths or Thervingi, they dwelt west of Dnieper river and later west of the Dniester, they were less affected by Hunnic Invasion than the Ostrogoths but many were also displaced and went towards Roman Empire in the 4TH Century AD, where later they founded the Visigothic Kingdom)
  Ostrogothic (the variant, dialect or language, spoken by the Ostrogoths or Greuthungi, they dwelt east of Dnieper river and were displaced by Hunnic Invasion towards Roman Empire in the 4TH Century AD, where later they founded the Ostrogothic Kingdom)
  Crimean Gothic (Crimean Gothic although descends from Gothic is not a direct descendant of Biblical Gothic, the Gothic language of Ulfilas Bible) (remnant of an Ostrogothic dialect east of Dnieper river?)
  Biblical Gothic (Liturgical language of the Ulfilas Bible)
  Vandalic
  Burgundian
  Northwest Germanic (dialect continuum)
  West Germanic (dialect continuum)
  Elbe Germanic (Herminionic/Irminonic/Suebic/Alamanic)
  Lombardic (extinct)
  Suebian/Allemanian (extinct)
  High German languages (characterized by the High German consonant shift) (dialect continuum)
  Old High German
  Middle High German
  Early New High German
  New High German
  German (Deutsch/Deutsche sprache)
  Standard German (Standarddeutsch/Hochdeutsch)
  German Standard German (Bundesdeutsches Hochdeutsch)
  Luxemburgian variety (not to be confused with Luxemburgian, a West Central German language related to but not the same as Standard German)
  Belgian variety
  Austrian Standard German (Austrian German) (Österreichisches Standarddeutsch/Österreichisches Hochdeutsch) (not to be confused with Austro-Bavarian, an Upper German language related to but not the same as Standard German)
  South-Tyrolean variety
  Swiss Standard German (not to be confused with Swiss German which is based on Alemannic, an Upper German language related to but not the same as Standard German) (Schweizer Standarddeutsch/Schweizer Hochdeutsch)
  Liechtenstein variety
  Brazilian German (Brasilianisch Deutsch)
  Central German/Middle German (Mitteldeutsch)
  East Central German (Ostmitteldeutsch) (basis of Modern Standard High German but not identical)
  Thuringian-Upper Saxon
  Thuringian (Thüringisch)
  Central Thuringian (spoken around the Thuringian capital Erfurt, Gotha, and Ilmenau)
  Northern Thuringian (around Mühlhausen and Nordhausen)
  Eichsfeld dialect
  Northeastern Thuringian (spoken around Artern as well as in the adjacent areas of Querfurt, Halle, and Merseburg of Saxony-Anhalt)
  Mansfeld dialect
  Ilm Thuringian (around Rudolstadt, Jena, and Weimar)
  Eastern Thuringian (spoken around Eisenberg and Altenburg as well as in the adjacent area of Naumburg, Weissenfels, and Zeitz in Saxony-Anhalt)
  Southeastern Thuringian (around Schleiz, Greiz, Saalfeld, and Gera, as well as around Ludwigsstadt in neighboring Bavaria)
  Western Thuringian
  Upper Saxon (Obersächsisch) (not truly Saxon, a North Sea Germanic descendant, but an Elbe Germanic descendant, and close to Thuringian) (roughly spoken on the Middle Elbe river basin)
  North Upper Saxon (includes Leipzig)
  Meissen dialect
  Erzgebirgisch
  Northwestern Bohemian German (nearly extinct)
  Lausatian-Silesian
  Low Lusatian German (Niederlausitzer)
  South Markish/South Brandenburgisch
  Berlinerisch (spoken in Berlin) (East Low German substrate)
  Silesian German (Lower Silesian) (Schläsche Sproache/Schläs'sche Sproche)
  Upper Lusatian (Oberlausitzer)
  West Silesian (Westschläsche)
  Southwest Silesian (Südostschläsche)
  Middle/Central Silesian (Mittelschläsche)
  Krauter (Kräuter)
  Brieg-Grottkauer
  Lowland Silesian (Neiderländischschläsche)
  Mountain Silesian (Gebirgsschläsche) (not to be confused with Upper Silesian which is a West Slavic language related to Polish)
  Glatzian (Glätzisch)
  Upper Silesian (not to be confused with Upper Silesian which is a West Slavic language related to Polish)
  High Prussian (Oberländisch/Breslausch) (not to 
caption: Germanic languages in the World. Countries and sub-national entities where one or more Germanic languages are spoken. Dark Red: First language; Red: Official or Co-Official language, Pink: Spoken by a significant minority as second language.