Matthew Lange | University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Why study German?

Learning another langauge has numerous intellectual, neurological and cognitive benefits in general, and German remains one of the most valuable languages in Europe and the world today, as it opens the door to many careers.

Not only is it the/an official language of five countries (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Lichtenstein, Luxemburg, and Switzerland), but it is spoken in many neighboring countries as well (parts of the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Italy, Poland, Slovakia etc.). In certain areas even, particularly in eastern Europe, locals might speak German but not English.

In fact, according to a recent study of nearly 30,000 citizens of the European Union during the summer of 2005, German is the most commonly spoken first language and the second most commonly spoken second language in the EU.

First Language Use in the EU: 1. German 18% 2. English, Italian 13% 3. French 12% 4. Spanish, Polish 9% 5. Dutch 5%	Second Language Use in the EU: 1. English 34% 2. German 12% 3. French 11% 4. Spanish, Russian 5% 5. Other 3%

Source: “Eurobarometer survey 64.3 ‘Europeans and Languages’”

And although English is held to be the lingua franca on the world stage, at a press conference following the Bundestag election of September 2009 the then designated Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (FDP) demanded to respond in German to a question in English by a BBC reporter:

“So wie es in Großbritannien üblich ist, dass man dort selbstverständlich Englisch spricht, so ist es in Deutschland üblich, dass man hier Deutsch spricht.”

Translation: "Like it is customary in Great Britain that one naturally speaks English there, so is it customary in Germany that one speaks German here."

Source: YouTube - “Guido Westerwelle snubs BBC reporter for English question at press conference”

Moreover, although Germany is slightly smaller than the state of Montana, it is the world's largest exporter of goods, amounting to 9.5% of world trade ($1.3 Trillion) - more than $100 Billion more than second-place China.

Beyond the language and economic output though, many aspects of German culture have made - for better or worse - an enormous impact on modern history. Of course, we often think immediately about the two World Wars, the Third Reich, and the Shoah, or even the Cold War. However, German-speaking individuals have made countless positive contributions.

In 2007 the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Germany 13th in its “Index of Democracy” according to the five categories electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties. The United States ranked 17th. (Source: The Economist - “The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Index of Democracy”)

The importance of German in the scientific and cultural world is witnessed by the number of German-speaking holders of the Nobel Prize: 27 in Chemistry, 25 in Medicine, 22 in Physics, 7 in Literature, 4 Peace Prizes, and 1 in Economics (Source: DAAD - German in Science and the Humanities). Most of us are at least familiar with the names of the following individuals in various disciplines:

Architects - Water Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Otto Wagner (AT)

Artists - Ernst Barlach, Max Beckmann, Arnold Böcklin (CH), Lucas Cranach, Otto Dix, Albrecht Dürer, Caspar David Friedrich, Georg Grosz, Matthias Grünewald, John Heartfield, Hans Holbein, Freidensreich Hundertwasser (AT), Oskar Kokoschka (AT), Käthe Kollwitz, Paul Klee (CH) , Gustav Klimt (AT), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Liebermann, Franz Marc, Adolf Menzel, Emil Nolde, Egon Schiele (AT)

Authors - Ingeborg Bachmann (AT), Heinrich Böll (Nobel Laureate 1972), Bertolt Brecht, Friedrich Dürrenmatt (CH), Rudolf Eucken (Nobel Laureate 1908), Max Frisch (CH) Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Günter Grass (Nobel Laureate 1999), Peter Handke (AT), Gerhart Hauptmann (Nobel Laureate 1912), Hermann Hesse (Nobel Laureate 1946), Paul Heyse (Nobel Laureate 1910), Elfriede Jelinek (AT, Nobel Laureate 2004), Franz Kafka (AT/CZ), Heinrich Mann, Thomas Mann (Nobel Laureate 1929), Theodor Mommsen (Nobel Laureate 1902), Herta Müller (Nobel Laureate 2009), Robert Musil (AT), Rainer Maria Rilke (AT/CZ), Nelly Sachs (Nobel Laureate 1966), Friedrich Schiller, Arthur Schnitzler (AT), Stefan Zweig (AT)

Composers - Joahnn Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Georg Friedrich Händel, Josef Haydn (AT), Gustav Mahler (AT), Felix Mendelssohn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (AT, Arnold Schönberg (AT), Franz Schubert (AT), Johann Strauß (AT) , Richard Strauss, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner, Kurt Weill

Philosophers and Thinkers - Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Martin Buber (AT), Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Edmund Husserl (AT), Immanuel Kant, Gotfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Popper (AT), Arthur Schopenhauer, Ludwig Wittgenstein (AT)

Natural and Social Scientists - Gerd Binnig (Nobel Laureate 1986), Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk (AT), Albert Einstein (Nobel Laureate 1921), Gerhard Ertl (Nobel Laureate 2007), Sigmund Freud (AT), Peter Grünberg (Nobel Laureate 2007), Friedrich von Hayek (AT, Nobel Laureate), Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Laureate 1932), Theodor Hänsch (Nobel Laureate 2005), Carl Jung (CH), Wolfgang Ketterle (Nobel Laureate 2001), Klaus von Klitzing (Nobel Laureate 1985), Robert Koch, Ernst Mach (AT), Carl Menger (AT), Ludwig von Mises (AT), Georg Simon Ohm, Max Planck (Nobel Laureate 1918), Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (Nobel Laureate 1901), Joseph Schumpeter (AT)

Therefore it is no surprise that In the United States, 40% of scientists recommend the study of German (Source: DAAD - “German in Science and the Humanities”)

So learn from the best and brightest! A recent study by Professor Richard Lynn of the University of Ulster also indicates that the Germans have the highest average IQ in Europe (see Germans are brainiest in the British Times on 27 March 2006).

And for US-Americans, the study of German is a study of ourselves, since German is the largest ethnic group in the United States In 2006, during the latest Community Survey by the Census Bureau, 35.5 Million US-Americans claimed German ancestry (more information here).

While German-Americans comprise 15% of the US population, a few states in the upper Midwest have over 50% German heritage.

German-American Heritage Map