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All Germanic Languages With a Map

Can you name all the Germanic languages and dialects on the map below? Not every dialect is featured, only those which have their own ISO 639 code.
ISO 639 are standards as per the International Organization for Standardization and are an attempt to categorise the different languages and language families
I have added one additional dialect in the Low Countries, as well as subtracted a couple of hard to map or even controversial languages, although they appear on the quiz, albeit already filled-in
Speakers are according to L1 figures found here, excluding languages with exceptional geographic reach
Quiz by Jiaozira
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Last updated: May 24, 2021
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First submittedFebruary 19, 2021
Times taken40,158
Average score48.0%
Rating4.84
4:30
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West Germanic
 
L1
Language
 
360 m
English
 
>
Scots
110 k
95 m
German
 
>
Austro-Bavarian
14 m
>
Swiss German
5.0 m
>
Mainfränkisch
4.9 m
>
Upper Saxon
2.0 m
>
Low German
1.0 m
>
Palatinate German
1.0 m
>
Ripuarian
900 k
>
Swabian German
820 k
>
Luxembourgish
336 k
>
Silesian German
11 k
24 m
Dutch
 
>
Limburgish
1.3 m
7.2 m
Afrikaans
 
600 k
Yiddish
 
470 k
West Frisian
 
10 k
North Frisian
 
2.0 k
Saterland Frisian
 
70
Wymysorys
 
 
 
 
 
 
North Germanic
 
L1
Language
 
11 m
Swedish
 
5.5 m
Danish
 
5.2 m
Norwegian
 
330 k
Icelandic
 
66 k
Faroese
 
 
 
A Brief Comparison
EN
Did my friend give the man the book yesterday?
 
 
DE
Hat mein Freund dem Mann gestern das Buch gegeben?
RI
Hät minge Fründ däm Mann gester dat Boch gegovve?
NL
Heeft mijn vriend de man gisteren het boek gegeven?
AF
Het my vriend die man gister die boek gegee?
WF
Hat myn freon de man juster it boek jûn?
 
 
SV
Gav min vän mannen boken igår?
DK
Gav min ven manden bogen i går?
NO
Gav vennen min mannen boka i går?
IS
Gaf vinur minn manninum bókina í gær?
+11
Level 70
Mar 2, 2021
Edit: Flemish has been removed, as it is not so much a seperate dialect as I was originally led to believe. Thank you everyone for playing this quiz!
+4
Level 55
Feb 19, 2021
Your language quizzes are amazing. The formatting is really neat and organized. Just wondering - how do you choose where/how to draw the borders for the map? I'm thinking about making an 'all romance languages' quiz w/ a map (if you're not already working on it ;))
+2
Level 70
Feb 19, 2021
I'm glad you think so! For most dialects there are several maps avaliable for reference, to show where specific dialects are. However, some dialects/languages are not exactly easy to map, for Silesian German the area I drew simply covers the region of Silesia in Poland. European languages and dialects are on average well-studied and so dialects have been much better recorded. That being said, some languages such as Yiddish remain out of my mapping skills, considering it has a vast reach across North America, Europe and Israel. You are always welcome to make your own adaptations of whichever quiz idea I make, although I should give a heads up that I have already started an 'All Romance Languages' project in the same vain as this one.
+2
Level 55
Feb 19, 2021
Ok thanks! I won't make the 'all romance languages quiz'. Looking forward to it! :)
+2
Level 70
Feb 19, 2021
It will be a few days likely. And like I said please feel free to make whichever adaptation you like (I don't want to limit people from making any sort of content)!
+2
Level 67
Apr 27, 2021
As a Swede I can confirm it should be 'Gav min vän mannen boken igår?'
+1
Level 70
Apr 27, 2021
Much appreciated, someone already corrected me on the Norwegian, so I was waiting for someone to confirm for Swedish. I hope that all the North Germanic languages now have accurate translations :D
+3
Level 58
May 21, 2021
I would've said "Gav min vän boken till mannen igår?" instead, which is the way I believe most people would say and write it.
+2
Level 78
May 21, 2021
Out of curiosity, why was Yiddish omitted? Even if it was mapped to region in the Rhineland where it is thought that it originated.
+1
Level 70
May 24, 2021
@YellowJacket I looked into a few ways of mapping Yiddish but due to the way it is spread I don't believe that it can be feasibly mapped with an SVG. The closest thing I thought to do is to map Yiddish where it is spoken either in Ukraine or Israel but that didn't work out, sadly.
+8
Level 55
Feb 19, 2021
I like how instead of rushing to get quizzes submitted, you take the time to add small elements' in this case a Language comparison, that make the quiz so much better.
+1
Level 70
Feb 19, 2021
Thank you! I find it important to give detail as if I were presenting the topic (just in the form of a quiz).
+8
Level 37
Feb 19, 2021
I'm from Poland and I didn't know about the wymysorys language, thanks for that quiz! I nominated it!
+2
Level 70
Feb 19, 2021
Thank you, I am glad to hear you enjoyed the quiz! Wymysorys is such a rare language nowadays, I hope the people from the village where it is spoken find a way to keep it alive.
+3
Level 66
Apr 9, 2021
In polish it’s język wilamowicki :)
+2
Level 76
Feb 24, 2021
Amazing quiz! But I have to disagree with the Dutch/Flemish distinction. If these are different, then Irish English and England English should also be distinguished, so small is the difference. True, a Hollander may not understand a strong rural Flemish dialect. But the same holds for eg Londoners and strong Irish English dialects.
+2
Level 70
Feb 24, 2021
Have to agree with you, I didn't know what to do with Flemish (as a non-Dutch speaking person). I have been told before that Flemish is a seperate language even, (or at least that Flemish people speak Flemish and not Dutch). Changes will be implemented soon, and thank you for playing :)
+1
Level 62
May 28, 2021
Written Flemish and written Dutch are almost the same. When speaking we can have some trouble understanding each other though depending on where the people are from exactly. But I can guarantee you that a Dutch person wouldn't understand everything I say when I'm speaking my Brabantian dialect (in Flanders).
+2
Level 78
May 21, 2021
I'm from the US and there are times that I don't understand a strong Boston or New York accent.
+3
Level 65
Apr 9, 2021
Silesian German?

I live exactly where the map shows the "Silesian German" is, and I assure You, that practically all people who live there do speak Polish and do not speak Silesian German or any version of German at all. And there are hardly any real native Germans in Silesia since the end of 1940s. Note, that only some people may speak this language in Saxony in Germany. Others were moved by Stalin from the today Poland to the today Germany many years ago.

+3
Level 70
Apr 9, 2021
According to Wikipedia, there are still a small minority of elderly Silesian German speakers in present-day Opole Voivodeship. I left it transparent to show that most people in that region do not speak the dialect, otherwise I would not be able to show the language at all on a map (not a Jetpunk quiz-map anyways, maybe a couple pixels on another map with extreme detail).
+3
Level 65
Apr 10, 2021
True, there are some near and in Opole, a very little number. And it is a small region too, a subregion of that what is on the map now. Could You please draw the Opole voivodship only.
+2
Level 50
May 23, 2021
I think it is mainly hisotiric boundaries. It doesn't imply that the majority of people speak a Germanic language. Only that in that region some people live that speak a Germanic language. The same is with Low Saxon/Low German for example. It covers the whole of Northern Germany. Yet, only a very small group still speak that langauge today. I grew up in the Eastern part of the Netherlands and a lot of people there still speak a Low Saxon dialect in some form or the other. Although, the influence of Dutch has changed the language a lot that a lof of people do not even consider it being an own language rather a Dutch dialect. It is not even fully recognised by the Dutch government as being an official language and I have never been thought the language in school. Also because for the language does not really have a standard form, but rather different froms depending on regions.
+1
Level 70
May 24, 2021
That is true @Truecomments, a lot of these mappings have to have historical elements, especially after years of standardisation has weakened the strength of what we now call 'dialects'. It can be messy. In Scotland, Scots is most often described as a minority language, although a good number of people speak on a spectrum (in some scenarios, more Scots is mixed into speech). With everything taken into account, accurately surveying dialect and language becomes much more difficult.
+2
Level 77
Apr 9, 2021
Nice quiz! The example given of Norwegian isn't quite right, however - you wouldn't use "har" when there is an adverbial at the end like that. Replace "har" with "gav" like the Danish and Icelandic examples, and it would be right: "Gav vennen min mannen boka i går?"
+1
Level 70
Apr 9, 2021
Thank you, and I am relying on help like this on my quiz! I suspect the Swedish translation suffers from the same issue but I cannot fix it until that is confirmed.

Sometimes I find excellent sources where language syntax and structure is compared through accurately translated sentences, other times I must use Google Translate. More unfortunate yet is when I think I find a good source, but it turns out to be massively flaed (such as my Slavic language samples, although some of that was my own doing).

I think I just need a friend from every language so I can continue to make works such as this, although that may exceed the number of close contacts psychologists reckon we are able to have :D

+2
Level 77
Apr 10, 2021
If you want to be extra accurate, the -en suffix in "vennen" is also a definite marker like in "mannen" and "boka", so it might be grey like the others.
+1
Level 70
Apr 10, 2021
Thank you, I completely forgot about that but it is fixed now :)
+2
Level 57
Mar 2, 2023
This makes me wonder whether this and the Bokmål sentence should be different
+2
Level 65
Apr 9, 2021
Really great quiz! Jiao, I love your language maps! :)
+2
Level 70
Apr 9, 2021
As always, thank you ClutchNferno!
+2
Level 77
Apr 9, 2021
Can you accept Scottish for Scots?
+2
Level 70
Apr 10, 2021
I will consider it. I am usually quite picky with my type-ins for Scots and Scottish Gaelic, so that the two are not confused with one another. Of course the latter is not present here so that changes things, slightly.
+2
Level 70
Apr 21, 2021
I'm guessing that the Scots you're referring to is what's spoken in the southern region of Scotland...? If I'm remembering correctly, another name for that is Lallans, which (if I'm remembering correctly) is the pronunciation of "Lowlands" by the people who live in that area. Robert Burns' poetry contains a lot of Lallans...
+1
Level 70
Apr 22, 2021
That is true, Lallans is a traditional name for the language. At present, it typically refers to Southern/Central dialects however, while Doric is the Mid-Northern dialects (another term traditionally used to refer to Scots as a whole).
+1
Level 71
Apr 10, 2021
The Danish translation sounds more like something Yoda would say.. If you say that in Danish, people wouldn't understand what you are trying to say.
+2
Level 70
Apr 10, 2021
Do you have a better translation for that? I would appreciate it a lot.
+2
Level 67
May 21, 2021
I agree, no one would say it like that, but if you want a direct translation/comparison it probably needs to be as you have written it Jiaozira

The problem is, that if you have to say it in correct Danish, you would use different words that does not fit this constructed sentence. You could say "Gav min ven bogen til manden i går?" (i.e give to the man), but actually you would probably always ask "Fik manden bogen af min ven i går?" (i.e Did the man receive the book from my friend yesterday) which I guess have a slightly different meaning

+1
Level 70
May 24, 2021
Thank you for the clarification, Sputnix! It is difficult to find the balance between direct comparison (which comes off as robotic or unnatural) and more common ways to say the phrases (which may use different words and such).
+1
Level 57
Mar 2, 2023
thanks spu7nix
+1
Level 80
Apr 10, 2021
Isn't Afrikaans more spoken in Gauteng and Orange rather than the cape province? I thought the whites in the cape province were mostly English, not Dutch.
+2
Level 70
Apr 10, 2021
Its stronghold is on the West of South Africa, where it is spoken by Afrikaners but also mixed-race Basters and Cape Coloureds. Here is a map of the language within South Africa.
+3
Level 46
Apr 10, 2021
Should accept Saxon.

Also I tried Faroe, Faroesian, Faroeic... Just not Faroese :|

+1
Level 70
Apr 10, 2021
Saxon is the name of several dialects, however, that is why I require more detail.
+2
Level 76
Apr 10, 2021
Could you add Cimbrian? It belongs to the Bavarian dialects, but it's got its own ISO-639 code (cim).
+3
Level 70
Apr 10, 2021
The only reason I avoided Cimbrian was due to it being a subset of the Bavarian dialect. I tried to avoid adding dialects within dialects so to speak.
+2
Level 76
Apr 10, 2021
If you want to add examples for all the dialects as well, here is Ripuarian. It's not a standardized language, so this is Colognian, the sub-dialect with by far the most speakers.

Hät minge Fründ däm Mann gester dat Boch gegovve?

+2
Level 70
Apr 10, 2021
That is great, thank you! I will add for any dialect as long as I have a translation :)
+2
Level 76
Apr 12, 2021
Awesome, here are some more:

Bavarian: Håd mei Freind im Må gesting 's Buach gem?

Low Saxon: Hett mien Fründ den Mann güstern dat Book geven?

Swiss German: Hät min Fründ em Ma gester s Buech gee?

+1
Level 70
Apr 15, 2021
Much appreciated indeed, I will add those too but first I'm going to add a seperate section for dialects so I'll need a bit of time to get the design right. Cheers :D
+2
Level 73
May 21, 2021
Regarding Ripuarian: should it not be "jester" or "jestern" instead of "gester"?
+1
Level 76
Jul 24, 2021
It is certainly pronounced with a [j] sound. The only real spelling convention for Colognian, laid out by the Akademie för uns Kölsche Sproch, spells it with a , though. It's one of the four allophones ([j], [ç], [x], [ʁ]) of a single phoneme, all written .

To be fair, the spelling convention is not very commonly known among people that write in the dialect. You will most often see for the [j] realization, or for [ç]/[x], and usually still for [ʁ].

+3
Level 79
Apr 11, 2021
Managed to get Lower Saxon but didn't think to enter Upper Saxon...
+2
Level 83
Apr 13, 2021
Is Elfdalian not included because it is considered as a variety of Swedish?
+2
Level 64
Apr 24, 2021
What an amazing quiz!
+1
Level 70
Apr 24, 2021
Thank you!
+1
Level 68
May 21, 2021
English is not a Germanic language.
+16
Level 74
May 21, 2021
You know, you can just look that up.
+5
Level 43
Nov 26, 2021
It is.
+5
Level 83
Dec 24, 2022
I've seen people online often think English is a Romance language for some reason... I think people are overestimating the role of vocabulary in the structure of a language
+3
Level 64
May 21, 2021
Great quiz. But you should accept "Saxon" for "Upper Saxon".
+2
Level 43
Nov 26, 2021
But I think it would not be too accurate since there is also Low Saxon.
+2
Level 58
May 21, 2021
+1 for presentation; map, examples, and answer layout are all great.

Surprised Low German has so little variation compared to High

+2
Level 74
May 22, 2021
There are way more variations than that, the map just shows those distinct enough to be easily described as languages as opposed to dialects.
+1
Level 46
May 21, 2021
I know it's not English's point of origin, but where's America? English is spoken by about 85% of our population
+3
Level 48
May 21, 2021
You could say the same for many other countries
+2
Level 46
May 23, 2021
True, like Canada, AUS, NZ, etc.
+2
Level 70
May 24, 2021
In this case I focused on Europe since the languages developed naturally here over centuries.
+2
Level 48
May 21, 2021
Rip the East Germanic languages (Gothic, Burgundian etc)
+2
Level 71
May 21, 2021
Great quiz! Can you explain how you do the thing where you have 2 answers (paths I guess) connected to the same region, and when you type just 1 it turns light green and when you type 2 it turns darker green? I'm thinking about starting my ethnic maps series in a few weeks, and it might come in handy when I want to show two (or more) ethnic groups overlapping in the same location.

Anyways, if you want to comment here that's fine, but if it's easier over Discord, you can just find me (I joined the JetPunk Disc recently) and DM me. IDRC either way, whatever's more convenient for you!

+2
Level 45
May 21, 2021
You make a lot of subdivisions of the German language in Germany but you put all the Swiss German languages in one pot. Are you aware that our dialects are very different from each other and that some are hardly understood by other Swiss people. The example you are giving is my dialect, which is the one spoken in the Canton of Zurich.
+3
Level 64
May 21, 2021
and alsatian?
+1
Level 57
May 22, 2021
Missing a few, Alsatian being the whopper, but also Dalecarlian, Gutnish, Elfdalian... Plus wrong categorizations: Swiss should be Alemanic, Luxembourgish and Ripuarian should be accepted only if you accept Moselle Franconian, Lorraine Franconian, Rhine Franconian, Thuringian...
+1
Level 61
May 22, 2021
Luxembourgish is its own language.
+1
Level 50
May 23, 2021
I find it remarkably interesting you have added Low Saxon as a dialect of German rather than being distinctive. In the Netherlands arguably more people speak Low Saxon dialects than they do in Germany nowadays and I think not many people would consider them speaking a dialect of German. This might also be true because a lot of the Dutch 'dialects' (by a lack of a better word) have had influence of Dutch and over the years the dialects have become more Dutch compared to its in historical origin. I am myself a historian and I find Low Saxon as a language interesting as there is not a real standardise version that is being thought of course. I would have never considered the language that my parents speak to be a German dialect. Maybe that is also because I grew up switching between the local dialect and Dutch all the time and that all the people in my region basically all speak Dutch. I could have a good conversation in Low Saxon. It is just that there is not a real need anymore.
+1
Level 30
May 24, 2021
Shouldn't Wiliamowian be accepted as what the abomination that wYmYsOrYs is?
+1
Level 70
May 24, 2021
Vilamovian is also accepted but now 'Wiliamowian' will work too.
+1
Level 67
Jun 4, 2021
Cool game, just a little addition tho:

If Ripuarian, Saxon etc are considered separate from German, Moselle Franconian should be as well since it is closer to Luxemburgish (which is considered one of the Moselle Franconian dialects) than it is to German.

There is no standard version, that is my personal translation based on the variant spoken in the Eifel region:

Hät mengen Frend däm Maan jester et Booch jen?

+1
Level 68
Jul 21, 2021
Isn't Swabian just a varient of allemanic?
+2
Level 81
Aug 12, 2021
Thoughts about Pennsylvania German? Perhaps they slot into Palatinate German but an interesting consideration
+1
Level 70
Aug 12, 2021
I would probably associate Pennsylvania German with Palatinate dialects. It is certainly distinct, although if I were to choose dialects from that level this quiz would be five times as long! Same goes for Hutterite German which is spoken in my local area (Bavarian dialect).

Thanks for your comment!

+2
Level 52
Apr 20, 2022
Couldn't come up with upper saxon and I'm a native speaker of it.
+2
Level 53
Jun 30, 2022
You should make Finnish Swedish its own separate thing because there it's a different dialect, it has lots of Finnish loan words and it's overall different from Standard Swedish
+1
Level 70
Jul 5, 2022
For the purposes of this quiz (and Jetpunk quizzes only), I have to be very conservative about what I label as a separate language. For quiz purposes this is grouped under Standard Swedish.

That is the flaw of language quizzes, language is far too abstract to be completely grouped like this. I know there are varients of English such as the Yorkshire dialect which could be included as its own thing, for example. Therefore I have to make cuts :(

+1
Level 67
Oct 25, 2022
I like that quiz, but its strange that it does not accept the original names of the languages/dialects. If it were so, I had about 5 points more (for example "Pfälzisch" instead of Palatian).
+2
Level 58
Nov 22, 2022
If you would want to add Switzerland to the brief comparison "Hed min Fründ dem Ma geschder s Buech ge?" would be the sentence. The structure is basically the same as in normal german.

I have to say that this is just in one dialect, swiss german can vary quite heavily per region in the country.

+2
Level 70
Dec 10, 2022
I appreciate the translation, I may add it to the quiz although one problem with adding too many 'dialects' is that they don't have one standardised form and the spelling and words may vary.
+3
Level 72
Feb 2, 2023
If I saw the name "Wymysorys" in any other context, I would assume that it was Celtic.
+2
Level 70
Feb 3, 2023
Definitely one of the coolest names I've seen in a while, it sounds straight out of a book like Lord of the Rings :)
+2
Level 57
Mar 2, 2023
I feel like I should point out that the Norwegian translation is in Nynorsk, which is one of two Norwegian standards. There's barely a difference in this sentence (gav instead of ga as well as boka where it can also be boken in Bokmål), but there is a difference.

Nynorsk is the less used standard. Pretty much anything that has only one of the two uses Bokmål. There's nothing wrong with it, but if you wanna change it you can.

+1
Level 77
Mar 10, 2023
"Gav", like feminine "boka", is also used in bokmål. The dictionary gives both "gav" and "ga" as possible forms of the past tense. "Gav" is a bit more old-fashioned - looking up an n-gram with the national library shows "ga" overtaking "gav" in 1945, but "gav" is still used.
+1
Level 57
Apr 28, 2023
If it's considered old-fashioned, why would it be used in a Bokmål representation?
+2
Level 57
Mar 2, 2023
I'm not entirely sure Luxembourgish should be listed as a dialect of German, since it really isn't. I also feel like a Luxembourgish translation would be a good addition.

"Huet mäi Frënd dem Mann d'Buch gëschter ginn?" would be the sentence in Luxembourgish.

+3
Level 39
Apr 14, 2023
Yiddish should be added to this quiz. Although found mainly in ultra-orthodox jewish communities in the US, UK and Israel, it is still alive and well and definitely a germanic language :)
+3
Level 70
Apr 15, 2023
Yiddish is included, but it is greyed out because unfortunately (and due to the nature of its population distribution), it is too difficult to represent on the map.
+1
Level 23
Aug 12, 2023
Why Dutch is not divided as German is? Thank you
+1
Level 70
Aug 13, 2023
The divisions are the major dialect groupings. The present-day Dutch language is in a small, flat area with fewer geographic barriers, so there wasn't a big chance for the dialects to diverge and become more different from one another. Historically, there was not a hard border between the Dutch and German language, and the dialects slowly transitioned from village to village, but today the languages are standardised and the unique dialects are being overtaken by the standard forms.
+1
Level 57
Aug 24, 2023
German Silesian is almost extint, but even if, its spoken only in Upper Silesia region east of Opole.
+1
Level 70
Aug 24, 2023
I made it transparent to show it as a minority language, and I used a historic range to draw the map (although the spread of the language used to be much larger).
+1
Level 74
Nov 17, 2023
In Vorarlberg they don't speak a Bavarian dialect, but an Alemannic one (way closer to Swiss German than Austrian dialects).
+1
Level 68
Nov 20, 2023
Should 100% accept Badian or Alemannic.