Post 1500, what countries can have German as the main language outside of Europe?

The German speakers don't have to be of German descent. And they have to still be speaking German today.

Yeah, I guess this is all I can say, since the question is pretty straightforward.
 
Can you make something out of Klein-Venedig? Can the Habsburg emperors settle Germans in a specific place in the New World? That's the obvious place to put a German colony. The historic German diaspora in Eastern Europe, particularly the Russian one, seems like it's evident the Germans would go almost anywhere at that time.

If I were the Holy Roman Emperor also in control of the Spanish Empire, I'd settle them in either Argentina or New Mexico, at the fringes of the empire. I think there, they'd keep to their native language but also develop an independent streak where once the empire declines, they'd become an independent country. Put it under control of the Austrians to make sure it stays German.

Before 1500 there's many more possibilities, but post-1500, it all depends how the Germans can latch onto the Spanish Empire.
 
I guess it depends a bit on how you define German, but if you include Yiddish (a high German language), maybe this language could have been used as the official language of a Jewish state somewhere outside Europe (could be Palestine or some other area). If that state was established before OTL holocaust more Jews might have had the chance to emigrate somewhere.
 
I guess it depends a bit on how you define German, but if you include Yiddish (a high German language), maybe this language could have been used as the official language of a Jewish state somewhere outside Europe (could be Palestine or some other area). If that state was established before OTL holocaust more Jews might have had the chance to emigrate somewhere.
I mean German as in the Germanic language ( and dialects) that is(are) spoken in modern Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
 
USA (one vote in it in our TL), Any part of Spanish empire allocated for German settlement as discussed above. Philippines (if German Empire had purchased from Spain and no WWI) NZ or Australia or some subsection thereof (if Germany had united earlier and got settlers there in early 1800s) Kamerun, Deutsche Ostafrika, Togoland, Samoa, (no WWI) Deutsche Kongo/Mittelafrika (if Germany won WWI or did a bit better in the original carve up of Africa) Madagaskar (ditto).
 
USA (one vote in it in our TL), Any part of Spanish empire allocated for German settlement as discussed above. Philippines (if German Empire had purchased from Spain and no WWI) NZ or Australia or some subsection thereof (if Germany had united earlier and got settlers there in early 1800s) Kamerun, Deutsche Ostafrika, Togoland, Samoa, (no WWI) Deutsche Kongo/Mittelafrika (if Germany won WWI or did a bit better in the original carve up of Africa) Madagaskar (ditto).

Africa, maybe, to the degree Nigeria, Senegal, and other countries in Africa speak English/French respectively OTL, but you do know that the America vote is an urban legend, right? I doubt the Philippines would ever speak German, since they don't even really speak Spanish OTL.
 
I mean German as in the Germanic language ( and dialects) that is(are) spoken in modern Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

That is why I would argue that Yiddish should be included, because, linguistically, it is a (High) German language, which means that it is closer to Standard German than what is the case for the dialects in the north of Germany.
 
I doubt the Philippines would ever speak German, since they don't even really speak Spanish OTL.

That's mostly because there was never a comprehensive public education program during the Spanish period geared towards it. It's very plausible for the Philippines to speak German. The results of America's own program proves it, considering the language that I'm currently writing in. :p
 
That's mostly because there was never a comprehensive public education program during the Spanish period geared towards it. It's very plausible for the Philippines to speak German. The results of America's own program proves it, considering the language that I'm currently writing in. :p

Okay, I admit, that's basically true, but surely that has to be helped by the fact that English is a lingua franca which German isn't.
 
Okay, I admit, that's basically true, but surely that has to be helped by the fact that English is a lingua franca which German isn't.

Eh, back in those days, German and French were still pretty important. Wasn't German a pretty common tongue in the USA? Twist the 19th century a bit, and German could become more prominent. Also, not being a global lingua franca doesn't stop French from being the lingua franca of West Africa, or German from being the common tongue of Central Europe before the World Wars. :p
 
That is why I would argue that Yiddish should be included, because, linguistically, it is a (High) German language, which means that it is closer to Standard German than what is the case for the dialects in the north of Germany.
Yiddish is still spoken in Germany? I thought it would be gone in Germany since most of the speakers were either killed or left and then stopped speaking it. Nevertheless, I guess it's OK, but it kind of feels like cheating. Is Yiddish intelligible with the standard German dialect?
 
Africa, maybe, to the degree Nigeria, Senegal, and other countries in Africa speak English/French respectively OTL, but you do know that the America vote is an urban legend, right?

Actually I didn't so thanks for clarifying. First heard that when I was a boy at school and have assumed it to be correct for thirty odd years!:happyblush But even without that, possible to have several regions of OTL German settled to the degree that they never seek admission to the USA. Particularly those where they could play off the US against Canada or Mexico. A German Texas or Oregon perhaps? Or, in a timeline with no USA, several states could have ended up majority German speaking through extensive immigration.
 
with a POD in 1500, Germany could be United by 1650, and German could.be the world's lingua franca by 1700. pretty much you could pick any colony in the world and Germany could conquer it after 1700 and could have it speaking German by 1900. obviously this won'the work for places like China, but you could have most of the Americas, large parts of Africa, Australia and new Zealand be German speaking. you could have German be the lingua franca of India the way English is otl.
 
Dutch Revolt was second half of 16th century. Importance of United Provinces and unimportance of Northern Holy Roman Empire was a 16th/17th century development... and even so, half the men whom Vergaan Onder Corruptie sailed to Indies were German rather than Dutch.
With a few butterflies, could you have India ruled from Hamburg and speaking German courtesy of Hanseatic East India Company?
 
PoD 1500?
Before 17th century, Dutch was regarded, and was, as just one dialect of Deutsch.
Not true. That is an extremely anachronistic way of thinking. At best Dutch was seen as one of the ways (common) people spoke in the Holy Roman Empire. There was no such concept as German (or Deutch) or dialects.
 
Yiddish is still spoken in Germany? I thought it would be gone in Germany since most of the speakers were either killed or left and then stopped speaking it. Nevertheless, I guess it's OK, but it kind of feels like cheating. Is Yiddish intelligible with the standard German dialect?

To be honest, I don´t know if Yiddish is intelligible with standard German. It all really depends on what you mean with a "German dialect", but if you consider the Low German dialects to be "German", then it would make sense to include Yiddish, since Yiddish is closer to Standard German than what is the case with the Low German dialects (at least as far as I understand, since both Yiddish and Standard German is classified as High German. Languages should really be classified on linguistic, not political, criterias.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
I mean German as in the Germanic language ( and dialects) that is(are) spoken in modern Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

Yiddish is a dialect of German, which is quite a large part of why Israelis were so keen to give it up. If you change things to such a degree that we have German colonies in different places, it doesn't make sense to include Swiss German but not Yiddish, both are equally distant from standard German. To be honest, with POD's pre-1600, we shouldn't really speak of there automatically being a German language, pre-1600 POD's can easily result in Dutch and German having a single standard language, or the German dialect complex dividing into more than the 3 standards (German, Dutch, Yiddish) that today represent it.

Anyway, it's very easy, with only minimal changes to get German speaking states in the Americas. Paraguay is the best bet, but you could get one in a Balkanised US or as a buffer between Brazil and Argentina, also southern Chile is possible. New Guinea was a German colony, with no WW it would be German speaking, same with Tanzania.
 
Yiddish is not really a dialect IMO, it´s not spoken really in a specific zone and is standardized I think, but using the Jewish the community to have a oversea German speaking region is stupid, there are tens if not hundreds of better ways to do it.
 
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