As many as 20 per cent of those living in Germany do not speak German exclusively while at home, with five per cent speaking no German at all, according to the country’s statistics agency.
Around 80 per cent of the residents in Germany are said to only speak German in the privacy of their own homes, while 15 per cent speak multiple languages at home in addition to German.
The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced the statistics on Tuesday in commemoration of International Mother Language Day, breaking down those who do not speak German primarily in the home into five per cent who mainly speak German, ten per cent who predominantly speak another language but still speak some German and five per cent who speak other languages exclusively.
German City: Only 8 Percent of Migrant School Kids Speak Fluent German https://t.co/fUht8aT8f9
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 10, 2019
Turkish is the most widely spoken language after German among households, with 15 per cent saying they spoke it at home, followed by 13 per cent who speak Russian and 13 per cent who speak Arabic.
Destatis notes that the statistics come from a 2021 report and may reflect a different situation today following the influx of refugees from Ukraine, however.
According to a Destatis report published last year, around 22.3 million German residents come from migrant backgrounds, which accounts for around one in four Germans overall. Of those, just a third speak German exclusively in their homes, while around 18 per cent, nearly one in five, speak no German at all.
The statistics also do not mention the language rates based on age, although reports have claimed that foreign language use is more common among younger people, with some schools in Germany reporting that a minority of children speak German fluently.
In 2019, elementary schools in the city of Duisberg reported that just 8.2 per cent of the students could speak fluent German and at least 16.4 per cent spoke no German.
In Berlin, language became an issue in 2018 among recruits for the city’s police force in the Berlin police academy as some claimed that many recruits came from foreign backgrounds and had low proficiency in the language.
Over One in Four People in Germany Have a ‘Migrant Background’https://t.co/vGX6i7vor5
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 14, 2022
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