language of Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein, one of the official languages of Switzerland, Luxembourg and

The Germany national football team in 2012. Football is the most popular sport in Germany.
Twenty-seven million Germans are members of a sports club and an additional twelve million pursue sports individually.[228] Association football is the most popular sport. With more than 6.3 million official members, the German Football Association (Deutscher Fußball-Bund) is the largest sports organisation of its kind worldwide.[228] The Bundesliga, the top league of German football, is the most popular sports league in Germany and attracts the second highest average attendance of any professional sports league in the world.
The German national football team won the FIFA World Cup in 1954, 1974 and 1990 and the UEFA European Football Championship in 1972, 1980 and 1996. Germany hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1974 and 2006 and the UEFA European Football Championship in 1988. Among the most well-known footballers are Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller, Jürgen Klinsmann, Lothar Matthäus, and Oliver Kahn.
Other popular spectator sports include wintersports, boxing, handball, volleyball, basketball, ice hockey, tennis, horse riding and golf. Water sports like sailing, rowing, swimming, wind- and kitesurfing, wakeboarding, underwater diving, fishing, powerboating and yachting are popular in Germany as well, especially with large annual events such as Kiel Week or Hanse Sail Rostock.[228]
Germany is one of the leading motor sports countries in the world. Constructors like BMW and Mercedes are prominent manufacturers in motor sport. Additionally, Porsche has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, an annual endurance race held in France, 16 times, and Audi has won it 11 times. The Formula One driver Michael Schumacher has set many motor sport records during his career, having won more Formula One World Drivers' Championships and more Formula One races than any other driver; he is one of the highest paid sportsmen in history.[229] Sebastian Vettel has won the championships from 2010 until 2013 and thus is among the most successful F1 drivers of all times.
Historically, German sportsmen have been successful contenders in the Olympic Games, ranking third in an all-time Olympic Games medal count, combining East and West German medals. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, Germany finished fifth in the medal count,[230] while in the 2006 Winter Olympics they finished first.[231] Germany has hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice, in Berlin in 1936 and in Munich in 1972. The Winter Olympic Games took place in Germany once in 1936 in the twin towns of Garmisch and Partenkirchen.
German (Deutsch ['d??t?] ( listen)) is spoken natively by approximately 89 million people, making it one of Europe's most spoken languages. It is also the first most widely spoken as native language in Europe but the least spoken outside main native areas like Germany and Austria where English and French dominate the European Union.
German is a West Germanic language and derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.[19] A number of words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer from French and English. Widely spoken languages which are most similar to German include Luxembourgish, Yiddish, Dutch, the Frisian languages, the Scandinavian languages and English.
It is written using the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with umlauts (Ä/ä, Ö/ö, and Ü/ü) and the letter ß (a special kind of "s", called "Eszett" or "scharfes Es"; it originates from the junction of archaic forms of the letters s and z, which were represented as ? and ?, respectively, that is, ? + ? = ?? = ß).
German is a pluricentric language, with multiple countries having their own standardised variants (e.g. Austrian German, Swiss Standard German). There is also one variant referred to as Standard German.
German is the only official language of Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein, one of the official languages of Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium and a recognised minority language in many countries such as Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Namibia and Poland.
The history of the language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, separating Old High German dialects from Old Saxon. The earliest evidence of Old High German is from scattered Elder Futhark inscriptions, especially in Alemannic, from the 6th century AD; the earliest glosses (Abrogans) date to the 8th; and the oldest coherent texts (the Hildebrandslied, the Muspilli and the Merseburg Incantations) to the 9th century. Old Saxon at this time belongs to the North Sea Germanic cultural sphere, and Low Saxon was to fall under German rather than Anglo-Frisian influence during the Holy Roman Empire.
As Germany was divided into many different states, the only force working for a unification or standardization of German for several hundred years was the general wish of writers to be understood by as many readers as possible.
Modern German[edit]
Germany[edit]
Question book-new.svg
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2013)

man menu; pike, carp, and European perch also are listed frequently. Vegetables are often used

Star of Fritz Lang on the Boulevard of Stars at Berlin's Potsdamer Platz. Lang was the director of Metropolis, the first science fiction film (in feature length), that premiered in 1927.[215]
German cinema dates back to the earliest years of the medium, it has made major technical and artistic contributions to film, as with the work of Max Skladanowsky, who showed the first film sequences ever to an audience, in 1895. Early German cinema was particularly influential with German expressionists such as Robert Wiene and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. Director Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) is referred to as the first modern science-fiction film. In 1930 Josef von Sternberg directed The Blue Angel, the first major German sound film.[216]
During the 1970s and 1980s, New German Cinema directors such as Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder put West German cinema on the international stage.[217] The annual European Film Awards ceremony is held every other year in Berlin, home of the European Film Academy (EFA); the Berlin Film Festival, held annually since 1951, is one of the world's foremost film festivals.[218]
In the 21st century, several German movies have had international success, such as Nowhere in Africa (2001), Das Experiment (2001), Good Bye, Lenin! (2003), Gegen die Wand (Head-On) (2004), Der Untergang (Downfall) (2004), Perfume (2006), The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008), The Wave (2008), The White Ribbon (2009), Pandorum (2009), Soul Kitchen (2009), Animals United (2010), Combat Girls (2011) and Cloud Atlas (2012). The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film went to the German production Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) in 1979, to Nowhere in Africa in 2002, and to Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) in 2007.[219]
Germany's television market is the largest in Europe, with some 34 million TV households. Around 90% of German households have cable or satellite TV, with a variety of free-to-view public and commercial channels.[220] The most watched television broadcast of all-time in Germany was the Germany vs Spain semi-fnal game of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.[221] Nine out of ten of the top ten most watched television broadcasts of all-time in Germany feature the German national football team.
The German video gaming market is one of the largest in the world.[222] The Gamescom in Cologne is Europe's leading gaming convention. Popular game series from Germany include Turrican, the Anno series, The Settlers series, the Gothic series, SpellForce, the X series, the FIFA Manager series, Far Cry and Crysis. The most relevant game developers and publishers are Ascaron, Bigpoint, Blue Byte, Crytek, Deck13, Deep Silver, EA Phenomic, Gameforge, Nintendo Europe, Piranha Bytes, Radon, Related, Spellbound and Wooga.
Cuisine
Main article: German cuisine


A Bavarian woman holding glasses of Hacker-Pschorr, one of the few traditional beer brands that are allowed to be served at Oktoberfest.
German cuisine varies from region to region. The southern regions of Bavaria and Swabia, for instance, share a culinary culture with Switzerland and Austria. In all regions, meat is often eaten in sausage form.[223] Organic food has gained a market share of ca. 2%, and is expected to increase further.[224] Although wine is becoming more popular in many parts of Germany, the national alcoholic drink is beer. German beer consumption per person is declining, but at 121.4 litres in 2009 it is still among the highest in the world.[225] The Michelin guide has awarded nine restaurants in Germany three stars, the highest designation, while 15 more received two stars.[226] German restaurants have become the world's second-most decorated after France.[227]
Pork, beef, and poultry are the main varieties of meat consumed in Germany, with pork being the most popular. The average person in Germany will consume up to 61 kg (134 lb) of meat in a year. Among poultry, chicken is most common, although duck, goose, and turkey are also enjoyed. Game meats, especially boar, rabbit, and venison are also widely available all year round. Trout is the most common freshwater fish on the German menu; pike, carp, and European perch also are listed frequently. Vegetables are often used in stews or vegetable soups, but are also served as side dishes. Carrots, turnips, spinach, peas, beans, broccoli and many types of cabbage are very common. A wide variety of cakes and tarts are served throughout the country, most commonly made with fresh fruit. Apples, plums, strawberries, and cherries are used regularly in cakes. Cheesecake is also very popular, often made with quark. Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest cake, made with cherries) is probably the most well-known example of a wide variety of typically German tortes filled with whipped or butter cream.
Sports
Main article: Sport in Germany