World Language Map

Where is Plautdietsch spoken?

Plautdietsch is an Indo-European language, spoken in Canada. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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Where Plautdietsch is spoken

Plautdietsch is spoken in one country: Canada. The table gives the share of each country’s people who speak it, from Unicode CLDR, where CLDR has a figure.

CountryShare of populationEstimated speakers
Canada0.1%42,674

Estimated speakers are the CLDR percentage applied to CLDR’s own population figure for the country, so they are rough. A country without a figure may still have speakers: it is listed because the language area, or Glottolog’s record, reaches it.

Plautdietsch has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Plautdietsch?

Wikidata gives about 261,000 speakers (Wikidata, with no source given). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Shifting. Glottolog lists it as shifting: the youngest speakers are adults, and children are growing up speaking another language.

Where Plautdietsch sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Plautdietsch as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Indo-European
  2. Classical Indo-European
  3. Germanic
  4. Northwest Germanic
  5. West Germanic
  6. North Sea Germanic
  7. Altsächsisch
  8. Middle-Modern Low German
  9. Low German
  10. Greater East Low German
  11. Plautdietsch

Related languages

Other languages in the Greater East Low German group:

More about Plautdietsch

Codes: ISO 639-3 pdt, Glottolog plau1238. Glottolog macroarea: North America.

Questions about Plautdietsch

Where is Plautdietsch spoken?

Plautdietsch is spoken in Canada. Unicode CLDR puts it at 0.1% of the population of Canada, which is about 42,674 people. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Plautdietsch?

Wikidata gives about 261,000 speakers (Wikidata, with no source given). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is Plautdietsch in?

Glottolog places Plautdietsch in the Indo-European family, in the branch Classical Indo-European, Germanic, Northwest Germanic, West Germanic, North Sea Germanic, Altsächsisch, Middle-Modern Low German, Low German and Greater East Low German.

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