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comment by Cumol
Cumol  ·  3847 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The most commonly spoken language that isn't English or Spanish in each state

Could someone shortly explain to me why German is the most common language after English and Spanish?





user-inactivated  ·  3847 days ago  ·  link  ·  

german immigrants and their descendents are the largest ancestry group in america, ahead of even the english and irish.

Cumol  ·  3847 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I was not aware of that, thank you for the info :)

tehstone  ·  3846 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You can thank back to back world wars against Germany for the decline of the German language in the US. At the turn of the 20th century the language was used all across the country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language_in_the_United_States#German-language_press

Additionally, there are multiple religious groups that left Europe throughout the 19th century who speak German to this day.

Cumol  ·  3846 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I did not realize that there were so many german newspapers in the U.S., wow!

I found it funny to see the the WWII propaganda poster stating to "speak american"... Was this not a discussion after the Coca Cola ad during the superbowl not too long ago?