German is a West Germanic language spoken mainly in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Belgium, Luxembourg and Italy. It is recognised as a minority language in Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Namibia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, South Africa, Vatican City and Venezuela. There are also significant German-speaking communities in the USA, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Australia, South Africa, Chile, Paraguay, New Zealand and Peru.

Standard German (Hoch Deutsch) has around 90 million native speakers, and other varieties of German have some 30 million. There are about 80 million people who speak German as a second language, and many others study it as a foreign language.

The earliest known examples of written German date from the 8th century AD and consist of fragments of an epic poem, the Song of Hildebrand, magical charms and German glosses in Latin manuscripts. A short Latin-German dictionary, the Abrogans, was written during the 760s.

Status: official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy (South Tyrol), Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Belgium and the EU; recognised minority language in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Namibia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, South Africa, Vatican City and Venezuela German literature started to take off during the 12th and 13th centuries in the form of poems, epics and romances. Well-known examples include the epic Nibelungenlied (the Song of the Nibelungs) and Gottfried von Straßburg's Tristan. The language used is now known as mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache (Middle High German poetic language). During this period Latin was gradually replaced by German as the language of official documents.

Source: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/german.htm