German - 4 countries?

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down_under_lover_forever2006

The first two answers were right - BUT - there's another tiny country squeezed in between Switzerland on its left and Austria on its right. This tiny country is called FÃ¼rstentum Liechtenstein (Principality of Liechtenstein). For the flag you'd better google this under the name of the country because I hardly can explain how it looks like - colours are a blue and red horizontal stripe with a yellow crown on the blue one in the left upper corner.

ShlomoNYC

u can add parts of Italy as well

and in some parts of Denmark German is an accepted language

O Smart One

German is spoken in more then 4 countries with varying dialects.

Germany (Standard German A.K.A. Hochdeutsch [High German Dialect + Regional Dialects [ie. Bavarian, Koeln dialect, etc.)
Austria (Standard German + Regional Dialects [Tyrol])
Switzerland (Swiss German [Schweizerdeutsch])
Belgium (Standard German, spoken by around 70,000 near the border with Germany)
Luxembourg (Standard German, along with Luxembourgish which is similar to German)
Namibia (Speaks German as one of the official languages)
Liechtenstein (Allemaniac German, similar to Swiss-German)

Flags

Germany - Black, Red, and Yellow stripes horizontally
Austria - Red, White, Red stripes horizontally
Switzerland - Red background with white cross in centre
Belgium - Black, Yellow, Red stripes vertically
Liechtenstein - Blue, Red stripes with crown in top left corner
Namibia - Blue, Red, Green stripes diagonally with sun in top left corner
Luxembourg - Red, White, and Light Blue stripes horizontally.

Richard B

Germany, Austria, Switzerland (along with French and Italian), Belgium (along with French and Flemish).
You will have to do an internet search to see the flags of these countries.

Papajoe

O Smart One gave the most complete list so far. Still, there is one country missing: Italy! To be exact, it's the South Tyrol that I'm talking about. More than 2/3 of the population (496.435 as of June 30, 2008) speak it - as by the German Wiki (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCdtirol), the English Wiki gives only slightly different figures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Tyrol). And last but not least: German is also spoken in the Alsace region in France! See this detail: "...from 1945 to 1984, the use of German in newspapers was restricted to a maximum of 25% (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alsace).

As for "Swiss German" ("Alemannic" is actually the correct description of this language), please read this:

The dialects of Swiss German must not be confused with Swiss Standard German, the variety of Standard German used in Switzerland. Even though Swiss Standard German is influenced by the Swiss German dialects to a certain degree, it is a variety of the Standard German language and very distinct from Swiss German proper. Any native speaker will immediately note the difference.

Unlike most regional dialects in modern Europe, Swiss German is the spoken everyday language of all social levels in industrial cities as well as in the countryside. Using dialect conveys no social nor educational inferiority and is spoken with pride. There are only a few specific settings where speaking Standard German is demanded or polite, e.g., in education (but not during breaks in school lessons, where the teachers will speak in dialect with students), in multilingual parliaments (the federal parliaments and a few cantonal and municipal ones), in the main news broadcast or in the presence of German-speaking foreigners. This situation has been called a medial diglossia since the spoken language is mainly the dialect whereas the written language is mainly Standard German.

Swiss German is intelligible to speakers of other Alemannic dialects but is usually not intelligible to speakers of Standard German, including French- or Italian-speaking Swiss who learn Standard German at school. Swiss German speakers on TV or in movies are thus usually dubbed or subtitled if shown in Germany (see English Wikipedia/Swiss German).

Zoe Dot

do your own work.

btw -- mr. geography -- belgians do NOT speak german.

Warren S

Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Austria.

To those who say that German is not spoken in Belgium, it is in the Eupen and Malmady areas and is recognized as such.

Flags:
http://www.wave.net/upg/immigration/flags.html

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