World Language Map

Where is Swabian spoken?

Swabian (Schwäbisch) is an Indo-European language, spoken in Germany. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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Where Swabian is spoken

Swabian is spoken in one country: Germany. 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
Germany1%841,191

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.

Swabian 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 Swabian?

Wikidata gives about 820,000 first-language speakers (ethnologue.com, 2006). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Threatened. Glottolog lists it as threatened: it is still spoken by all generations, but there are signs that the number of speakers is falling.

Where Swabian sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Swabian 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. High German
  7. Upper German
  8. Middle-Modern High German
  9. Modern High German
  10. Alemannic
  11. North Alemannic
  12. Swabian

Related languages

Other languages in the North Alemannic group:

More about Swabian

Codes: ISO 639-3 swg, Glottolog swab1242. Glottolog macroarea: Eurasia.

Questions about Swabian

Where is Swabian spoken?

Swabian is spoken in Germany. Unicode CLDR puts it at 1% of the population of Germany, which is about 841,191 people. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Swabian?

Wikidata gives about 820,000 first-language speakers (ethnologue.com, 2006). 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 Swabian in?

Glottolog places Swabian in the Indo-European family, in the branch Classical Indo-European, Germanic, Northwest Germanic, West Germanic, High German, Upper German, Middle-Modern High German, Modern High German, Alemannic and North Alemannic.

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