More than 20 million people with a history of immigration live in Germany. The majority of them also speak German within their own four walls. But there are differences between generations.
Even those who have an immigration background usually speak German at home. This applies to more than three quarters of people from this population group, the Federal Statistical Office announced on the occasion of International Mother Language Day on February 21st.
Almost a quarter (almost 24 percent) of the approximately 20.2 million people with a history of immigration spoke only German at home in 2022. More than half (almost 54 percent) communicated at home in at least one other language.
Besides German, the most common language is Turkish
In contrast, almost 23 percent of people communicate at home exclusively using one or more other languages. In this case, Turkish was spoken most frequently at 14 percent. This was followed by Russian with twelve percent, Arabic with ten, Polish with seven, English with six and Romanian with five percent.
There are clear differences between the first generation and the second generation. 27 percent of immigrants in the first generation do not speak German; in the second generation this only applies to nine percent. According to the Federal Statistical Office, a person has an immigration history if they or both parents have immigrated to Germany since 1950.
If all private households in Germany are taken into account, almost 79 percent of people spoke only German at home in 2022. Almost 16 percent used at least one other language, as the Federal Office announced.