ARD (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten Deutschlands, Consortium of public broadcasting services of Germany) - public, consisting of the following local public stations (which also provide regional programming in separate channels):
German is spoken primarily in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, in two-thirds of Switzerland, in the South Tyrol province of Italy (in German, Südtirol), in the small East Cantons of Belgium, and in some border villages of the South Jutland County (in German, Nordschleswig, in Danish, Sønderjylland) of Denmark.
German is a member of the western branch of the Germanic family of languages, which in turn is part of the Indo-European language family.
German was once the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe and remains one of the most popular foreign languages taught worldwide, and is more popular than French as a foreign language in Europe.