Did you already read this?

Not Yet, will read it.

I wonder what makes a language "old" in your mind.

What language do you think that is spoken in Zurich? ;)

... and Bern? In Zurich and Bern, everyone will understand German just fine. You won't necessarily recognize what people speak as German, but if you talk to them in bad German you can be sure they will switch to (possibly bad) German too.

אני חושב שגרמנית היא שפה יחסית חדשה.‏

@dotancohen: حسب على ما تفكر إنها ((لغة قديمة)) أو ((جديدة)) :) ... disclaimer: German myself, only managed to learn one semitic language so far, regrettably.

@XeoffBaloch, if you don't mind my asking, in what part of the world did you grow up?

To be fair to non-native speakers of German-as-it-is-tought (and also lots of native speakers of German German), it's probably near-impossible to listen in on conversations between two speakers of any of the Swiss dialects, including Züritüütsch (@c.p.).

@RainerVerteidige 𓀁𓁼𓀃𓉻 If you manage to figure out what this is meant to say, you are a better man than I!

Sorry, I tried, but will have to pass this time. The last character is throwing me off, it doesn't seem to fit in with the other three - 𓇋𓅱 𓈞𓅓𓆱𓐍𓏏𓂽 𓀀 (for lack of a better word).

In many places that were formerly under the Third Reich, a fair number of older people will understand German as a secondary language while younger people often learn English as a secondary language.

I mean any level of German > 0 :)

"I assume that German is a very old and widely spoken language." That has nothing to do with each other. How many people do you think speak Greek or Latin around here?

@RainerVerteidiger, I have grown up in different parts of the world :)

This question is unanswerable because it is too vague. Should the answer be yes because there are teachers of German in (probably) every European country? Or because in certain tourist areas, hotel staff and vendors are proficient in it? Or because I once was on vacation in Italy, drinking beer and someone came up to me and said "Ja, ja, sehr gut, Bier, Prost!"?

I disagree that it is unanswerable. It just requires the answerer to be willing to re-frame it appropriately for the OP. Which they're doing.