Who were the first people to speak German?

It's impossible to say definitively who the "first" people to speak German were, as language development is a gradual process, not a sudden invention.

However, we can trace the origins of the German language back to Proto-Germanic, a language spoken by ancient Germanic tribes who lived in what is now northern Europe. This language, believed to have been spoken around the 2nd century BC, was the ancestor of all Germanic languages, including German, English, Dutch, Swedish, and more.

Here's what we know about those early Germanic speakers:

* They were Indo-European: Proto-Germanic, like other Germanic languages, belongs to the Indo-European language family, meaning it shares a common ancestor with languages like Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and many others.

* They lived in northern Europe: The Germanic tribes migrated from Scandinavia and the Baltic region to areas like present-day Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands.

* Their language evolved over time: Proto-Germanic itself developed from earlier languages, and it further evolved into distinct dialects and eventually into the modern Germanic languages we know today.

Therefore, while we can't pinpoint the "first" German speakers, we can trace the roots of the language back to those who spoke Proto-Germanic, which is considered the earliest form of the language we know as German today.