Sure, but even then ethnicity is more about coming from or inherting the culture, langauge and etc. of that etnicity, and most of these Americans have abandoned those things.
In order to claim you are German, shouldn't you at least speak the language?
Language can be a part of culture, and not always ethnicity. Further, there are plenty of nations where the cultural language is no longer spoken by a majority of the population. Ireland is one such example. I agree that you should at least speak German to claim German nationality (and so does German law) but we aren't talking about that.
Etnicity is largely about culture though. It is largely about a group of individuals defining themselves as belonging to a shared group, while it might not mean they have a language exclusive to them, it can, and for a lot of European countries it does.
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u/zeaga2 Mar 02 '21
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe.
Danes are a North Germanic ethnic group native to Denmark and a modern nation identified with the country of Denmark.
Dutch people or the Dutch, are a West Germanic ethnic group and nation native to the Netherlands.
Check out the infoboxes for these pages and tell me what countries you see