[tied] Re: German is too painful to speak

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Fritz Saxl <fritzsaxl@...> wrote:

> I have left Germany for many years now and I am not a
> Germanist, so I can only believe that you`re right.
> But what you have written also include the northern
> dialects like Plattdeutsch usw? This one here seems to
> me very different from Hochdeutsch...
> Some years ago I read in the Oldpapers (those news are
> now very old...) that in the University of Köln the
> students had protested for the use of their dialect in
> the classrooms. And I am quite sure that friends and
> members of a family do speak in dialects with each
> other, and some of these dialects are not easy to
> grasp...(like Plattdeutsch).

it seems you are not very up to date with the infos. For instance in
my family here in Germany, just my father-in-law speaks with its
older neighbours Platt. My wife, my brother-in-law, cousens, the
younger neighbours, they understand a bit Platt (maybe a bit more as
I do) but they are not able to speak anymore Platt. One can just
insert there and here some words into the Hochdeutsch sentences, but
it seems the dialect itself has year by year less speakers.

Alex