Hi Imre,
I agree that Bavaria has a dialect that differs from modern
normed "Hochdeutsch". But in Germany dialect is rather the rule
than the exception. What I was speaking about was rather
the historic descent of the various dialects. In South Germany
they say, for example, "Pfund" (a pound), and you notice the
funny initial "pf" sound. Well, that is typical of Hochdeutsch,
and also of the Bavarian groups of dialects. (The Austrian
dialects also belong to this group) In Northern Germany
(Niederdeutsch) they do not have the "pf" sound, but it is
just "p", as it is in Dutch and in English too. There are quite
a number of such signs that show that Low German, Dutch, Frisian
and English form their own separate group of West-Germanic.

The fact that educated, or city people, say "Pfund" all over Germany
show that this "official" version of German has its roots in
the South. Already the Romans differentiated between Upper and
Lower Germany (Germania Superior et Inferior), but the sound
changes that differentiate the southern German from the northern
or "low" German, must have taken place after that date. For
further details I must take recourse to a dictionary that is very
exact in its description of the various Germanic dialects and their
interrelationships. For the educated way of pronouncing modern
standard German (Hochdeutsch), I found a reference to something
called "Bühnensprache", which is the way actors learned to speak
from the stage. I suppose that is how newsreaders speak on
radio and tv today, as well as politcians, corporate executives,
law officers, etc. But I suppose at the same time the region they
are from can be more or less easily detected. I at least, can
always hear whether someone is from Austria or not. Someone who
is from Germany would definitely be able to tell us more, and
correct me where I am just assuming things, because there are many
areas of Germany that I am quite unfamiliar with.


For examples of the multitude of German dialects, I recommend
the "Asterix" editions that exist in quite a number of dialect
editions, enough to blow your mind.

Vale,
Xigung.

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Imre <hobbi-germanista@...> wrote:
> Hello Xigung,
>
> Hochdeutsch isn't really home in South Germany either. Or at least
> those I have met from the Southern areas insist on their own local
> dialect, even lawyers or other highly trained people. I have read a
> short article some days ago about the language use of the German at
> workplaces. The study draws a few important consequences and on of
> these is that the about 70% of Bavarians speaks dialect at workplace,
> too, meanwhile in other areas not at such a high percentages. I have
> also observed that TV presenter of Bavarian and Austrian TV channels
> use their own accent as standard language, while other regional
> channels are not likely to do so. Beside Bavaria, the other large
> southern province of Baden-Württemberg is promoting a sympathy
> campaign with the "heimtückisch" motto: "Wir können alles. Ausser
> Hochdeutsch."
>
> I speak with High German pronunciation usually, and some Southern-
> like accent in colloquial speech. May be for this reasons the
> Hochdeutsch and Southern dialects are "the German" to me. But you
> are definitely right about that we should not ignore
> Niedersächsich/Plattdeutsch.
>
> As to Grimm and Jütland (Jylland): may be the cause the tried to prove
> the German-being of Jütland are merely political: Germany (or German
> Bund until 1871) and Denmark both proclaimed some areas of
> Schleswig and Holstein to be their own, but in 1864 German and
> Austrian troops invaded Schleswig and Holstein, and finally it was
> connected to the German Empire North Schleswig was returned to
> Denmark after WW I.
>
> Imre
>
> PS. one of my favourite tongue twisters is the
> word "südschleswigsches".
>
> -------

>
> xigung <xigung@...>
>
> >
> >
> > Hi Imre,
> > Well, I think you also ought to consider "Low German"
> > (Niederdeutsch), because Hochdeutsch really is the language
> > of Southern Germany, which differs in many respects from the
> > Anglo-Saxon that you are interested in.
> >
> > Low German, Frisian and Dutch are really much closer
> > to Old English.
> >
> >
> > About the language of the oldest runic inscriptions, the
> > experts differ. People from the West Germanic regions
> > seem to wish to equate Scandinavian with Anglo-Saxon
> > at around the year zero. I do not know what reasons
> > they have for this, but I suspect it is motivated in a
> > kind of cultural imperialism, just like Grimm by linguistic
> > means tried to "prove" that Jutland really belonged to
> > Germany, which was used to motivate several campaigns of
> > suppression.
> >
> > Remember that the earliest runes (ca. 200 AD or somewhat
> > earlier) are very few, and that there are not many other
> > records of the Scandinavian tongue as early as that.
> >
> > What I should like to look into, are the vocabularies of
> > Old Norse, as compared with Old English. Are the words
> > basically all adaptions of the same roots, or do the Scandinavian
> > languages contain many roots (what percentage?) that are not
> > found in Old English?
> >
> >
> > Vale,
> > Xigung.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Imre <hobbi-
> germanista@...> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Dear Haukur, Diego, Xigung and Llama nom,
> > >
> > > thanks for the contributions from all of you, indeed. Meanwhile I
> have
> > > realized that my question was somewhat improper, as it is very
> > difficult
> > > to say if two similar tongues can be considered dialects of the
very
> > > same languages or two separate languages. Separate statehood
> of
> > > the speakers might contribute to considering them separate
> > > languages, just as in case of the split of the former
Yugoslavia, the
> > > once "indivisible" Serbo-Croat today is considered to be 3 separate
> > > languages, such as Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian, though
> difference
> > > may be less significant between Bosnian and Serbian than Swiss
> > > German and Hochdeutsch (the latter two are thought to be the
> same
> > > language).
> > >
> > > It could have been similar in the age of shifting from common-
> Germanic
> > > to Western-Germanic languages and Old Norse. Since this was
> > > continuous we could only set a symbolic date or estimate a longer
> > > period during which it could have happened. But of course mutual
> > > intelligibility does not end at the time when the dialects split
>into
> >
> > > separate languages, e.g. written Dutch is more or less intelligible
> to
> > > German-speakers, or Estonian is also understandable to Finns in
> some
> > > extent. But because of the mutual intelligibility no one would say
> that
> > > these are dialects of the very same language, any longer.
> > >
> > > The reason for my question was that I wanted to when the Old
> Norse
> > > word `lög' acquired the meaning `law'. According to
> my "presumption #
> > > 1", this must have happened after that Old Norse and West
> Germanic
> > > languages split form each other, because the English cognate `lay'
> and
> > > German cognate `Lage' do not have the same meaning as `lög'.
> > >
> > > But again ("presumption #2") – since dialects can be well
different
> > > before formally splitting into different languages – it
could have
> > > happened that in the Northern dialects of the common-Germanic
> the
> > > proto-Germanic *'lag' (or whatever the correct form may have
> been)
> > > already had the meaning "law" (or some kind of commonly
> accepted
> > > social custom etc.), but not in the West or East dialects.
> > >
> > > This latter argument could be supported by the fact that German
> and
> > > OE both use words ("Gesetz" and "gesetnys") with the similar
> original
> > > meaning: "setzen" and "to set" also have the same primary
> meaning
> > > as Swedish "lägga" (`to lay') and ON "leggja", both having the
> primary
> > > meaning `to lay, to put, to set etc.'. I presume that the Northern
> > > dialects and Western dialects meant the same thing, but one of the
> > > dialects shifted to an other word, though a secondary meaning
> > > (i.e. `law') of "*lag" could have been intelligible to the Western
> > dialects
> > > or a secondary meaning of the word "*set" or "*geset" (or
> whatever
> > > the correct proto-Germanic may have been) could have been
> > > understandable to the speakers of the Northern dialects, e.g.
> Swedish
> > > still has the verb "sätte" with a similar meaning as
> German "setzen"
> > > and English "to set".
> > >
> > > Greetings,
> > >
> > > Imre
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > A Norse funny farm, overrun by smart people.
> >
> > Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/
> >
> > To escape from this funny farm try rattling off an e-mail to:
> >
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> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >