Back on topic - Lake Garda

Wolfgang Schwanke:

"Erick T. Barkhuis" wrote in
:

Wolfgang Schwanke:

"Erick T. Barkhuis":


Is there a place or places in Germany where Hochdeutsch
is the local dialect?

Yes. Generally spoken in the area around and between Osnabrück
and Hannover.

No not really, that's a legend.
....
(I just returned from a bakery store in Bad Essen. Staff and
customers all speak Hochdeutsch, there. Without any local accent.)

That happens in all major cities at least in Northern Germany. But
that doesn't mean Hochdeutsch is the local dialect, which is what the
OP inquired - it isn't anywhere. It means the people there have
largely abandoned their local dialects in favour of the standard
language. I understand the actual Hanover dialect is still being
spoken here and there.

Ah, I understand what you're saying.
Well, that leaves us with the question: "If only a small minority still
speaks the 'old' local dialect, is it still considered that region's
dialect, even if a large majority speaks something else?"

[I agree with you that the OP specifically asked whether or not
Hochdeutsch is a local dialect somewhere. My first answer rather
covered the question in which area Hochdeutsch is mostly and generally
spoken among locals.]

On 01/13/2013 09:12 PM, Erick T. Barkhuis wrote:
Wolfgang Schwanke:

"Erick T. Barkhuis" wrote in
:

Wolfgang Schwanke:

"Erick T. Barkhuis":


Is there a place or places in Germany where Hochdeutsch
is the local dialect?

Yes. Generally spoken in the area around and between Osnabrück
and Hannover.

No not really, that's a legend.
...
(I just returned from a bakery store in Bad Essen. Staff and
customers all speak Hochdeutsch, there. Without any local accent.)

That happens in all major cities at least in Northern Germany. But
that doesn't mean Hochdeutsch is the local dialect, which is what the
OP inquired - it isn't anywhere. It means the people there have
largely abandoned their local dialects in favour of the standard
language. I understand the actual Hanover dialect is still being
spoken here and there.

Ah, I understand what you're saying.
Well, that leaves us with the question: "If only a small minority still
speaks the 'old' local dialect, is it still considered that region's
dialect, even if a large majority speaks something else?"

[I agree with you that the OP specifically asked whether or not
Hochdeutsch is a local dialect somewhere. My first answer rather
covered the question in which area Hochdeutsch is mostly and generally
spoken among locals.]


I was surprised to read that historically, Hochdeutsch is the language
of Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Nowadays the accent in
these areas is very distinct from Standard German.

Tom P wrote:
On 01/13/2013 09:12 PM, Erick T. Barkhuis wrote:
Wolfgang Schwanke:

"Erick T. Barkhuis" wrote in
:

Wolfgang Schwanke:

"Erick T. Barkhuis":


Is there a place or places in Germany where Hochdeutsch
is the local dialect?

Yes. Generally spoken in the area around and between Osnabrück
and Hannover.

No not really, that's a legend.
...
(I just returned from a bakery store in Bad Essen. Staff and
customers all speak Hochdeutsch, there. Without any local accent.)

That happens in all major cities at least in Northern Germany. But
that doesn't mean Hochdeutsch is the local dialect, which is what the
OP inquired - it isn't anywhere. It means the people there have
largely abandoned their local dialects in favour of the standard
language. I understand the actual Hanover dialect is still being
spoken here and there.

Ah, I understand what you're saying.
Well, that leaves us with the question: "If only a small minority still
speaks the 'old' local dialect, is it still considered that region's
dialect, even if a large majority speaks something else?"

[I agree with you that the OP specifically asked whether or not
Hochdeutsch is a local dialect somewhere. My first answer rather
covered the question in which area Hochdeutsch is mostly and generally
spoken among locals.]


I was surprised to read that historically, Hochdeutsch is the language of
Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Nowadays the accent in these
areas is very distinct from Standard German.

Terminology change. The dialect varieties in the south developed in
Alemannic, Swabian, and Bavarian in the higher country. In the north, it
was flatand low: Low German dialects, including the ancester of Dutch. In
the middle you had Thuringian, Frankish, and others. The ancestor of
modern Hochdeutsch was Martin Luther's translation of the Bible into
German, which made the middle German he used a common dialect for
Lutherans. It was not one of the "high" or mountain dialects, which are
the ancestors of the southern dialects of today.





--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist with iPad

On Sat, 12 Jan 2013, Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:

No, Hochdeutsch is an artificial dialect invented by scribes about 500
years ago [...] However, in large parts of Germany - mostly in the
North, and mostly in bigger cities, Hochdeutsch has supplanted the
local dialects

That's not unlike Italian, which stems from the Tuscan language as
spoken/written by literates in 1200-1500. In practice it has supplanted
"local dialects" (*) only after WWII ... here too mainly in bigger
cities and in the North ...

(*) several of which are families of independent neolatin languages

On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 9:12:10 AM UTC, Giovanni Drogo wrote:
On Sat, 12 Jan 2013, Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:



No, Hochdeutsch is an artificial dialect invented by scribes about 500

years ago [...] However, in large parts of Germany - mostly in the

North, and mostly in bigger cities, Hochdeutsch has supplanted the

local dialects



That's not unlike Italian, which stems from the Tuscan language as

spoken/written by literates in 1200-1500. In practice it has supplanted

"local dialects" (*) only after WWII ... here too mainly in bigger

cities and in the North ...



(*) several of which are families of independent neolatin languages

All unlike "BBC English", which comes from no region, certainly not London.
I assume it's really from "educated" English, and now widespread due to BBC etc. use?

On Tue, 15 Jan 2013, Surreyman wrote:
On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 9:12:10 AM UTC, Giovanni Drogo wrote:
On Sat, 12 Jan 2013, Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:

No, Hochdeutsch is an artificial dialect invented by scribes about 500
years ago [...]

That's not unlike Italian, which stems from the Tuscan language as
spoken/written by literates in 1200-1500.

All unlike "BBC English", which comes from no region, certainly not
London. I assume it's really from "educated" English, and now
widespread due to BBC etc. use?

Well ... spoken Italian surely owes its post-WWII spread to TV (although
written Italian was taught in schools since 1860's for those who went to
school). However regional inflections are common (you can tell where one
comes from because of his/her accent). The standardization was mainly in
the lexicon, not in pronounciation.

Actually people in Tuscany have a marked local accent, though they (even
the humblest person in the street) use "cultivated" words and
expressions which nobody else will use but in written form, and only
writing literature.

There was a saying "tuscan tongue in roman mouth" to indicate a sort of
ideal pronounciation, but a so called "standard pronounciation" was
taught only to actors (and TV speakers I believe until the mid 60's).

Nowadays local accents (and impolite lexicon) are heard everywhere in
TV.

On 2013-01-15 03:12:10 -0600, Giovanni Drogo said:

On Sat, 12 Jan 2013, Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:

No, Hochdeutsch is an artificial dialect invented by scribes about 500
years ago [...] However, in large parts of Germany - mostly in the
North, and mostly in bigger cities, Hochdeutsch has supplanted the
local dialects

That's not unlike Italian, which stems from the Tuscan language as
spoken/written by literates in 1200-1500. In practice it has supplanted
"local dialects" (*) only after WWII ... here too mainly in bigger
cities and in the North ...

(*) several of which are families of independent neolatin languages

You are referring to Dante? I read a history of Italy by H B
Cotterill, that he promulgated the Bolognese as the most refined
dialect, as standard. Have you heard of this?

The history also reported how during one of the end-of-the-world cults
that sprung up before the Renaissance, how one of the charismatics
failed to impress the Romans with his Latin. Apparently, though the
Romans had the common tongue, they still knew Latin and it was used for
formal and literary purposes. So the Romans laughed at the barbarous
Latin spoken by the charismatic!

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On Tue, 15 Jan 2013, Dan Stephenson wrote:

You are referring to Dante? I read a history of Italy by H B
Cotterill, that he promulgated the Bolognese as the most refined
dialect, as standard. Have you heard of this?

No, I've never read the "De Vulgari Eloquentia" (although I know its
name, more or less could be translated "about people's speech" maube you
could find a "translation-at-front" version). That's the "scientific"
work of Dante, in which he compared the dialect of Italy (or perhaps
Italy and France) as spoken in his times. And of course he wrote its
"scientific" texts in Latin !

What is taught in schools is Dante's "fictional" work ( :-)) i.e. the
Commedia.

On Wed, 16 Jan 2013, Giovanni Drogo wrote:

No, I've never read the "De Vulgari Eloquentia" (although I know its name,
more or less could be translated "about people's speech" maube you could find
a "translation-at-front" version).

Actually this site
http://www.danteonline.it/english/op...pe=3&idlang=OR
has the full text, Latin, modern Italian and English translations.