Brits don't speak foreign languages

On 2011-12-10 09:57:42 -0600, Wolfgang Schwanke said:

Dan Stephenson wrote in
news:2011121008241764603-stephedanospam@maccom:


Do you suppose this degree of isolation is simply the tradition of
European history?

Well the Swiss case is special. Most national languages of today
originated from a patchwork of closely related dialects. When nation
states formed, standard languages were kind of artificially invented by
scribes (or in some cases, the dialect of the capital was choses as
standard). With the spread of mass media, those standards languages
spread out and eventually evened out and absorbed the dialects. This
happened in the German speaking world just as in other language
communities. German speaking Switzerland is special because it did not
take part in the process of evening out and absorption, when it happened
in Germany and Austria. Yet the Swiss think of themselves as German
speakers, they call their dialects "Berntüütsch" (= "Bern Deutsch") or
"Züritüütsch" (= "Zurich Deutsch"). All their newspapers are printed in
standard German, television news are in standard German (but not most
other shows), and Swiss writers have contributed to the German speaking
literature. The main reason for this peculiar development is probably
the fact that Switzerland became an independent nation with a strong
sense of identity a long time ago, but for a number of reasons could not
bring itself to declare its dialect(s) a separate language like
Luxembourg did.

Thanks, Wolfgang. Totally cool. And when I drove through Switzerland
I did notice a difference entering from Italy and leaving through the
north. It started of "Italian" -looking (including the people), and
became Germanish as I drove north. hmm!

Speaking of Italian, as a language, I am reading a history of Medieval
and Renaissance Italy by H.B. Cotterill. He says the beginnings of
Italian go back to Dante in the year 1300, that is, his writings in
something as-if standard, were the seed for general standardization.
In this case, although Dante was from Florence, the seed of what became
standard Italian came from Bologna. Cotterill then go on to comment
how Dante judges the varying degrees of 'barbarity' of other peoples'
speech.

Interestingly, Cotterill refers to the people of Rome still being
conversational in Latin in the 15th century (iirc from the book), and
that when some certain rabble-rouser came to Rome to incite the crowd,
he tried to do so in Latin, and the people laughed him out of the city
because his Latin was so poor. I think that is pretty cool.

--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

On 2011-12-10 10:31:30 -0600, James Silverton said:

Do not the two forms of Norwegian [Bokmål ; "book language") and
Nynorsk; "new Norwegian"]. have equal status?

I don't know about that, but I quizzed one of the super-English-fluent
Norwegians at one of my hotels about translatability with neighboring
languages. According to her, Norwewgian and Swedish were mutually
intelligible, and that in fact, she was Swedish. She explained it
simply, as if it were mostly about different words for the same thing.
Maybe something like American Engish versus the Queen's English?
--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

On 2011-12-10 16:01:10 -0600, Erilar said:

Dan Stephenson wrote:
On 2011-12-09 16:58:09 -0600, Erilar said:

Dan Stephenson wrote:
On 2011-12-07 12:34:19 -0600, Wolfgang Schwanke said:
Dan Stephenson wrote in
news:2011120618332497938-stephedanospam@maccom:
I have heard of German being very different from one side of
the country to the other,
The most extreme dialects are Swiss German on one end of the scale, and
Low German - the dialect spoken on the North Sea/Baltic Sea coasts - on
the other end. They are absolutely incomprehensible to each other, but
both are considered dialects of German.
Do all the people know High German, to inter-communicate?
Still, given a national television presence, I would have thought that
would smooth out the language differences.
I have had conversations with people who call it "book German" or something
like that 8-). Since that's what I speak, that's generally what I'm
replied to in, but I hear German I find difficult or impossible to follow,
too.

I have heard the Bavarians have the strongest "accent". Is that true?
or is it just a reflection of Bavaria being an independent kingdom (and
to a degree, in language) until unification? Are Bavarians more
understandable by Austrians nearby, or e.g. people from Brandenburg or Hesse?

Well, I've heard Germans from other parts of the country claim the
Bavarians are the hardest to understand 8-).

ha :-) that is what I meant

Maybe it's the adjoining the Alps, or just being on the edge, but
Bavaria also seems to have more "typical" image of Germany, with the
rolling countryside and small quaint towns. Elsewhere in Germany seems
more, frankly, like America in terms of modernity and city layout,
etc.. Maybe Bavaria was bombed less in WW2, maybe that was part of it.

Modern Hochdeutsch is closer
to the dialects in the middle of the country, but then, Luther's
translation of the Bible into German was into middle German, which
encouraged others to read and write that dialect as a result.

Ahh, I bet that had a lot of norming effect.
--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

On 12/10/2011 7:55 PM, Dan Stephenson wrote:
On 2011-12-10 10:31:30 -0600, James Silverton said:

Do not the two forms of Norwegian [Bokmål ; "book language") and
Nynorsk; "new Norwegian"]. have equal status?

I don't know about that, but I quizzed one of the super-English-fluent
Norwegians at one of my hotels about translatability with neighboring
languages. According to her, Norwewgian and Swedish were mutually
intelligible, and that in fact, she was Swedish. She explained it
simply, as if it were mostly about different words for the same thing.
Maybe something like American Engish versus the Queen's English?

"Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are actually the same language. It's just
that the Norwegians can't spell it, and the Danes can't pronounce it."
(not mine, but I found it amusing)

In my last trip to Greece, I stayed at the Kalamaki Beach Hotel south
of Corinth (nice hotel by the way, for those similarly picky people out
there) and the barman was American, rather, a Greek immigrant who
recently returned from America after living there 30 years.

What he said, is that modern Greeks cannot understand the ancient Greek
at all. Or rather, they could "read" it but could not understand it.
I interpreted this to be similar to how we can "read" Latin but do not
understand it. Was he referring to that Katharevousa, do you suppose?
If so, it sounds like something pretty rare.

The brother of an ex-colleague of mine had a British classical
education that got him fluent in ancient Greek. Never studied
modern Greek at all. But while touring Greece in his motorbike
and running out of petrol, he got results by asking "do you have
some food for my iron horse?" in Homeric Greek.

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"Erick T. Barkhuis" wrote:
Dan Stephenson:

On 2011-12-09 16:58:09 -0600, Erilar said:

Dan Stephenson wrote:
On 2011-12-07 12:34:19 -0600, Wolfgang Schwanke said:

Dan Stephenson wrote in
news:2011120618332497938-stephedanospam@maccom:
I have heard of German being very different from one side of
the country to the other,
The most extreme dialects are Swiss German on one end of the
scale, and
Low German - the dialect spoken on the North Sea/Baltic Sea
coasts - on the other end. They are absolutely incomprehensible
to each other, but both are considered dialects of German.

Do all the people know High German, to inter-communicate?

Still, given a national television presence, I would have thought
that would smooth out the language differences.

I have had conversations with people who call it "book German" or
something like that 8-). Since that's what I speak, that's
generally what I'm replied to in, but I hear German I find
difficult or impossible to follow, too.

I have heard the Bavarians have the strongest "accent".

This is something you should define, first. I currently live in a
German region called Grafschaft Bentheim, where multiple versions of
"Grafschafter Platt" are spoken. When I moved here, I was almost fluent
in "Hochdeutsch" (regular German) with a small accent from the Cologne
area. My native tongue is Dutch.
Now, guess how much I understood of the dialect spoken by my neigbours
at first?

No, it's less.

Or try and have locals from Ostfriesland and Cologne sit at a bar
table, drink a beer, and have a conversation, each using their own
heavy dialect. I am quite sure that they will hardly understand each
other, unless they both try and speak regular German.

Platt and Kölsch? "Hardly" is stretching it. I can't see them
understanding each other at all! 8-)



--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist with iPad

Duh.


"Dan Stephenson" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion :
2011121018420097084-stephedanospam@maccom...

On 2011-12-10 09:57:42 -0600, Wolfgang Schwanke said:



A similar example from the German speaking world is Luxembourg. The
country is officially trilingual: German, French, Luxembourgish. The
Luxembourgish language is really the local dialect of German which is
the mother tongue of the locals.

I read somewhere something to the effect, that Luxembourgish is for
common speech, and between German and French, one is for all the media
and one is for the workplace.

Similar to "Spanglish" here in southwestern USA, I bet there is a lot
of LuxemGermench in Luxembourg. As an American who only knows
tourist-sufficient foreign languages, I'm fascinated how people can
know and be fluent in so many languages!

--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

11.12.2011 2:55, Dan Stephenson kirjoitti:
On 2011-12-10 10:31:30 -0600, James Silverton said:

Do not the two forms of Norwegian [Bokmål ; "book language") and
Nynorsk; "new Norwegian"]. have equal status?

I don't know about that, but I quizzed one of the super-English-fluent
Norwegians at one of my hotels about translatability with neighboring
languages. According to her, Norwewgian and Swedish were mutually
intelligible, and that in fact, she was Swedish. She explained it
simply, as if it were mostly about different words for the same thing.
Maybe something like American Engish versus the Queen's English?


I don't believe the difference is this thin. It is said that spoken
Danish is a speech defect of one sort.

Erilar wrote:

David Horne wrote:
Erilar wrote:

David Horne wrote:
Martin wrote:

On Wed, 7 Dec 2011 21:58:19 +0000, (David Horne)
wrote:
[]
And there's OSX...

Anagram of SOX, innit?

Anagram of 'never bothered installing anti-viral software, never had one
yet' I think.

I had a problem with my office macbook a few weeks ago. The 'p' key
stopped working (and a few others it has to be said.) Problem was, my
password had a p in it.

Have you tried cleaning the keyboard?

I think I spilled something on it. Actually, I know I did. The college
doesn't really support macs but they have consultants, so someone picked
it up from my office on the Thursday, slipped the hard drive into a
replacement (this only takes a minute) and I had my own back on Monday
with a new keyboard casing and bezel... I was impressed with the service
(though it would have been paid for...)

Oh, that's very nice. I avoid that by having a keyboard cover, but then
I have a separate keyboard-- much easier on old wrists.

I have a wireless keyboard in both of my office and studio but that's
inconvenient for travelling...

--
(*) of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
www.davidhorne.net (email address on website)
"[Do you think the world learned anything from the first
world war?] No. They never learn." -Harry Patch (1898-2009)

On 2011-12-11 04:09:55 -0600, Martin said:

On Sat, 10 Dec 2011 19:00:27 -0600, Dan Stephenson
wrote:

On 2011-12-10 16:01:10 -0600, Erilar said:

Dan Stephenson wrote:
On 2011-12-09 16:58:09 -0600, Erilar said:

Dan Stephenson wrote:
On 2011-12-07 12:34:19 -0600, Wolfgang Schwanke said:
Dan Stephenson wrote in
news:2011120618332497938-stephedanospam@maccom:
I have heard of German being very different from one side of
the country to the other,
The most extreme dialects are Swiss German on one end of the scale, and
Low German - the dialect spoken on the North Sea/Baltic Sea coasts - on
the other end. They are absolutely incomprehensible to each other, but
both are considered dialects of German.
Do all the people know High German, to inter-communicate?
Still, given a national television presence, I would have thought that
would smooth out the language differences.
I have had conversations with people who call it "book German" or something
like that 8-). Since that's what I speak, that's generally what I'm
replied to in, but I hear German I find difficult or impossible to follow,
too.

I have heard the Bavarians have the strongest "accent". Is that true?
or is it just a reflection of Bavaria being an independent kingdom (and
to a degree, in language) until unification? Are Bavarians more
understandable by Austrians nearby, or e.g. people from Brandenburg or Hesse?

Well, I've heard Germans from other parts of the country claim the
Bavarians are the hardest to understand 8-).

ha :-) that is what I meant

Maybe it's the adjoining the Alps, or just being on the edge, but
Bavaria also seems to have more "typical" image of Germany, with the
rolling countryside and small quaint towns. Elsewhere in Germany seems
more, frankly, like America in terms of modernity and city layout,
etc.. Maybe Bavaria was bombed less in WW2, maybe that was part of it.

The centre of Munich was bombed flat. The cunning locals rebuilt the
destroyed buildings as they had been before WWII to fool American
tourists into thinking they were in Disneyland Anaheim.

Maybe you haven't visited other rural parts of Germany?

Well I wasn't referring to Munich, which isn't rural, and I'm aware of
the rebuilding but it was not for tourism's sake, it was for tradition.
I'm referring for example to Bad Toeltz or Lenggries. All those hay
barns and little villages, and romantic road places like Dinklesbuerhl.

--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)