Talk:German dialects

Article Checklist for "German dialects"

Workgroup category or categories	Linguistics Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	No
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	John Stephenson 03:38, 25 April 2007 (CDT) Pat Palmer 14:30, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

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Notice of intended major revision

Since this article appears to have been brought from Wikipedia (and still exists over in Wikipedia with much the same content), would anyone object if I attempt a complete rewrite (i.e., start over)?

My German sandbox page is a very rough draft (not proofed and needed much more) of what I have in mind for the rewrite. Some of the existing article's sections could become different articles in their own right if we don't want to lose that information.

One beef I have about it as it stands is that its too much like a linguistics textbook. One can go out and buy those. I think we should try to give the big picture here, and then refer people to other places for the gory details.

What do you all think? May I tackle this article? Will anyone be offended if I archive what's here and, well, start over?Pat Palmer 13:05, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

I think that you should use {{speedydelete}} in this article. - Versuri 13:20, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

I decided to go for it. Just started the rewritten article and am trying to get it correctly "cleaned" and categorized.Pat Palmer 14:49, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

German as Dutch

The paragraph about the origins of Dutch seems to be saying that Dutch is basically German. This is likely to be a rather controversial statement, and I'm not sure it's linguistically valid: one could just as easily argue that German is Dutch. Perhaps needs a rethink. John Stephenson 05:02, 4 April 2007 (CDT)

This appears to be something of a controversy; I have already heard from one other person (who is Dutch) objecting to the article, so I will reword it. Just to clarify in advance, however, I intend to claim (and defend if necessary) that from the viewpoint of comparative historical linguistics, there is no distinction in the dialect continuum between the regional Germanic dialects which now lie in the country of Germany and those which lie in the westerns reaches of The Netherlands. This is in fact corroborated at the following website: http://www.ned.univie.ac.at/publicaties/taalgeschiedenis/en/ from a university. Please click on section 6 "19th and 20th century" for subsection "Dialects" and scroll down to the fourth from last paragraph, which states: "The demarcation between Dutch and German dialects is made on the basis of the standard language spoken in the region concerned. Venlo dialect is regarded as Dutch because the inhabitants of Venlo use Dutch in school and in "official" situations; the language of Krefeld on the other hand is treated as a German dialect because High German is the overarching standard language there." Historically from a linguistics viewpoint, the dialects of Dutch-speaking regions are within the same dialect continuumas the various regional Germanic dialects which lie across the river in Germany. The Dutch dialects, however, are in a continuum with the various regions inside Germany; these are called "West Germanic". English is theoretically in the same continuum, but it diverged considerably more from the dialects now within Germany than those in Dutch territory did. This is just a linguistic phenomenon, and not a political one, and I will try to rewrite that part of the article shortly.Pat Palmer 13:33, 4 April 2007 (CDT)

Okay, I've changed it; I think this makes the article much better, and I really appreciate the feedback.Pat Palmer 13:33, 4 April 2007 (CDT)

Dutch = German? NO WAY

This not only is not true as can be seen by the differences in grammatic rules, but also from a historical point of view. German and Dutch have a common ancestor: Mittel Deutsch or Dietsch (guess where Dutch came from) but apart from that the languages developed in totally different ways - mainkly because Germany didn't exist other than as a collection of earlships and kingdoms contrary to the netherlands where a more centralized government, or trade center in the 15th and 16th century, became important. By far more important than the 'peasants' that called themselves germanes. To state Dutch is a German dialect means you know little about the gammar of both languages - since they are rather different. It however is correct to state they have a common ancestor but developed differently. Robert Tito |  Talk  09:13, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Relative ease of learning German

While a consensus exists on the view that similar languages are broadly easier to learn - because there's less to be done - I am not at all sure about some of the material in this passage and the previous one about active word-building, specifically the idea that German kids can learn quicker through compounding. For example, how would they *know* that Handschuh means glove, and not hand-shoe (a shoe that for some reason you put on your hand). Consider that you may be using your adult knowledge of the world to reject this interpretation, because children don't necessarily know that shoes are not for hands. (To digress: do native German speakers take the view that there is no fundamental difference between shoes and gloves, because they both contain Schuh?) Is there any research on this? John Stephenson 05:23, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

I did think about where my information came from. First, I taught German to English speakers for about 4 years, so some of what I wrote is based on my own experience of learning German as an adult and then teaching it to quite a few people later. Second, I recall reading about some studies on this somewhere, but that was some years ago, and I don't remember where. I will try to look into sources when I can. I think it might have been more a cognitive science source than a linguistics one. I only have university library access for a few more weeks (due to a course I'm teaching later this summer) but I will try to follow through. I appreciate your comments. Please don't remove the material just yet; let me see if I can dig up any useful sources.Pat Palmer 09:44, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Pat, something that came as strange is the following. If german is easy to learn for english native speakers the reciproke should be valid as well. Not the case. Since the structure of the languages are totally different speaking german on a high academic level is very hard, specially for english native speakers. Add to that the possibility to creat =e words on the fly by combining two independent nouns into a new word with a new meaning, as well as the fact that german, as well as dutch, use words that get their meaning only, and not before, in the context of a sentence - I fail to see where the easy comes from. Contrary I would rather say: see how a german native speaker speaks english and writes english and you no doubt will agree to that. Easy to learn, maybe up to the level of 10 year olds but beyond no, I strongly disagree there. Und daß nicht nur wegen meine Kenntnissen der Deutsche Sprache. Robert Tito |  Talk  10:03, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Robert, I'm afraid I don't agree with "the reciprocal should be the case". English is notoriously difficult for non-native speakers due to its huge vocabulary and odd spellings/pronunciations from many languages. German, on the other hand, has a relatively small vocabulary, and phonetic spelling. I've learned French, German, Spanish, Russian, Latin (and studied a few other languages), and I promise you that German is the easiest of all languages for native English speakers to learn, at least with good teaching and real practice it is. I've also taught German to English speakers for 4 years. I am looking for some sources to support my opinion, however.Pat Palmer 17:22, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Standarddeutsch

Es gibt KEIN WORT das so verwendet wird. As in standdarddeutsch is an invented word without ANY significant meaning. Germans know only Hochdeutsch (alsdo known as Hoch Deutsch) and dialect versions. Hoch in this way is the standard German, So please remove standarddeutsch as it is non-existent. Robert Tito |  Talk  09:57, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

I agree, but was not going to say anything because my knowledge of German dates back about 15 years. I thought maybe some new movement had come along. I'll go make the change now.Pat Palmer 17:06, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

compoundwords

As example can be used: Eisenbahnknotenhinundherschieber, yes it is a real word, and I leave it to the investigative mind to discover its meaning. Compound words - as they also exist in the Netherlands, become part of the standard and official dictionary after (generally) 6 years. During these 6 years a word must still be actively used by newspapers and other sources, spoken language included. After that period these words are part of the official dictionary. This has for instance lead to the addition of very common english words as sh*t, f*ck as part of the official dutch language, similar situations have happened in Germany. (By the way these words are not considered "rude" but at most not smart to use as these are borrowed words from another language.) Robert Tito |  Talk  17:06, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

That's a great example of a long word (initially intimidating to English speakers because of its sheer length). But with a minimum of training, an English learner can soon learn to discern that it means "a thing in a railroad track that shoves connections back and forth" (at least I think that's what it is, out of context). In English we simply say "switch", a word which gives no such graphic indication of why it's needed as the German equivalent. Great example! I remember having to ask what the heck is a switch in a railroad, and why is it needed, etc. A German kid would not need to ask.Pat Palmer 17:29, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

ambiguity of words

The possibility in german for words to get their meaning ONLY in the proper context IS COMPLETELY opposing this. You can't understand the german glove compartment without the car, you don't know of somebody it the student or the teacher until the context is clear. This remark about easy to learn because the regularity also is disputable due to the vast amount of exceptions, and when I mean vast I mean tremendous amount. This is contrary to English where the regularity by far outnumbers the German's. The only problem that remains is the huge dictionary of the English language, active and actual are somewhat over 900k words, compared to approximately 500k words in German, excluding compound words. Robert Tito |  Talk  17:14, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Title of this article

I wonder if this article should not be titled Germanic languages or German dialects. The article that goes under this title should, I think, concern what most people understand "German language" to refer to: Hochdeutsch. Alternatively, we could use "German language" as a disambiguation page, with one page pointing to an article about Germanic languages/dialects and another to Hochdeutsche.

This is all unless the article is planned to be expanded with a lot of info about Hochdeutsch. --Larry Sanger 17:21, 7 May 2007 (CDT) (who lived in Muenchen for six months...)

I don't think it should. Most English speakers have no idea about the dialects; they think all German speakers are able to understand each other when they are 4 years old, as English speakers mostly can (with some obvious exceptions--perhaps there are sufficient differents in British, Indian and American English that children cannot immediately intercommunicate). It is important in any discussion of "German language" intended for English readers to hit them over the head with the dialect thing, because it is simply not well understood. Yes, there are dialects in other languages (Spanish) but they have quite different historic and political ramifications.Pat Palmer 17:26, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

I think Hochdeutsch could get a subarticle.Pat Palmer 17:31, 7 May 2007 (CDT)