> Von: Posnsrch@aol.com [mailto:Posnsrch@aol.com] > Gesendet: Dienstag, 27. Dezember 2005 19:27 > > In a message dated 12/27/2005 11:30:46 A.M. Central Standard > Time, wolf.seelentag@swissonline.ch writes: > >I can recommend LEO - the dictionary: > >http://dict.leo.org/?lang=de&lp=ende > > Thank you Wolf, for the site to learn umlaut pronunciations. > I knew that there was no Swiss German per se. I did not know > that there were dialects called Basel German, Burn German, etc. > > Do you know if the Glarus, CH grandparent would have spoken > High German? Definitely not ;-). See also below. > Was it taught at their schools, as High German was taught in > the Empire of Germany? I really don't want to get into a discussion on German dialects here - for two reasons: - it would blow up the list on a topic for which the list is not meant; - I cannot make any profound statements, as I have never studied German dialects, I have just lived in different German and English speaking parts of Europe (plus shorter stays in the US). You mention the German Empire - this would limit the discussion to fairly recent (for a genealogist) times - as the German Empire was founded in 1871 (if we forget the "good old times" well before the times most of us deal with in their genealogy). Now - what is "High German"? It is basically a written(!) language - and people around Hannover feel that they have the most accurate pronounciation of High German - people in other parts of Germany will dispute that ;-). All we can say for sure is, that there are quite different pronounciations of this written language - which should really be distinguished from dialects. We have "Low German" as a group of dialects, spoken in the Northern ("lower" = close to sea level) parts of Germany. As the opposite I have heard "High German" being used for what people in Southern ("higher" = up the mountains, or at least hills) parts of Germany speak - which has no connection whatsoever to how the written language "High German" is pronounced anywhere. Now - where do we draw the line between different pronounciations and different dialects? Use English for comparison - listen to someone from the Midlands in the UK, someone from Australia, from Pakistan - and compare it to what your compatriots in Boston or in Dallas are speaking: are these different pronounciations? or different dialects? or even different languages? To deal with this seriously, you have to deal with it in a scientific way - but whatever you call it, this is not my science ;-). My science is physics, and most of my spare time is spent on genealogy ;-). Best regards - Wolf __________________ Wolf Seelentag, Ph.D. Reherstr. 19 CH - 9016 St.Gallen +41 (0) 71 - 288 51 21 wolf.seelentag@swissonline.ch