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gemboy27
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how about

Post by gemboy27 »

In Germany are there local dialects, like here (I'm thinking southern or Boston)?

We also have a weird thing of localizing things. Where I live t here is a school/churck called St. Bernards

that anyone else you would pronounce like the dog: "bur NARDS" but here they say something like: "BUR nerts"

or there is New Orleans which is something like "n' olins"

One of my favorite language sayings: "England and America --- two countries divided by a common language."

take care
Gem
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education/Mark Twain (1835-1910)
ninjagame
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Post by ninjagame »

In Germany are there local dialects, like here (I'm thinking southern or Boston)?
Of course there are. In fact, there is no such thing as "standard German". That's nothing but an artificial construct, to be heard on TV news only (and the anchor people there get special training to eliminate traces of dialect before they get even near a microphone). Actually, German is nothing but a patchwork of local and regional dialects. If you'd put together one person from the South, say, Bavaria, and one person from the North, say, the North Sea coast, and if they'd speak only their respective dialects, they simply wouldn't understand each other, and as an outsider you wouldn't even suspect them to speak the same language. (But then, one could argue that Bavaria isn't really Germany; but that's a different story.) Same thing with the dialect in the town I'm from originally, Stuttgart (that's where Porsche and Mercedes are from). My girlfriend, who happens to be Japanese, used to know me only speaking Hamburg dialect (which is as close to "standard German" as you can get), and then, when she heard me speaking with my mother and sister for the first time, she couldn't believe that I was still speaking "German" at all.
To make things much worse, there are not only special words in every dialect (for example there are about a dozen different words for "roll") but sometimes different articles for the same noun - and you may know that there are 3 different articles in German to begin with...
Enough :wink: ?
gemboy27
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he said she said

Post by gemboy27 »

Okay, what about written...

I haven't seen much 'dialect' in writing, except when a writer wants to put southern dialect into the conversation --- dialogue. (y' all)

Do the special words work their way into thee writing...

Gem
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education/Mark Twain (1835-1910)
ninjagame
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Post by ninjagame »

Okay, what about written...
No, dialects don't usually "work their way" into the written language - except for different words for an object being different words as such. For example, the "standard German" word for a roll like you eat it for breakfast is "Brötchen" (meaning "small bread"). In Bavaria, that's a "Semmel", in Hamburg it's a "Rundstück", in Berlin it's a "Schrippe" (all four meaning the same thing!). Contrary to the spoken language, written German is pretty much regulated and standardized, and the spelling of those four words for "roll" is strictly according to these rules.
So, it's nothing like "colour" in British English vs. "color" in American English or the like.
That means, on the other hand, that children speaking a southern dialect do indeed have more difficulties learning the correct orthography. Whenever they encounter a genuine dialect word, they tend to spell it as it is pronounced. (And there are not that many rules of pronounciation in German, whatever they may want to make you believe!) That kind of "infects" their spelling of "standard" words, at least in basic school.
Of course, you can mimic dialectal pronounciation in your spelling of a word. But that's just that: Mimicking dialect. (Writers do that sometimes.)

P.S. Well, on further thought I think there might be something equivalent to your "y'all". It's the word "Wiesn". Basically, that's the Bavarian pronounciation of the noun "Wiese" which means "meadow" in English. In common use it's a synonym for the famous Munich Octoberfest (which, once upon a time, really used to take place on a meadow just outside of Munich). So, it's not everyone turning Bavarian on orthography but the "official" term for this event.
RDNZL
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Post by RDNZL »

Way off topic: Habseligkeiten...

In Dutch: iemands hebben en houden.

In English: all someone's belongings.

One word - for three, four in another language!
ninjagame
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Post by ninjagame »

RDNZL wrote: One word - for three, four in another language!
Interesting... but while I'm beginning to see my language with different eyes, thanks to you, there are examples to the contrary. The "toolbar", say, in a software window, is the "Werkzeugleiste" in German - that's 14 characters vs 7 in English, or 4 syllables vs 2 in English. "Having said that, I did..." - "Nachdem ich das gesagt hatte,..." Not only 5 words vs 3 and 8 syllables vs 4 in English but the whole structure is much more complicated.
Whenever I have to translate a text from English to German, even if I try to be as concise as possible without crippling the meaning of the text, the german version will be about 20% longer than the English one.
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Patrick J
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Post by Patrick J »

ninjagame wrote:Whenever I have to translate a text from English to German, even if I try to be as concise as possible without crippling the meaning of the text, the german version will be about 20% longer than the English one.
It's well worth it though as it is such an expressive language for singing.

A recording by the recently departed Elisabeth Schwarzkopf will demonstrate this!
ninjagame
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Post by ninjagame »

Patrick J wrote:It's well worth it though as it is such an expressive language for singing.
A recording by the recently departed Elisabeth Schwarzkopf will demonstrate this!
I never would have thought of that as a way to look at German but now that you mention it I'd like to recommend Thomas Quasthoff singing Schubert. That's quite a revelation!
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Patrick J
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Post by Patrick J »

ninjagame wrote:I never would have thought of that as a way to look at German but now that you mention it I'd like to recommend Thomas Quasthoff singing Schubert. That's quite a revelation!
I'll check it out :wink:
Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus
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Post by Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus »

RDNZL wrote:...
RDNZL? I thought I was the only smart cookie here. :lol:
PowerPC; Mac OS 10.5.8; NWP 1.4
midwinter
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Post by midwinter »

This should take care of any debate about efficiency:

Vergangenheitsbewältigung.

Requires a sentence to translate in English.
Ryan
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Post by Ryan »

I don't know about all these other languages, but NewSpeak is the only one that's actually shrinking! It's becoming easier to learn! Eventually, there will only be one word, and it will say everything you need.
HeatherKay
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Post by HeatherKay »

Ryan wrote:Eventually, there will only be one word, and it will say everything you need.
I might hazard a guess at it beginning with f and ending with k or -in'.

At least, according to the inarticulate morons that live around here, anway,

:roll:
Tacitus
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Post by Tacitus »

HeatherKay wrote:
Ryan wrote:Eventually, there will only be one word, and it will say everything you need.
I might hazard a guess at it beginning with f and ending with k or -in'.
At least, according to the inarticulate morons that live around here, anway,
:roll:
And that's just the women.... :-)

Tacitus
History is a nightmare from which I am trying to escape.
HeatherKay
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Post by HeatherKay »

Tacitus wrote:And that's just the women.... :-)
Children, actually. The adults generally get too lazy to actually use their mouths for proper communication any more. I think they use text messaging:

Moron 1: "Pub?"
Moron 2: "Ug!"
Moron 1: "Pint?"
Moron 2L "Ug!"
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