I'm confused. I always thought Dutch and German were basically the same....

[dr150]

....
Except about 40% of my relatives were Amish of the Northern Indiana variety. We always referred to them as Pennsylvania Dutch but considered them German. I mean they spoke a dialect of German...so...that makes them German. Right?

You do know Germany is right beside Holland, right? Border mish-mash in your case.

The geographical distances in Europe is small compared to the US. And amazing the language and cultural differences of some of them. But Germany and Holland are similar in many ways.

FACTOID:
Q: How many countries can you fit in Texas?
A: You could fit the smallest 23 countries of Europe into Texas with a little over 6000 square miles left over.

 

[KMFJD]

Swamp Germans

 

[KMFJD]

German can be a rather hard and guttural language on the ears. (Swiss German) is a dialect of German that has far more lilt to it. I love the way it sounds.

It's somewhat analogous to a Southern drawl in English, y'all. Bayerischen Dialekt, or what the Bavarians speak, is somewhat in between -- softer and more casually informal than the stiffer Hochdeutsch.

Basically, just like in the USA, the more southerly you go . . . Bavaria to Austria to Switzerland, the softer and more "musical" the German spoken gets.

I LOVE Schweizer Deutsch, with, btw, the "Schweizer" pronounced more like "Sssvitzah" than the German word for shit.

Linguistic side note: Yiddish is basically just another dialect of German, it's that close. When I got back to the States, I could 100% understand the elderly Jewish ladies kvetching to each other in the thrift shop.

Dutch is the same way, dialect in southern Limburg is way different then Amsterdam area

 

[nanette1985]

northern ohio where, down along rt 39?

I have a ton of relatives around there - Berlin) (big families). I'm a Yoder and a lot of my cousins are Millers.

 

[nanette1985]

The family name is Yoder.

I'm sure you can imagine how hard it is trace that name...

I'm a Yoder too. Try last name, location, and first name of the oldest relatives you know. Because there are so many Yoders, there is a lot of Yoder family information out there. There's a Yoder family history web site. My Yoder family has lived in the same area for many generations, so I had a good start.

Have fun.

 

[Phoenix86]

I JUST FUCKING SAID THAT!

You also said not enough people know it. :whiste:

 

[Farang]

As a layperson, listening to Dutch is sounds like it and English branched off from a similar source. It sounds like a heavily accented English in its cadence.

 

[Printer Bandit]

i thought OP is black

 

[rudeguy]

i thought OP is black

so did I????

 

[AdamK47]

You live near Holland, MI. How you do not know this is beyond me.

 

[rudeguy]

You live near Holland, MI. How you do not know this is beyond me.

There really aren't that many Dutch in Holland...

 

[AdamK47]

More than most areas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Census_Bureau_Dutch_in_the_United_States_2000.png

 

[OutHouse]

which is why the Dutch and English languages are so similar.

huh? Im sorry but have been to Holland a few times and at no time did i ever think that.

 

[Ichinisan]

Which one is this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmsvEhce_GQ

 

[DCal430]

While Swiss German, Pennsylvania Dutch, and Standard German are all Dialects of are the German language, non of them are mutually intelligible. In fact Standard German and Standard Dutch are probably more mutually intelligible with each other than either is to Swiss German.

 

[Perknose]

In fact Standard German and Standard Dutch are probably more mutually intelligible with each other than either is to Swiss German.

That's absolutely not true at all.

 

[DCal430]

That's absolutely not true at all.

What do you mean, do you think Swiss German and Standard German are intelligible languages? A speaker of Standard German will understand little if anything a Swiss German Speaker says. Swiss German TV shows and Movies must be dubbed for Germans in Germany, since they are not mutually intelligible dialects.

 

[Perknose]

Which one is this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmsvEhce_GQ

You already asked the same question in post#18, and got answered. It's not any dialect of German, it's Dutch.

 

[Perknose]

German can be a rather hard and guttural language on the ears. (Swiss German) is a dialect of German that has far more lilt to it. I love the way it sounds.

It's somewhat analogous to a Southern drawl in English, y'all. Bayerischen Dialekt, or what the Bavarians speak, is somewhat in between -- softer and more casually informal than the stiffer Hochdeutsch.

Basically, just like in the USA, the more southerly you go . . . Bavaria to Austria to Switzerland, the softer and more "musical" the German spoken gets.

I LOVE Schweizer Deutsch, with, btw, the "Schweizer" pronounced more like "Sssvitzah" than the German word for shit.

Linguistic side note: Yiddish is basically just another dialect of German, it's that close. When I got back to the States, I could 100% understand the elderly Jewish ladies kvetching to each other in the thrift shop.

That makes a lot of sense.

I grew up hearing my great aunts and uncles (Amish) speak. Their language definitely didn't sound as harsh as the German I heard on TV. Your pronunciation sounds right on with how my Aunt Maddie spoke. Then I get to high school and take German so I can learn more than swear words and they teach me that its pronounced "shvItsair".

Grüß gott, Tante Maddie!

 

[Perknose]

In fact Standard German and Standard Dutch are probably more mutually intelligible with each other than either is to Swiss German.

That's absolutely not true at all.

What do you mean, do you think Swiss German and Standard German are intelligible languages? A speaker of Standard German will understand little if anything a Swiss German Speaker says. Swiss German TV shows and Movies must be dubbed for Germans in Germany, since they are not mutually intelligible dialects.

I meant exactly what I said, that your initial statement that German and Dutch are more mutually intelligible than German and Swiss German is absolutely not true. It's WAY off.

Right off the bat, from my German, I could understand a shit ton more Swiss German than I could Dutch. While the distinction is somewhat blurred, Swiss German is still just a dialect of German, while Dutch is a separate language, albeit one that comes from similar roots.

Simply put, the divergence between Dutch and German is far longer and deeper and more complete than the divergence between Swiss German and German. Put another way, Swiss German and German have far more in basic commonality, and much less divergence where there is divergence, than Dutch and German do. <shrug>

 

[Ichinisan]

You already asked the same question in post#18, and got answered. It's not any dialect of German, it's Dutch.

I thought so. That's why I reloaded the thread and did search-in-page multiple times on each page. Then did a search of my own posts. If it wasn't a problem with AT Forums, it was a problem with caching by my phone or AT&T.

 

[DCal430]

I meant exactly what I said, that your initial statement that German and Dutch are more mutually intelligible than German and Swiss German is absolutely not true. It's WAY off.

Right off the bat, from my German, I could understand a shit ton more Swiss German than I could Dutch. While the distinction is somewhat blurred, Swiss German is still just a dialect of German, while Dutch is a separate language, albeit one that comes from similar roots.

Simply put, the divergence between Dutch and German is far longer and deeper and more complete than the divergence between Swiss German and German. Put another way, Swiss German and German have far more in basic commonality, and much less divergence where there is divergence, than Dutch and German do. <shrug>

Are you sure you are not confusing Swiss Standard German with Swiss German. Most Swiss German speakers can also speak Swiss Standard German, which is mutually intelligible to Standard German.

Swiss News Broadcast, Schooling, Churches, and Public Announcements are almost always done in Swiss Standard German. Swiss German is mainly used when communicating with other Swiss Germans.

 

[Perknose]

Swiss German TV shows and Movies must be dubbed for Germans in Germany, since they are not mutually intelligible dialects.

Lol, I can well believe this! Not to minimize the many real differences that do exist between Swiss German and German, but pronunciation also play a HUGE part. And, this gets really exacerbated by the intermediary of electronic media, by which I mean a language or dialect of a language in which you're not fluent can be extra hard to follow as a soundtrack, nicht wahr?

While I grew more or less at home with the Bayerisch spoken in Munchen, when I occasionally went out into the deep Wald (boonies), it became well nigh impenetrable. But other Bavarian born and bred Muncheners said they had the same problem! D:

But lets be frank here, nobody likes the Ostfriesens.

Anyway, I had German friends who spoke and understood much better English than I ever did German who found themselves in East Texas and had real trouble understanding the natives.

And many of us for whom the English language is our native tongue nevertheless need subtitles for some parts of English films where the characters are speaking hard core Cockney, as well.

 

[Drako]

Holy shit, some people are dumb. :awe:

Talk to your ancestors.

Or just look like a dork on the internet.

The statement that German and Dutch are the same thing is highly insulting to those of Dutch decent. I'm not sure why that is hard to understand.

I grew up with this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Reformed_Church

 

[Perknose]

Are you sure you are not confusing Swiss Standard German with Swiss German. Most Swiss German speakers can also speak Swiss Standard German, which is mutually intelligible to Standard German.

Swiss News Broadcast, Schooling, Churches, and Public Announcements are almost always done in Swiss Standard German. Swiss German is mainly used when communicating with other Swiss Germans.

Lol, I'm sure, but I do take your point. However, please, Swiss German is still far closer to German than Dutch is, it just is!

At the end of the day, I don't think we're in any real disagreement here, except for your overselling that Dutch is closer to German than Swiss German is, that's all. <shrug>

And as I was alluding to in my last post above, where a speaker lies on the Swiss Standard German vs Swiss German continuum will vary the more rural you get, plus depend on who they're speaking to, just as in Bavaria with Bayerisch.

Europe is a much more variegated patchwork quilt than most Americans realize. There is a part of Italy where a dialect of German is mostly spoken, and parts of what now belongs to France, where a kind of German -- with some French grammar sometimes! -- is spoken.

Edit: One last thing I probably should add unless it's not clear in my absence of saying it: Swiss German is more divergent from German than the Bavarian dialect is, by a fair degree.