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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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 Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2005 3:42 pm Post subject: |
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Poro
Who gave you permission to use the dimintuve in addressing me ?
Ya wee bauchle ! Sassenach kiechbag ! |
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dagi
Joined: 01 Jan 2004
Posts: 425
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| Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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I went to school in Switzerland for a few years and the policy in general is that High German should be spoken all the time, even in kindergarden.
Fact is, in Switzerland no one speaks High-German in everyday life and speaking High German at school feels totally ridiculous!
Our teachers often made an attempt to make us speak High-German but no one ever did. Sometimes even the teachers fell back and spoke Swiss German. Swiss German is not just a dialect, it is part of Swiss identity and everyone speaks like that. Only during German classes we did speak High German but in all the other subjects? No way. It just does not feel natural.
Of course there is a difference when it comes to higher education. Someone who studied at uni is able to speak proper High German but someone like my granny who has only finished basic education does struggle when she has to speak proper German.
As for Swiss German, it is in fact a lot easier than German itself. They just use two tenses, Simple Present and Past Perfect and the word order is very flexible. Also they only use two cases: the genitive is replaced by the dative and the accusative by the nominative! Once you get the pronounciation it get's easy. Knowledge of some French does help, as in Swiss German many French words are used. |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2005 7:58 pm Post subject: |
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| dagi, only two tenses??? You never use the future tense? Ich wuerde Essen gehen. |
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Chris_Crossley
Joined: 26 Jun 2004
Posts: 1797
Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 3:16 pm Post subject: Language and neo-imperialism |
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| dagi wrote: |
| Our teachers often made an attempt to make us speak High-German but no one ever did. Sometimes even the teachers fell back and spoke Swiss German. Swiss German is not just a dialect, it is part of Swiss identity and everyone speaks like that. Only during German classes we did speak High German but in all the other subjects? No way. It just does not feel natural. |
I guess that even the German-speaking educational authorities in Switzerland could be accused of a kind of linguistic neo-imperialism, never mind the English. After all, just as English is the language of government and education in countries like India and Singapore, so German has the same function in countries like Switzerland.
| dagi wrote: |
| Of course there is a difference when it comes to higher education. Someone who studied at uni is able to speak proper High German but someone like my granny who has only finished basic education does struggle when she has to speak proper German. |
Again, there are parallels with English here. India and Singapore want to produce their highly educated elites, too, and so they want such people to be fully fluent in English, which means exposing them to English in schooling right from the moment they get to kindergarten. It seems that it probably works the same way in Switzerland as regards exposing the children to Hochdeutsch. It is likely to be the case with French and Spanish in all those countries that had been possessions of France and Spain in the past, too.
| dagi wrote: |
| As for Swiss German, it is in fact a lot easier than German itself. They just use two tenses, Simple Present and Past Perfect and the word order is very flexible. Also they only use two cases: the genitive is replaced by the dative and the accusative by the nominative! Once you get the pronounciation it gets easy. Knowledge of some French does help, as in Swiss German many French words are used. |
Having spent so many years learning German (five at high school and at two universities, albeit not as a major subject), it is a relief to know that Swiss German is "easier" as regards the grammatical structure! This is certainly a case of where the dialect can throw all the grammatical rules out of the window and use only those tenses from the main standard language thought of as being the most useful for people.
As with English dialects, the Swiss German dialect definitely confers a sense of identity on the users as it identifies who and what they are, not just their linguistic background. I'm willing to bet that there must have been plenty of "educated' High German speakers in the past who must have looked down upon Swiss German speakers condescendingly as "uneducated", hence their own brand of linguistic imperialism by making them speak High German in state-run schools. However, as mentioned, it is a question of "just" another standard language group regarding yet another dialectic language group as "inferior" when, as recent (1980s-1990s) linguistic studies have proven (certainly in the English language), the spoken language can provide just as much value educationally as the standard written language. |
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dagi
Joined: 01 Jan 2004
Posts: 425
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:23 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="JZer"]dagi, only two tenses??? You never use the future tense? Ich wuerde Essen gehen.[/quote]
"Ich w�rde Essen gehen." is not future tense, but it is the subjunctive. The correct future tense would be "Ich werde Essen gehen." and is not used in Swiss German. Instead of future tense in Swiss German you simply indicate the future with words like tomorrow, next year, next week, etc.
In English that would be a simple sentence like "I go for dinner tomorrow." E.g. "Ich gang morn go esse."
Note that in Swiss German there is this special sentence structure with the double use of the verb "to go", the first is conjugated (Ich gang=I go/I am going) and the second is the infinitive (go= to go). |
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dagi
Joined: 01 Jan 2004
Posts: 425
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:26 pm Post subject: |
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"I'm willing to bet that there must have been plenty of "educated' High German speakers in the past who must have looked down upon Swiss German speakers condescendingly as "uneducated", ....."
This is not only a thing of the past but of the present. It is not so much of an issue in Switzerland but more in Germany where you can notice that a lot of dialects disappear because (mainly young) people want to come across as educated. |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2005 11:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| This is not only a thing of the past but of the present. It is not so much of an issue in Switzerland but more in Germany where you can notice that a lot of dialects disappear because (mainly young) people want to come across as educated. |
I was having lunch with a German couple in Bayreuth and the wife said that she would only use the proper Hochdeutsch from Hamburg. She refused to use her Baden dialect.
what is really funny is that on German TV they have to use subtitles when they are interviewing people from Switzerland. I once saw an interview with a Swiss-German skier and they had subtitles below in German. |
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poro
Joined: 04 Oct 2004
Posts: 274
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| Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 2:05 pm Post subject: |
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| scot47 wrote: |
Poro
Who gave you permission to use the dimintuve in addressing me ?
Ya wee bauchle ! Sassenach kiechbag ! |
What does that mean, Scotty?  |
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grahamb
Joined: 30 Apr 2003
Posts: 1945
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| Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2005 12:15 pm Post subject: Translation |
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Try the Dictionary of the Scots Language, ya neep!
http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/ |
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poro
Joined: 04 Oct 2004
Posts: 274
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| Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2005 5:50 pm Post subject: Re: Translation |
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grrrrr! |
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Chris_Crossley
Joined: 26 Jun 2004
Posts: 1797
Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
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| Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 1:17 pm Post subject: Wandering.... and wondering... |
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People must love to go a'wandering in Switzerland, but I'm not sure whether wandering completely off topic is helpful! Just wondering...  |
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grahamb
Joined: 30 Apr 2003
Posts: 1945
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| Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2005 3:15 pm Post subject: Grrrr! |
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| An excellent Scottish rolled r, Poro. Well done! |
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poro
Joined: 04 Oct 2004
Posts: 274
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| Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2005 9:34 pm Post subject: Re: Grrrr! |
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| grahamb wrote: |
| An excellent Scottish rolled r, Poro. Well done! |
We roll r's here too, Graham - more than in Scotland, I'm sure |
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