Sign over Buchenwald

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

Most can be understood, but there are some. Schwabian for instance can be a bit difficult.

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It's like people from Glasgow comparing everything to meringues. Is that a Spitfire or a meringue? There is no difference between "a meringue" and "am I wrong" when spoken in Glasgow.

She has a nice milk shop !
Oook.

Many languages are like that.
When I was in NKP Thailand, right on the Laotian border, with about a 1/2 mile Mekong river in between, the 2 languages intermixed with each other.
We could be pretty well understood locally when we spoke Thai, but when we got to Bangkok, no luck at all at being understood.
We had better luck speaking English in Bangkok, than northeaster Thai.
Then when I was briefly in Laos, in the Army, I tried my northeastern Thai in the Laos panhandle region, a lot of blank looks is all I got.

I'm from SW Va, right on the Kentucky border, dad from Georgia, mom from Ky.
When I first got in the USAF in Texas in 1965, I met guys from all over the USA.
I had my problems understanding them, just like I'm sure they had problems understanding me.

It would have been better if she would have slowed down a bit and emphasized the different pronunciations. I tried to listen as closely as possible to see if I recognized any of the pronunciations but it has been too long ago for me to remember clearly all that I heard.
Amazing that in a modern country with radio and TV that so many regional dialects remain to the point where she, a native German speaker, can have difficulty understanding the various dialects. We have them here in the US, of course, though they are more accents and inflections than dialects. Being a native Midwesterner I had/have no problems understanding the South or New Yorkers, Westerners, or La La Landers when they speak. Even international English though a British accent and/or an Ozite accent is instantly recognizable and some terminology is strange especially common American terminology used to mean something totally different like SHERBETS to mean BEER or a MATILDA to mean a BACKPACK

mikewint said:

It would have been better if she would have slowed down a bit and emphasized the different pronunciations. I tried to listen as closely as possible to see if I recognized any of the pronunciations but it has been too long ago for me to remember clearly all that I heard.
Amazing that in a modern country with radio and TV that so many regional dialects remain to the point where she, a native German speaker, can have difficulty understanding the various dialects. We have them here in the US, of course, though they are more accents and inflections than dialects. Being a native Midwesterner I had/have no problems understanding the South or New Yorkers, Westerners, or La La Landers when they speak. Even international English though a British accent and/or an Ozite accent is instantly recognizable and some terminology is strange especially common American terminology used to mean something totally different like SHERBETS to mean BEER or a MATILDA to mean a BACKPACK

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That would have defeated the purpose. People do not slow down in their every day lives out of fear people from other regions may be around.

tyrodtom said:

Then when I was briefly in Laos,

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When I first ran clinics in the northern highlands of Vietnam we had to have at least two interpreters and sometimes three. English to Vietnamese and Vietnamese to whatever Yard or Nung tribe's dialect we were working with. Vietnamese was very difficult being a tonal language specific pronunciation was everything plus a pidgin French-Vietnamese in the cities.

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

out of fear people from other regions may be around.

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I clearly remember riding a bus with Mom and Gmom one day. The two of them always had lots to say to each other, in their pseudo-hillbilly German (which no one else understood) about all the people around them, generally unflattering comments. On this occasion a very large lady got on the bus and barely got her großer Arsch into a seat. The two of them immediately started in to each other comparing her to a fat pig who probably smelled like one, on and on. The lady never blinked or looked at them through the whole ride. After about 20 minutes or so she reached her stop, stood up, turned and looked at the two of them in the eyes and in pure Hoch Deutsch reamed them out several new body openings. Mom and Gmom just sat there mouths agape unable to speak with the shock. She had understood every word!

Interesting

And NONE of those sounded like my Gross-mutters when I was getting my A** chewed out. One was from Ubstadt (Black Forest area-Heidelberg) the other from The Batschaka (Donauschwaban) region of the Empire. My parents were set against speaking German in the home, being the mid-1940's and all! Only learned the words that were used when angry....