Talk:German dialects

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I very much doubt the truth of this passage, esp. of the first sentence: "In the United States, the teaching of the German language to latter-age students has given rise to a pidgin variant which combines the German language with the grammar and spelling rules of the English language. It is often understandable by either party. The speakers of this language often refer to it as Amerikanisch or Amerikanischdeutsch, although it is known in English as American German. Part of this is the so-called Texas German"

Texas German, to the best of my knowledge, is a German dialect that developped in the Texas German communities as a kind of amalgam of the original settlers' dialects. Through generations of bilingualism and increasing use of the English language, this variety may have deteriorated (so to speak) and become the kind of pidgin described in the passage above. I cannot imagine that there is seriously any variety of German that was created by teaching German to elderly Americans.--Unoffensive text or character 15:30, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Merger of small dialect articles

Amana German, Belgranodeutsch, Namibian Black German, Unserdeutsch and Lagunen-deutsch are all linked to in this article, but none is more than a paragraph or two long, usually enough to say what kind of German dialect it is and where it is spoken. None of them seems to be growing rapidly, and there's plenty of room in this article for them. I would like to suggest that they all be merged as sections of this article. Any comments? --Stemonitis 14:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Make it so. There is no point in having separate articles for each and every colonial variety of German.Unoffensive text or character 16:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Oppose, at least in the case of Unserdeutsch, and probably also in the case of Namibian Black German. Creoles are not dialects. --Ptcamn 02:06, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: nor is a pidgin a creole. How about the alternative of merging the creoles to German-based creole languages, which is currently a pitiful stub? I'm not sure what to do with the pidgins yet, nor is it clear to me exactly what Belgranodeutsch is (pidgin? creole? dialect?); "mixture" is pretty vague. --Stemonitis 09:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose individual dialects tend to have a wealth of documented information available, these simply haven't been incorporated with much depth yet.

[edit] Map

The legend of the second map (Distribution of native speakers of West Germanic languages) should be amended. What it says about Alsatian dialects is only a half-truth: Though Alsatian is rarely to be heard in public nowadays, over half of the population are still able to speak it and in the rural parts of Bas Rhin (Niederelsass), it is still spoken by all generation, except the youngest one. Thus, while it is true that it is being replaced by French, the dialect is far from being dead yet. The legend should, in my opinion, read: Alsatian and Lorrainian dialects are no longer universally spoken or understood, being gradually replaced by French.

The "Region where Dutch has no official status..." is considerably smaller than shown on the map. What is said about Alsatian is true about Dutch in northern France: There, the language is on the verge of extinction.Unoffensive text or character 15:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

As soon as you provide some references (though I believe what you say it's still original research) I'll amend it right away.
Rex 15:31, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Rex Germanus: Please have a look here (on the Elsass): http://www1.euskadi.net/euskara_lingua/PDF/Alsazia/Gaztela/al_cs_so.pdf (Just in case you cannot read the legend, it says "Proportion of persons over 18 years of age who declare themselves to be speakers of dialect in the corresponding district). And this is on Dutch in France: http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lang/languages/langmin/euromosaic/fr6_en.html#27 (esp. chapter 2.7), though I admit it rather seems to support your view on the extent of the Dutch-speaking area.Unoffensive text or character 09:07, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I've found something a bit more substantial on the Dutch area in Northern France yet: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederlands#FrankrijkUnoffensive text or character 09:30, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I've updated the image, it should appear soon.
Rex 11:23, 29 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] map colours

it is to be assumed that the colours should reflect how closely or distant dialects are related to each other. thus, the dutch dialects, being closest related to the low german ones, should have a shade of yellow. as it looks now, the dutch dialects, with their dark shades of blue, seem to be the most distant related ones of all. this is not the case. one might want to compare the map with the one on german wikipedia where the colours reflect the relationship correctly. Sundar1 15:55, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

That obviously is not to be assumed.Rex 16:41, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
yes, mr. rex, of course it is to be assumed, else why are other dialects kept in similar shades if not for that very reason? it's quite obvious that it is exactly the intention of this map to make the dutch dialects look as distant as possible from the low german ones. just for the record. this map is clearly of your own making and thus has no acceptable source. it's quite obvious what crusade you're on and i do not intend to spoil your fun. in fact, i enjoy watching your little battles. it's also a good reminder that one is to use wikipedia with a good deal of care and double checking. Sundar1 16:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
So why do you not go ahead and change it? Unoffensive text or character 07:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "German speaking parts of Austria"

An IP adress just changed the passage "Upper German dialects are spoken ... in Austria ..." to "... in the German speaking parts of Austria". I have reverted the edit for the following reasons: Nearly all of Austria is exclusively German speaking. All native speakers of languages like Slovenian, Croatian or Hungarian, which are spoken in very small parts of Burgenland and Kärnten, also speak the local Upper German dialect. Unoffensive text or character 17:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)