Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Hochdeutsch

A truly great passage, thanks to the accident of the current reading of an author of Obscene Desserts.
To Hanover one should go, they say, to learn the best German. The disadvantage is that outside Hanover, which is only a small province, nobody understands this best German. Thus you have to decide whether to speak good German and remain in Hanover, or bad German and travel about. Germany being separated so many centuries into a dozen principalities, is unfortunate in possessing a variety of dialects.

My experience is that everybody actually does understand the best German but despises those who speak it. Not too far off the experience with the "Farfully" dialect of English.

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