> It usually directly translates to pronunciation as that's a rather big part of spoken Hochdeutsch. Not really, since there are lots of small pronunciation di

> It usually directly translates to pronunciation as that's a rather big part of spoken Hochdeutsch. Not really, since there are lots of small pronunciation differences (e.g. the pronunciation of "ä", the quality of "i" in words like "Kirche", etc.) that are not distinguished in writing. At the same time, some "Bühnenhochdeutsch" pronunciations are not even captured by orthography, e.g. syllable-final -ig being pronounced as -ich or the voicing of the s sound before vowels at the syllable onset. In fact, especially with phenomena such as reduction of "-er" etc. in standard German, Swiss people will usually claim that they speak "German as it is written" even though that is wildly different from how most Germans speak. Also, I mean, modern German and its orthography was modeled in large parts after Saxon, but nobody would think nowadays that Saxon constitutes "standard German" in terms of pronunciation. > Yes, a lot. Thick Bavarian accents are often considered intelligible in the rest of Germany. Even inside Bavaria dialects can range from "easily understandable" like a lot of Franconian, to something so thick that even other Bavarian's might struggle with understanding, like some regional Upper Palatine dialects. > Often even small towns will have their very own accents. But that wasn't your claim. You claimed that dialects are unintelligible from town to town which is usually very rare, since dialects tend to form a continuum. > I guess I'm just too utilitarian for that, my ideal version of humanity would speak one common language to improve cooperation and understanding among each other. That's not a linguistic question anymore, but one of personal values. However, it is worth noting that cases of language death often are accompanied by culture death as well, and deep feelings of shame and guilt within the respective communities.