4 ms·
Grew up in SE PA, i've heard it called old german or high german but I don't know what that means. PA Dutch is just an americanization
by chucksta 3y ago
Grew up in SE PA, i've heard it called old german or high german but I don't know what that means. PA Dutch is just an americanization
- _a_a_a_ 3y agoWhat is old german / high german / low german?
- chucksta 3y agoI don't know, I just know "is it dutch or is it german?" is a common question and that's the answer. I think high/low is a geographic indicator of where it's spoken in germany.
- mrangle 3y agoDialects. AFAIK, the Dutch (Netherlands) and English languages are further dialects of low German. But I might be corrected.
- tetromino_ 3y agoHigh German is the language which was traditionally spoken in the southern 2/3 of Germany and in Austria; it evolved from the languages of the Allemani, Bavarians, and Franks. Low German is the language which was traditionally spoken in the northern 1/3 of Germany; it evolved from Saxon. For historical reasons (the big one being Martin Luther's choice of German dialect for translating the Bible), High German became the basis of the "standard" literary German language and is taught in schools, while Low German is seen as a weird dialect. Although if objective criteria were used, Low German and High German would be classified as different languages, not dialects.
- mrangle 3y agoReferring to the German language as Dutch (as in PA Dutch) is closer to the German word for the German language. The word "German" is actually the Anglicisation as far as I know.
- medstrom 3y agoComes from Latin. "Germania" was their name for the general area.