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My German teacher always claimed that Swiss German and German German (Hochdeutsch) were so different that she needed subtitles to understand it, and she didn't

My German teacher always claimed that Swiss German and German German (Hochdeutsch) were so different that she needed subtitles to understand it, and she didn't understand why they weren't considered separate languages.

ipsi 1y ago
They really are very, very different. Knowledge of one helps with the other, but it's far more than just "a couple of weeks to adjust to the accent", for example. EDIT: It's worth noting that this is mostly a spoken thing, AIUI - most formal/semi-formal writing would be in Hochdetusch rather than a local dialect.
lhoff 1y ago
It depends. There is not one Swiss German but multiple subdialects. The language spoke around the Bern region very far away from German while the one from Zürich or Basel is much closer. Since there is no official written from they never really converged to a homogeneous language.
- ch4s3 1y ago
  This sort of thing always makes me think of the English my grandmother from the foothills of the Appalachian mountains spoke. It vas very distinct from standard American English.
adastra22 1y ago
They are considered separate languages in the same way that Chinese “dialects” are considered separate languages.
- eru 1y ago
  Some Chinese dialects are a lot further apart than eg English and German. They are mostly called 'Chinese dialects' rather than languages for political reasons. Gotta project that unity.
  - adastra22 1y ago
    Yes. That was the point I was implying :)
biztos 1y ago
Even Swabian, a dialect spoken mostly in Germany, is almost unintelligible to non-native speakers when spoken by the natives of a certain age.
avadodin 1y ago
Unless you're thinking of one of the other Swiss languages, Swiss German is actually a variety of Hochdeutsch. Historically, Germany used to be divided into countless small fiefdoms and each of them used to speak unique barely intelligible languages. Hochdeutsch is in opposition to Niederdeutsch which Dutch and arguably English are a variety of.
School-Cotton 1y ago
They are in fact considered separate languages.
- tacker2000 1y ago
  Yes but in practice pretty much the same except for some local changes in grammar and vocabulary, in written form. The dialects are a whole other thing though.
  - adastra22 1y ago
    The same could be said of all Chinese dialects, which are also formally considered separate languages by all linguists.
  - School-Cotton 1y ago
    Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear enough, but I'm specifically talking about colloquial Swiss German -- which is, I assume, what you mean by "the dialects" -- and not about Swiss Standard German, which is indeed very similar to German Standard German and can't be considered a different language. Any literate German can read the NZZ easily, but they cannot have a colloquial conversation with an average person from Zürich, unless the latter switches to standard German (which is a foreign language for them, though one they have to learn from age 6).
    - eru 1y ago
      > Any literate German can read the NZZ easily, but they cannot have a colloquial conversation with an average person from Zürich, unless the latter switches to standard German (which is a foreign language for them, though one they have to learn from age 6). I presume they also pick up a lot of standard German in the media: there's lots of German movies, and Germany has the biggest movie dubbing industry in the world, too. There's some Swiss German media, but not nearly as much as there's on offer in standard German.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
geretnal 1y ago
Try dutch, it is combination of German and English!
- thetoon 1y ago
  This, but with something oddly french about it, at least in the way it sounds. As a native french speaker, no other language gives me that "why don't I understand what they say... oh, right, that's not my language!" feeling. Something with frequencies used, I suppose, but it always puzzles me.
layer8 1y ago
If Switzerland was in the EU, it would certainly be made a separate official language.

ipsi 1y ago

They really are very, very different. Knowledge of one helps with the other, but it's far more than just "a couple of weeks to adjust to the accent", for example. EDIT: It's worth noting that this is mostly a spoken thing, AIUI - most formal/semi-formal writing would be in Hochdetusch rather than a local dialect.

lhoff 1y ago

It depends. There is not one Swiss German but multiple subdialects. The language spoke around the Bern region very far away from German while the one from Zürich or Basel is much closer. Since there is no official written from they never really converged to a homogeneous language.

ch4s3 1y ago
This sort of thing always makes me think of the English my grandmother from the foothills of the Appalachian mountains spoke. It vas very distinct from standard American English.

adastra22 1y ago

They are considered separate languages in the same way that Chinese “dialects” are considered separate languages.

eru 1y ago
Some Chinese dialects are a lot further apart than eg English and German. They are mostly called 'Chinese dialects' rather than languages for political reasons. Gotta project that unity.
- adastra22 1y ago
  Yes. That was the point I was implying :)

biztos 1y ago

Even Swabian, a dialect spoken mostly in Germany, is almost unintelligible to non-native speakers when spoken by the natives of a certain age.

avadodin 1y ago

Unless you're thinking of one of the other Swiss languages, Swiss German is actually a variety of Hochdeutsch. Historically, Germany used to be divided into countless small fiefdoms and each of them used to speak unique barely intelligible languages. Hochdeutsch is in opposition to Niederdeutsch which Dutch and arguably English are a variety of.

School-Cotton 1y ago

They are in fact considered separate languages.

tacker2000 1y ago
Yes but in practice pretty much the same except for some local changes in grammar and vocabulary, in written form. The dialects are a whole other thing though.
- adastra22 1y ago
  The same could be said of all Chinese dialects, which are also formally considered separate languages by all linguists.
- School-Cotton 1y ago
  Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear enough, but I'm specifically talking about colloquial Swiss German -- which is, I assume, what you mean by "the dialects" -- and not about Swiss Standard German, which is indeed very similar to German Standard German and can't be considered a different language. Any literate German can read the NZZ easily, but they cannot have a colloquial conversation with an average person from Zürich, unless the latter switches to standard German (which is a foreign language for them, though one they have to learn from age 6).
  - eru 1y ago
    > Any literate German can read the NZZ easily, but they cannot have a colloquial conversation with an average person from Zürich, unless the latter switches to standard German (which is a foreign language for them, though one they have to learn from age 6). I presume they also pick up a lot of standard German in the media: there's lots of German movies, and Germany has the biggest movie dubbing industry in the world, too. There's some Swiss German media, but not nearly as much as there's on offer in standard German.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

geretnal 1y ago

Try dutch, it is combination of German and English!

thetoon 1y ago
This, but with something oddly french about it, at least in the way it sounds. As a native french speaker, no other language gives me that "why don't I understand what they say... oh, right, that's not my language!" feeling. Something with frequencies used, I suppose, but it always puzzles me.

layer8 1y ago

If Switzerland was in the EU, it would certainly be made a separate official language.