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Question about German & Amish Dutch | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| DaisyMaisy Senior Member United States Joined 5380 days ago 115 posts - 178 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 9 of 13 17 November 2013 at 10:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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I believe the "Dutch" refers more to the cultural and historic group of people, and is probably a misnomer in terms of the actual language. It's funny, I've heard Pennsylvania Dutch used to describe the cultural group but I've always known it was German they spoke, not Dutch. One of those odd historical names, probably.
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| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 10 of 13 17 November 2013 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Dutch and German had the same name hundreds of years ago (Diets). The area was basically
a gigantic dialect continuum. English botched it by using Dutch for the Netherlands, which is weird because in Dutch and German that etymological term means "German" (Duits/Deutsch). In other words, English appropriated the wrong usage for the term but it has stuck, leading to lots of confusion. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4622 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 11 of 13 17 November 2013 at 11:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Most Dutch people excellent English these days, many Germans do as well. But that wouldn't have been the
case 100 years ago. Given the similarity of the two languages, I wonder if they just mixed and matched in the old days in order to find some common ground. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 12 of 13 20 November 2013 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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People didn't travel so much in those days, but people did find common ground. And it
makes sense because of the gigantic dialect continuum people - people from Kleve or Nijmegen would understand each other's dialects because they were related. Even 40 years ago, when Dutch people couldn't get Dutch channels, they would watch the German ones. It is more a lack of exposure that hurts, not the march of English. There is no immersion and no forcing into the deep ends. Keep in mind that the destruction of the continuum by the ongoing march of standardization of German and Dutch is more of an influence than English's influence, which is really something of the last 20 years that came along with the internet. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4622 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 13 of 13 21 November 2013 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | ||
Whenever I ask someone from North Germany "Kannst du Platt?" they usually tell me that they understand some of it but don't speak it. Its usage seems to be confined to older generations. I'm assuming that Platt and Frisian provide some sort of dialect bridge between what we now know as Dutch and German? Edited by beano on 21 November 2013 at 4:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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