Re: R: German dialectology
| From: | John Cowan <cowan@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, April 29, 2001, 16:55 |
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On Sat, 28 Apr 2001, Mangiat wrote:
> 3) how is it possible that Hannover, in the North, speaks the clearest
> version of High German?
Because just as Standard Italian is the Tuscan tongue in a Roman mouth, Standard
German is Upper German as pronounced by Lower Germans, with strong
influence from the conventional spelling. As evidence for the latter
point, consider intervocalic /b/, which in every dialect is a spirant;
but the standard language prescribes [b].
--
John Cowan cowan@ccil.org
One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
--Douglas Hofstadter
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