Re: Diglossia (was Re: Nur-ellen in the world of Brithenig)

On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:

> > From:         Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...>
>
> > <despairing look>  You mean I'm taking German and I'll be able to read
> > abstruse German topology text but I won't be able to *talk* to anyone?  I
> > should've listened harder when my boyfriend made some vague mention of
> > High/Low German.
>
> Hey now, I'm sure Germans could write lucid math texts if they wanted
> to. But don't despair, I don't think you'll be able to find a Platt
> speaker who isn't bilingual in High German as well. (Unless they live
> in the Netherlands --- I think there is a small pocket there).
Small math joke.  :-p  My advisor strongly, strongly recommended
_Lehrbuch der Topologie_ for me when I hit graduate-level introductory
topology.  He says the 1st chapter is the hardest because it's the part
that tries to give you an intuitive feel for topology in everyday
terminology.  He also says reading math in German is quite fun because
you have to wait till the end of the sentence to figure out whether the
author is saying something is true or not so at all.  <G>  I'm actually
looking forward to reading the book if I get into a graduate school and
can hunt down a copy.

> In fact, the Standard German spoken in Northern Germany is actually
> quite Standard, because the local dialects are a different languge.
> The problem is Bavarians, Austrians and that lot, who think their
> regional variants of High German are intelligible to people who have
> learnt Standard German as a second language.
Gotcha.  Still, they should *tell* you this when you get into a class to
learn the thing!  I did pick up a book on "street German" but it's aimed
toward people who've had a couple years, as opposed to my 2nd
semester-in-progress.

YHL