Well if you say Swiss, I presume you mean German-speaking Swiss. French and Italian-speaking Swiss may be a little upset to hear you say that.

That may be the case, but the fact is that one of the four official languages of Switzerland is German, *not* Swiss-German. For example in the parliament you won't hear dialect being spoken - it's not allowed.

If that were to happen it would have a number of implications. I can only refer to an article which I posted at the start of this thread which explains the various dangers caused by the rise of dialect:

http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/swissin...05&sid=6407486

If as you say Swiss-German becomes a standardised written language (which doesn't appear to be on the horizon just yet) then it would become even harder for the Swiss to use high German. Swiss German is really a tiny language area sitting right next to a much larger area which uses standardised German (Germany, Austria and to a certain extent as a second language in neighbouring countries to the East). If the German Swiss lost their ability to communicate in High German how would they do business with these countries? In English? What about learning a second language for the French and Italian speakers? By learning only dialect they also lose the ability to communicate with those in the much larger German speaking world.

You could argue that smaller countries have their own dialect/language and this isn't a problem, but in those smaller countries they pretty much ALL use English to communicate with other countries and this is no problem. This is not universal in the German-speaking world!

The Swiss-German speakers are caught between a rock and hard place because their dialect is too different to be understood by others, and too close to German to justify splitting it off entirely.

But the bottom line is that the rise and widespread use of dialect (especially in written form) means that the standard of High German declines in Switzerland, and this is ultimately a bad thing for the country - it is after all one of their official languages.

My wife speaks Thurgau Deutch but speaks Hoch Deutch with me. I can undertsand about 55% of her dialect, but when we get together with friends who speak Aargau D or Zuri D, then Im lost. Its quite humorous to listen to a one sided converstaion. Its sort of goes something like this

Wife ' work is really becoming a pain, blurb blah blurb blah Wedikon street tram and blurb blah ?

friend ' yes blurb blah blurb blah blurb blah I understand blurb blah blurb blah'

Abit like those watching them Terroist Puppets in Team America ' Jurka jurka jihad !!'

Oh well I'll get there in the end

That makes me wonder, what are the criteria for a native Swiss German speaker to speak in High German to a foreigner? Do they reply in swiss-german because the person is a foreigner from "a less desirable country"? Is it becase he/she doesn't speak high-german very well? Or is it because it's hard to speak high-german for the swiss and they mind the effort? Or is it because they just want to annoy? Or is it... Ok, enough.

So what are your experiences on this, could any other high-german speaker living in swiss-german area provide an insight? Can you get by with high-german and how (in)convenient is it?

Hi baris

This is an interesting topic and no doubt one which will run and run!
I can only speak from my own experience. I am a high German speaker who has lived in Switzerland for four years. I have never had a problem getting people to understand me, and I have never been told by any Swiss person that it's a problem for them to speak high German to me. Nobody has ever even mentioned it! Invariably when I speak to a Swiss person, they ask me if I would like them to talk in high German, and I always reply that I don't mind. They usually switch to high German anyway, and it seems they do this naturally and without much effort. Maybe I've just been lucky? I speak to people in high German wherever I go, and it just hasn't been an issue so far.
I have picked up a lot of the dialect, and although I never speak it, I can undertand much of it. The only time I have problems is very occasionally when I speak to a Swiss person on the telephone, but this gets rarer the longer I'm here.

I really can't comment on whether the Swiss use the dialect deliberatly with people from 'less desirable' countries or not. I would like to think not, but who knows!
So, IMHO, if you can speak high German, and you are polite and friendly, you'll always get by...........

Interesting topic. I guess in every region you go to there is a different dialect, and if you live in that area it is probably useful to learn how to understand and converse in that dialect. Of course to be able to speak and understand hochdeutsch is important, but if you are just having a conversation with a local person, you cannot expect them to do that just because you are a foreigner. It is pretty much the same in every country really. Sure using dialect can be hard but Schweizer Mundart is important to learn and understand if you live in the country. Mixing between Hochdeutsch and Schweizer Mundart could be very confusing though.

What is interestung, is that on main television programs in Germany they sometimes subtitle people if they do not speak Hochdeutsch, even if it is from a German area. It is hard to understand the dialect if you are not from the area, but if you go and live there, it is most important to learn.

Hi Rosebud

Thank you very much for sharing your experience. I personally don't have many encounters with the german speaking Swiss (I live in Suisse-Romande), but I was once told by a Swiss guy that even though High German wasn't a foreign language, it wasn't his native language either; so it just wasn't the natural way of speaking for him and therefore wasn't easy effortwise. He also gave me a hint about the Swiss not really enjoying speaking High German, especially when the other party is German! (wow)

Add to that Mark's comments about the Swiss not speaking High German to a certain set of foreigners, I got really confused.

Another interesting experience I had: I was with a group of Swiss-German speakers and they got into a discussion in Swiss-German among eachother. Then one of them turned to me and asked "you didn't understand anything, did you?", I replied "No I didn't" and she was strangely very excited about this answer. Btw I have a quite good hold on the German language, so I figured that maybe they sort of "enjoy" being incomprehensible by High-German speakers. Did anyone else got that feeling or am I completely imagining things?

Anyway I'm happy to hear that you've spent 4 years here with most of the time speaking high-german and getting by with no problems. I don't understand swiss-german (yet) and would very much like to make use of my German in "German" speaking Switzerland. It looks like there is hope after all.

Hi KittyKat,

I am not saying that I am not willing to or not going to learn it but since I already know (High) German and the local person in scenario does too; I don't see why I cannot expect him/her to speak a language we both can speak.

I also found from working with Austrians Germans and Swiss, that Swiss people tend to be more tolerant of mistakes you may make as a foreigner with grammer. Germans are much more exact and precise. Even if you can speak the language fluently with very few grammatical mistakes, they will start on your accent! I even had one woman tell me I should go to school to get rid of my accent!

Hi,
Quote frrom mark
"I've been to most of the English speaking world, but I've never been somewhere where I can't understand people."

Talking of British accents, I am a scot born and bred, however there are a few of my countrymen that I really find it difficult to understand. If you have ever been up north you may have met Aberdonians who talk the Doric.
"The Scots language of the east of Scotland, which is called "Doric"is very different altogether and is almost unintelligible to most people other than those who were actually raised in that part of the country. To say that Scots is a form of English would be incorrect." http://www.siol-nan-gaidheal-usa.com/language.htm
Orcadians are another lot I never understand
jojo

How annoying is that??! It's true the Swiss are more forgiving when it comes to grammar. I always tell the tale of how my work colleagues (swiss) used to ask me to check their high German Emails for grammar!! My German grammar is good, but as a non native speaker it's way off perfect!
I spent many years in Berlin, and I picked up both the accent and some of the dialect by default. It's the same here. I do find myself coming out with some very typically Swiss expressions, even though I don't speak Swiss German as such.
I have to say the dialect here in Kanton Zürich is much easier to grasp than in Nidwalden where I lived before. I agree you need to make an effort to learn the dialect, and it makes it much easier to do when you have a good grasp of the high German that's behind it all.

Jojo, did you find it quite easy to learn German? I found quite alot of Scots found the ch alot easier to pronounce than the English folks.

Hi Kittykat,
yes I think the fact that we have this ch sound as in Loch or a lot of the gealic words helps with some of the pronounciation. Although I only speak very basic german , did O grade many moons ago. Speak french OK tho`.
I am teaching my daughter French and german and her pronouncaition is prettty good so far.- she`s just started german but has been doing French for several years.

Does anyone know how much german is taught in the French speaking schools at secondary level as we are going to Vaud?
Joan

Hi,
when I came to Switzerland 17 years ago I made decision to learn and speak high german. I decided that it was much better than trying to mix the languages and I treat dialect as a different language. I know have no problems working in a german speaking environment, though like many people my achilies heal is written german. If some one speaks to me Basel deutsch than I will answer in high german and the conversation continues that way. I can understand a lot of the dialect but, even though I did go to a class, I find really difficult to speak as it feels and pronouce. I prefer the sound of german being spoken to dialect as it sounds much cleaner.

Martin

God that made me laugh.

If it makes you feel any better, most Germans fail to learn Swiss German to a level that doesn't make us giggle so really, don't worry about it. My flatmate came here to learn German and is getting frustrated with everyone seemingly being able to speak near-perfect English.

My mum who has lived here for over thirty years still can't get her head around Chuchichästli. So she is teaching Swiss people English instead. Now THAT's what I call a plan...

I too find S-G interesting according to sound... it acctually sounds better to my ears than H-G but the main problem is that its nowhere to learn until you really reach some native speaker or CH...

Other than that.. I do not mind to learn another language.. I guess S-G has to be taken that way as H-G seems not to be enough to get along with everyone you meet...

WOW! I have been reading thru this Thread, and getting more and more demoralised! I've been here going on 18 months, and still "talk" in virtually sign language! My problem is that everyone in the village knows I'm an "ignorant foreigner" ... and just to master the Gruetzi greeting has been an education.... each person gives me a slightly different way of getting my mouth around the word!... never mind getting on with MORE words! Only in dire circumstances can I dredge up enough words to make a "sort of" sentence ... and then they will reply in broken english anyway!

My son has been here only 5 years and has mastered the local dialect AND H/D... for the simple reason that he thought NO-one spoke english!

Now, he is flabbergasted at how many locals do speak english. They all want to practice their english on me! My problem is not having anyone to converse with regularly.

I'm here to care for my grandchildren while their parents work and study, and english is spoken in the home. The smallest speaks kindergarten-swiss-german (totally non-understandable) and the oldest fluent swiss-german and H/D. But when they try and teach me, they end up rolling on the floor with tears in their eyes at whatever it is I am supposed to be immitating!

I realy realy love the sound of Swiss-German, and would dearly like to speak it, but am trying to master ordinary German first, as recommended.
Guess I will just have to join the local ladies at their weekly excercise classes and after-drink, socialise more, and maybe pick it up that way?
At the moment its complete gibberish to me. Although, understanding Afrikaans does help in reading the german newspaper.

It is not true that "therefore they are losing their written skills in High German". The "therefore" is a non-sequitur. In fact, the young are writing more than ever before, and this increase in communication passes on to further skills, including social competences and communication verbally and in High German.

My observation is based on the actions of my son (21) and his crowd. He reads almost no books in German, just a few magazines, and in English reads perhaps one John Grisham a year, and that is about all. When he puts his mind to it, which is not so often, he can write a fair letter in English or High German that gets his meaning across.

And we are talking about the masses here, the 80% who do NOT go on to gymnasium or university, the average workers. Instead of sitting consuming TV like my generation, they are making dates and going out and meeting people. So much for the increased communication skills.

Graham

PS Thanks for the various messages. I have to write an article on learning German for expats - and the decision to learn dialect or High German (how, and when) is a complex issue.

From the swissinfo article:

The forum has published a pamphlet, in French and German, entitled "Dialect in (German-speaking) Switzerland – The conflict between local identity and national cohesion".


That pretty much says it all for me as far as the language divide in Switzerland: A pamphlet that discusses issues involving the national languages, but is only published in two of them. If they're not careful, they'll look south one day and find Berlusconi in the parlor.

Also wanted to express solidarity with the earlier poster who constructs sentences made up of Dutch, German & Swedish combined into one language. I do the same thing with Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Since none of them are my native language and they all have a lot of things in common, my brain tends to merge them together into one crazy super-language. (And I'm sure my accent is just fascinating.)

You have just hit a slight nerve there Graham. I'm finally doing a lot more exploring of the area I live in than I ever did before, and I am constantly seeing groups of young lads and lasses out together, enjoying the countryside in a way that I don't remember happening in my youth in the UK.

With my parents, if I brought a girl home, it was a case of full grilling about her social status, and then let's settle down and watch TV together, without a word spoken...

But onto the whole German/Swiss-German thing.

I arrived here with an allegedly good German accent, and was assumed to be German. This did not go down very well with me because folks expected that I had the vocabulary, and it wasn't there.

Everyone told me that I should learn Hochdeutsch, but while not a bad idea for vocabulary building, how was I to talk to the little old lady at the till in a shop?

One of my first delights in Switzerland - the little old lady at the till told me something-or-other. When I didn't understand, she looked up the queue until she spotted someone who looked like a teacher, and asked her to translate into English - answer: this lettuce is wet; take it out of the plastic bag before you put it into the fridge.

The thing is that by trying my limited German, then French (which doesn't really work here), I had someone go out of their way to help me.

It's the trying, and I recently realised why the English (at least of my generation and before) are so rubbish with foreign languages. In my schooldays, language teaching was extremely formal and mostly written rather than spoken. You got absolutely hammered for a written mistake, and I mean physically beaten at times; mental abuse at other times, and that hurt more in terms of self confidence when it came to a spoken language.

But back to SG vs HG. The summer before I came to Switzerland I had read "Train Spotting", which for those who don't know the book, is written in Scottish dialect. The only way I got through the first few pages was by reading it aloud to myself, imagining a Scot was speaking to me.

Suddenly I could see why the Swiss don't like speaking HG. Translating that to my English, although I can do Yorkshire English and also what I will call High English (think clear BBC English, as spoken by Trevor McDonald), you will never find me speaking either "Sloane Ranger" English, nor the Cockney/Mockney that the BBC seems to prefer nowadays.

I'll shut up now.

Sorry to be flippant, but does the above phrase qualify as "writing in dialect"? (In English?)