I have to react on behalf of my northern landsmen:Cornflakes_91 wrote:There are only 2 groups of people who speak real german:MWJ wrote:Native German (as far as Austrian dialects are considered to be "real" German by our northern neighbours ) speaker with good English and passable Italian here, as a medical student also some form of latin... (only passive)
Something quite interesting I personally experienced is that I start thinking solely in English while using it, something I don't do with Italian or Latin.
Austrians and Bavarians.
Those filthy prussians dont speak german
The only region speaking the real "highest alemanic" are the Swiss mountains. People from the swiss plains have downgraded to only "high alemanic".
Bavarians and austrians speak variants of the bavarian group, which is - together with the Alemaic, Swabian and Franconian part of the "upper german".
See a trend there? The northern you go, the less "high", "upper" you get.
So let me laugh when people say "hochdeutsch" is spoken in north of germany.
PS: am neutral here. Am french speaking...