You can extend this topic to all German speaking regions. It's not just DE/AT/CH, it's the same even within each country from region to region. People from North Germany sounds completely different to South Germany. The closer you live together, the easier it is to understand each other. The farer away, the more problems you might have. Common language is High German, but mostly still with your regional accent.
It is called "dialect" and it is not like other languages does not have their own. Just for example London english and scottish, but also walsh english and irish english. And of course american english and australian english. But i am sure the list goes on.
I glab ma kau sogn dass die Voradelberger und Tiroler si leichta tuan mit dem Swizerdütsch. Und das ma ma Österreich in 2 Gruppm eintaln kau. Westn und Osten. Salzburg Ober-Niederösterreich, Wean, Burgnlaund, Steiermark und Kärnten tuan si am leichtesten sie zum verstehen. Tirol Voraldeberger san die Gruppn die uns verstehn wia aber schwerer tuan sei zu verstehn.
The problem with this video is that the Austrian girl speaks 'Vorarlberg' dialect which is not typically Austrian. It is pretty close to Swiss dialect. So the Austrian and the Swiss girl were pretty similar
True uneven! If I recall correctly Vorarlbergerisch is a Alrmanic dialect(like Swiss German). While the rest of Austria rather talks a Bavarian dialect. I now I have to go and brace for impact 😂 of all the complaints from my fellow Austrians: it is only linguisticly not culturally (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavarian_language?wprov=sfti1 )
I’m from the South East of Austria and can easily understand Bavarians but can’t understand people from Tirol/Vorarlberg. It sounds like Swiss German to me. Couldn’t understand what this “Austrian” representative said 🤷♀️
That's pretty much what I thought too. I personaly had no problem understanding them, but I am from southern Germany and have family in Switzerland and been in Austria every year since I was 8. If a northern german speaking platt were in the mix, that might be very different.
I am from North Germany and i stayed some time at a family in Bern in Switzerland. They spoke dialect Bern Deutsch and it took me one week to understand the family at the meals.
The German was quite representative of Standard German, yes. But we have so much dialects here, and some of them are really difficult to understand if you only speak Standard German. Swabian, for example, or the dialect of Saarland. Saxonian, sometimes, if spoken fast. Bavarian and Franconian. And, of course, Plattdeutsch.
There are so many different dialects in each country. Austrians don`t understand each dialect in Austria, but normally we speak a "high" german, so everyone can understand in whole Austria, Germany and in Suisse.
I am Austrian and I dislike speaking "high" german a lot, while I understand all Austrian dialects besides the ones from Vorarlberg (those I understand even less than Swiss German, since I am used to that due to Swiss Television).
@@ekesandras1481 Its important to speak our dialects, BUT its ALSO important to speak "high" german! In many "higher qualifizied jobs you HAVE to speak high german, like teachers, doctors, lawers and so on!!!
As a German I worked and lived for some time in Vienna and there was no big problem with the language. as soon as they recognized me as a German, they switched to a more standard german pronunciation. Some terms are different, but they're easy to convey in the context. Same as e.g. irish, scottish and english speakers, we can meet on a common ground, while listening to native speakers talking to each other is a big difference.
This works to some degree even with Dutch, German, Norwegian and Swedish. 😊 Of course that is much tougher, but you can understand surprisingly much. Plattdeutsch (N German lower German Dialect) has lots of similarities with Dutch, especially considering Frisians are in both Countries along the coast, up to Denmark. Danish is a bit harder to understand for Swdes and Germans, it is a bit of a different mix and structure. It all takes practice and some effort. When I was a kid, Bavarian and Saxon was unintelligible to me. 😅
When it comes to languages or more specific dialects/accents, it is always more useful to think in terms of speech areas and not political areas such as countries or states. Languages have formed over centuries with no regard to political borders or borders have been put over existing cultural areas/regions. For example the Alemannic dialects that are spoken in the South of Baden Württemberg (Germany) belong to the same speech area as the dialects spoken in North Eastern Switzerland or the Austrian state of Vorarlberg. Coming from that area, it is pretty easy to understand speakers from those regions although you live in three different countries. Often times it is, at least for me, even easier to understand Swiss and Austrian people then fellow Germans from other regions
It is obvious that the Swiss and Austrian girl understand the German 'Hochdeutsch' as it is used as the official language and also taught in school. Therefore, they should maybe have taken a person that speaks a German dialect (btw, total nonsense, that the German girl said there are not a lot of dialects in Germany. I think there are few countries were there are more.)!
The nicest thing I ever experienced happened during my first holiday in Portugal 1990, where I met a black Portuguese woman who works as a housekeeper in Switzerland and I was able to converse with her in her "Schwyzerdütsch"...
Linguistically, Austria and Bavaria are very close. Switzerland comes from the Allemanic language area and has its own dialect. But in general, one understands oneself. Although there are still specific expressions in Austria that cannot be understood. The same also applies to Switzerland.
There are many different dialects in Germany. The German speaks High German, while the other two speak dialect, because the way they speak it is not written. The written language is the same everywhere. There are only sometimes other official words for the same thing: e.g. B. German Fahrrad, Swiss Velo; German tomato, Austria Paradeiser.
It‘s not officialy written, but swiss people usually write dialect on whatsapp and other social medias. But yes, most books,newspaper ect. are standard german.
Sorry to say that but your comment is not true....and I say this without any means to insult or to offend you. Austrian German is no dialect. "Austrian Standard German" is the offical language and Swiss has "Swiss Standard German" both differs in Vocabulary and a little bit in Grammar and Orthography as well in comparision to Germany´s Standard German... There are 3 official versions of Standard German in place since 1902 in the whole German speaking area.. And the - professional linguistic term "Hochdeutsch/High German" - refers solely and only to the former Southern German languages spoken in Southern Germany + Austria + Switzerland which now are all considered as southern German dialects because of the implementation of the 3 variants of "Standard German" in 1902. "Hoch" in "Hochdeutsch" just describes the terrain of where the language was spoken, and the South is on higher terrain than the flat North where the common German languages spoken there which today are also just considered as dialects were called "Niederdeutsch".. "Hochdeutsch" used "colloquially/umgangssprachlich" which is "not professional" and just used as alternative term for expressing "Standard German" is just based on the fact that "Standard German" has taken over way more linguistic characteristics from "Hochdeutsch/High German" and "Mittelhochdeutsch/Middle High German" than from "Niederdeutsch/Low German" which basically is the reason why "Niederdeutsch" vanished in Germany and is just preserved in the Northern German Dialects...otherwise Germans would speak like the Dutch, because the Dutch language is the direct descendent of "Niederdeutsch" In fact actually - in the professional linguistic sense - all southern German Dialects which includes the dialects of Austria + Switzerland are "actually Hochdeutsch" in the original + professional sense. By the way Austria has 9 totally different sounding dialects and all are part of the "Hochdeutsch language family"...and Germany also has a whole bunch of it but only the southern Dialects are part of the "Hochdeutsch language family" while the Mittelhochdeutsch Dialects are basically hybrids of Hochdeutsch + Niederdeutsch (= but way more Hochdeutsch with some Niederdeutsch vocabulary) and the Northern dialects are pure "Niederdeutsch" dialects And "Paradeiser" is just used in Eastern Austria..in Western Austria "Tomate" is the common term.
@@michaelgrabner8977 I have not read all but both is true. Austrian and Swiss Standard German are the official language in those countries. Nevertheless they are also dialects of German.
I live here in Switzerland 11 years and i learned a high german(Hochdeutsch) at language school and i can understand swiss german because the family of my husband speaks swiss german. In first 2 years it was really hard to understand swiss german but now i can understand and speak a little bit. Austrian german is a little of swiss german so i can also understand a little bit. Swiss german is a cute, gentle and soft in all of german language, do not forget liechtenstein is a combination of Swiss-Austrian german.
When I was a little child, I didn’t even realize that my grandma spoke a dialect, I thought everybody would be able to understand and that the words were interchangeable 😂 For example: Vögelchen (little birds) in High german „Vijelscha“ (there‘s not even a spelling rule😂) in the lower Westerwald (northern part of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate) Or: Familie - Familisch, Nicht - net, (not) auf - uff, (on/onto/up)
I'm living in Westerwald, but originally from Vienna. I think I've got a keen ear for dialects, working on the telephone, but listening to some "Wäller Platt" is quite hard for me to understand. Love it though, I was laughing my ass off when watching "Sinnlos im Weltraum" and their "Sejerländer Platt" before I moved here, it has a lot of similarities with Westerwald's version. But I find it funny how everybody here has troubles understanding bavarian dialects.
Swiss German is super cute to me too. So melodic and rhythmic and bouncy. When I had friends there, I loved listening to them just talking about random shit because it was fun to listen to. And "Chuchichäschtli" is entirely accurate, my friends there taught me how to say it! It's a shibboleth. Hardest German accent to understand? Freaking Bavaria. They're like their own language, the pronunciation is so different. I would compare them with Scottish, but Scottish is actually cool, so that doesn't really work xD
Haha. I'm Swiss and this is so hard for me to understand. I know Germans think Swiss German sounds cute, but to me it seems very mundane. I think of language primarily as a communications tool, and I feel the vocabulary of Swiss German is very limited. Standard German has a much larger range and as such is far more expressive. I find this particularly troublesome because the language you think in defines what you can consciously think about. I would go so far as to say Swiss German is cognitively limiting. I've actually started thinking in English for exactly that reason, but I think standard German would been a similar improvement.
In fact in Austria, people are using their own high german too. I'm from Vienna, living in western Germany now. My dad is from the worker class and he uses a straight vienese dialect. Many words are much more contracted, and use their own terminologies from many different languages, especially french and some slavic countries east of Austria have left their mark. But most people will just recognize the typical Viennas High German, even Denise thought that this is the only dialect people talk there. In austrian or at least Viennas High German, they aren't using that much of their own words, but try to keep the words, but use a totally different melody. Words are much more drawn out, which makes them sound longer. I do use all three of them. Depending on the person I'm talking to I can talk in German or Viennas High German, or Viennas own dialect, but living in Germany, my High German has slowly been replaced by the german version, that you can hear from Vanessa.
I'm from South Germany and had neither problems to understand the Austrian not the Swiss pronunciation. "Häsi kofa" needed some consideration, but we have also "häs" for a costume or a suit. The participant's Swiss German however was not as "deep" at it could be in some cantons. But I know Germans from the far North will have problems to understand me if I speak my mother tongue instead of today's standard German (today's standard German because it was the other way around in medieval times). Swiss German is High Alemannic, like southern Alsatian and the dialect of the German High Rhine region. My mother tongue would be a mix of Lake Constance Alemannic (middle Alemannic) and Swabian (northern Alemannic), while the dialects in Baden and northern Alsace are a mixture of Lower Alemannic and southern Franconian (and French in the case of Alsatian). Vorarlberg in Austria also has an Alemannic dialect, as well as some villages in Tyrol and South Tyrol, while the other parts of Tyrol and Austria speak southern (Austro-)Bavarian dialects. The northern part of Bavaria speaks Franconian dialects, the westernmost part Swabian, the rest lower or upper Bavarian. It is all very complicated...
It also depends on the area. Just like the accent in Germany varies between north and south and west and east, the same is true for Austria, despite being way smaller countries. The Austrian people near the German border have a similar accent to the Bavarian near the Austrian border, but the Austrian people further south have a completely different accent and people from Vienna have their own kind of accent, and so on. And even within Bavaria there are different accents, same are no problem to understand, some are pretty hard. Personally I struggle the most with Swiss German, as their accent is pretty heavy and they have a lot of words or phrases that are only used in Switzerland. I can understand most of it but sometimes I have no idea and can maybe only guess a word or phrase by context.
The Swiss Girl was good to understand. I meet Swiss people that were harder to understand. I even have a relative from the Black Forrest near the Swiss boarder who speaks with a heavier "Swiss" accent. South of Germany with the Black Forrest, parts of Switzerland, Italy and Austria, Liechtenstein and Alsace and Lorraine in France are the areas where Alemannic German is spoken.
To make it clear: When a Swiss, an Austrian, and a German meet and want to understand each other, they do understand each other. Neither the Swiss nor the Austrians have a problem understanding and speaking Standard German. The difference usually lies between 'ability' and 'willingness'.
Me, being from Northern Germany, have even a hard time to understand bavarian dialect. It´s easier for me to understand frisian or plattdeutsch. Swiss and austrian dialects are really hard for me, sometimes impossible, to understand.
im from middle germany but i enjoy hearing swiss german, it sound so melodic and oldschool. In my opinion, when it comes to history, the swiss german is one of the oldest "versions" of german. so yeah swiss german is the most difficult german out there but sounds realy nice :) Some side facts: swiss german has many different accents too. It comes from a time, long ago, when there were many different villages and every village got a slidly different language and culture. But its the like same in germany and austria.
From the mid-west of germany frisian (Plattdeutsch) is the most difficult for me, when I was up there I could have been sitting in a finnish sauna and would have understood just as much. And YES, swiss german is the cutest dialect, it´s hard to take even police officers seriously because they sound so darn adorable. Cafe Crema they just call Schümli or "willst du etwas Schokoli (want some chocolate) so cute how they say it.
I think this comparison is kind of warped. The german woman speaks mostly "Hochdeutsch", the official version of German. That would actually be the same in Austria (I don't know about Austira...) - but in real life Austrians speak in various kinds of dialects. Depending where they come from, Vienna, Graz, or the west it can be more or less easy to understand. Swiss-German on the other hand is not a dialect - its the official language in Switzerland (next to French and Italian). You can see it clearly if you watch TV from those countries: while german and austrian TV is made in Hochdeutsch (with a little accent in Austria), swiss TV actually uses Swiss-German.
The problem with that video was that it was a western Austrian dialect and an eastern Swiss dialect which are very similar and also closer to standard German... If they had taken a central, southern or western Swiss dialect and a more eastern Austrian dialect they would not have understood each other at all...
This comparison is not quite representative. The Austrian girl speaks Vorarlberg dialect, which is extremely close to Swiss German as both are Alemannic variations of German. They should have chosen a person from another part of Austria.
I'm from the South of Bavaria in Germany which is the closest German State to Switzerland and Austria and the Alps aren't that far from where I live and I understand almost all of what they said besides a few words because the Bavarian Dialect is very similar to Swiss and Austrian. I speak mostly High German (the version the German Girl speaks and which also the others learned in school) which hilariously was invented because there are so many dialects in Germany it's hard to understand each other otherwise. Depending on Region you understand Austrian and Swiss better than other Dialects from Germany.
Swiss German is almost a language of its own and not easy to understand for non-Swiss German native speakers. But after a while you would get the hang of it, particularly if you are familiar with southern German dialects. As for Austrian German , years ago I spent a summer in Vienna, and needed three days or so to understand everything. Apart from this I think every German native speaker understands nearly every other German dialect. For me personally the only exception is Swiss German to a certain extent and definately _Lëtzebuergesch_ - the dialect of Luxemburg.
Like others have said, this might not have been a good example of dialects. The Austrian being from Vorarlberg where they speak Vorarlbergisch, which is very different from the rest of Austria. Although having the German one speak Hochdeutsch wasn't bad, it is modeled after an actual existing German dialect after all, spoken in the region of Hanover. It just so happened they this dialect was selected as the standard. There just are many more dialects in Germany that are just as different as these three which are missing.
German here. I do have difficulties in understanding the local tongue of elderly people from next village. Language has got a more common sound since everybody listen to the same movies, news and shows on TV and the internet.
Austria speaks Bavarian German. Switzerland speaks Alemannic German. The Bavarians understand the Austrians better. The Swabians understand the Swiss better. I'm Rhein-Mosel Franke and I don't understand either of them. But that doesn't mean much, because I don't understand my native dialect either, because in the 70s and 80s it was frowned upon to teach the children dialect.
hello.. i am german and in my family we speak 8 different dialects. I myself was born in Baden-Württemberg and grew up there, now I live in Bavaria, yes, I know what some Germans are saying, but that's the way it is. For free ladies, I understood every word you said and I have to say it depends on which region in Germany you come from and whether you can still speak the regional dialect. If so, then you won't have any problems understanding this and other things, but unfortunately Berson's dialect is hardly ever taught in Germany and that's a shame. As a result, we lose a piece of our culture and also a small piece of our connection with our neighbors.
A friend of mine and his wife are from the North Sea coast and when talk "platt" with their kids, I can barely hear that it's still supposed to be German.
Irony and sarcasm are the standard ways of communication of Austrians in my eyes. Christoph Waltz once said: "Austrians are very polite, but they don't mean it." As an Austrian i think, this is the perfect truth.
Basically, everyone can understand each other as long as there is not too much regional dialect (in Germany, for example, Bavarian, Swabian, etc.). Otherwise, it often becomes gibberish for strangers. Some words are used a little differently in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, but usually you understand what the other person wants to express. 😉
I am German and once we had some technical issues with our satellite dish we changed to swiss TV-channels. The films and shows where the same but I did not understand a word in the commercials. So If swiss people speak high German, that’s ok but when they speak Schwyzerdeutsch you have on chance to understand them.
There are so many dialects in German that Swiss ans Austrian German are just two more versions of that. However, it must be said that in Austria as well as in Switzerland, there are more quite distinct dialects. That is why yes, dialects do shape mentalities and personalities to a degree, but Swiss or Austrian people are not more different than a person from Hamburg is to someone from Stuttgart. In the same vein, "hardest to understand" is relative. I live in Southern Germany and for me, most Austrian or Swiss dialects are easier to understand than people from the coastal northern regions of Germany. Also: my parents are both originally from very different parts of Germany and although they do not speak strong dialects, I have been introduced as a very young child to versions of their home dialects. So, I know some Saxonian and some Lower-Rhine-Plattdeutsch, which enables me to even understand more Dutch than the average German does (except, of course, for those living close to the Netherlands border).
You can roughly imagine the dialects in German of the different countries if you compare American, Australian and British English. Many words are similar or the same, but some are completely different. And the pronunciation is fundamentally different. I am German and I have some problems in English when accents are very pronounced. For example, your pronunciation is sometimes so different from what I know that I now help myself with subtitles so that I don't have to constantly repeat scenes 😉 .
it's funny they didn't get the name of the Swiss girl right, her name is not Dilara, but rather Lara. We put an article in front of the name "I am the Peter" and then shorten it to "I'm t'Peter"
Depending on the dialect even Germans have a hard time understanding each other. And I'm not only talking about the obvious dialects like Bavarian or Frisian. Your local village 20km away might already use a totally different kind of dialect than your own which in parts may not be understandable. BUT, we usually hear when someone speaks a different dialect of German and that includes our dear neighbours from Austria and Switzerland and everyone involved in a discussion just switches to high German. Works extremely well.
please more about Switzerland. As a swiss myself I would agree with your statement about: Swiss is cute, austrian is layed back and german is to the point. Not always but in general.
My wife and I were visiting family in Switzerland. We were sitting in a restaurant and at the table next to us was a Swiss family conversing in German. When they realized that we were also speaking German (Hochdeutsch), they switched to Schwiizerdütsch. We both considered that to be very ignorant. So my wife and I switched to English, with Geordie slang, you should have seen their faces.
I don't see them as arrogant. Perhaps they didn't want you to hear what they were saying. Our family does that too, not to comment on people, but to be within our own. I think you took it too personally.
Yes we can. However as I am from northern Germany understanding them can be a little bit difficult for me. The "Chuchichaschtli" is a famous example of Swiss German. Some dialects can be unintelligible for me.Those folks in the south speak a strong German dialect. 😉 And btw: Native German speakers do not speak accents but dialects! Like US-American, Texas, British, Scottish, Kiwi and Australian are dialects of English... however if an Indian speaks English you will hear a tough Indian accent because that person is a foreign speaker. Foreigners have accents, natives speak dialects.
Thank you for clarifying dialect and accent, so often it is used wrong. Accent is the inability to speak a foreign language properly. Dialect is the right way of speaking in that region.
The Austrian girl is coming from Dornbirn in Vorarlberg. Although Bregenz is the capital of Vorarlberg Dornbirn is the largest town of Vorarlberg. She's from the only region in Austria which isn't speaking a Bavarian dialect but an Alemannic one, Vorarlbergerisch or Vorarlberger Alemannisch. Now Swiss German is a family of Alemannic dialects. Hence there are only a few differences in their dialects. I'm from Upper Swabia which isn't too far from Dornbirn. As a result when the Austrian girl said "I bi vo Dorabira" (Ich bin von Dornbirn) I've recognized immediately where she was coming from. Swabian is another family of Alemannic dialects. Hence we can easily understand quite a lot of things a person from Vorarlberg or Switzerland is talking about. The word Häs is used most commonly for costumes of Alemannic carnival (Fasnet, Fasnacht). But we're using it for more casual clothes as well. Typical for all Alemannic dialects: In High German the direction westen corresponds to the English west. The st sound is pronounced in exactly the same way. In Alemannic dialects the st sound is almost always replaced by an sht sound. Let's take the sentence "The sun sets in the west" as an example: High German: Die Sonne geht im Westen unter. Swabian: D'Sonn' goht im Weschta unter. Vorarlbergerisch: D'Sunn(a) goht em Weschta unt'r. Swiss: D'Sunna goht'm Weschda_nabi / D'Sunna gäiht'm Weschta_nabi (hopefully this attempt in Swiss German isn't too bad) The English sh is written sch in German. Just focus on the word Westen and its variations in the three Alemannic dialects. The st sound changes to scht or schd which is very typical for Alemannic dialects. And exactly the same happens with the sp sound becoming schp. Example: to speak; High German: sprechen; Swabian: schpreche' In fact the pronounciation of st and sp is gradually changing in Germany from North to South. South of Frankfurt and Mainz you have to expect that the pronounciation will be scht and schp almost always. The example above is showing another feature of Alemannic dialects: words can get abreviated near the end, ie words will end differently than in High German. However as a tourist, visitor or expat in Germany you can expect people to speak in a fairly proper High German with you. An chances are good that someone will offer to speak English.
There is an gramatical difference between North German and South German because when talking about the past in the North they use the Präteritum but in the south we use the Perfekt
I grew up on the shores of lake Constance. The Austrian girl is from the West of Austria, near Switzerland. She understand the Swiss girl. A person from Vienna wouldn‘t understand her. Around lake Constance everbody understands each other. Swiss German has parallels with Dutch. The Swiss spoken in Berne has similarities with English (syntax). The Swiss girl comes from Lucerne/Berne. The Swiss spoken in the canton Valais is hard to understand.
hab mal bei einer Familienfeier jemand aus der Ecke von Karlsruhe kennen gelernt...erst dacht ich...er hat verdammt schwarzes Haar, leicht gebräunte Haut das im März und ich habe nix verstanden am Anfang, dachte Türke...nix Türke, man Spricht einfach so in seiner Gegend und nach einer weile habe ich ihn verstehen können und wir uns super Unterhalten können. Egal was für ein Dialekt man spricht, wenn es am Ende die selbe Sprache ist versteht man sich irgendwann super.
As i am from Switzland I can understand all the german dialects spoken. With the nothern territory of Germany I have some struggles, it takes me a few minutes to get in. Also we have a lot of special words, changend from tale to tale for the same thing. It‘s always funny. For the leftover of an apple for example: Swiss german: Bütschgi and other 26 different words Austria: Opflputzn Germany: ? I am sure, another funny name for it 😂
I heard a great comparison about swiss and german. See germany as england and switzerland as scotland. Also, swiss german has many adopted words from french and italian, they don't have a past tense and despite swiss german has no written rules it is used in every aspect of daily life. standart or high german is only used for writing or when dealing with foreigners
funny to listen to a scottish trying to explain the (more or less) same differences between german, austrian and swiss that he has with the english and irish
I think those three girls represent their country quite good. Austria unhurried, Germany official, Swiss bit uppish, and I like all three habits 😀 But of cause all are countries with a large variety of people.
Watch out. Switzerland is a biotope of accents. That cute swiss girl spoke bernese swiss German. We have 26 counties and all of the swissgerman counties have their own distinctivee dialect.
thing is they picked the 3 worst examples for this as they all barely speak with accent or dialect. If you take actual dialects its very hard to understand at times. There is after all 5 major dialect regions in the german speaking nations that vary from each other about the same as american english and australian english do. A swiss german thatm speaks dialect (and not high german with swiss accent) is almost unintelligible to germans as they use very outdated german words in conjunction with french loanwords, a weird pronounciation and they use diminuative a lot meaning they often shorten words. And not all swiss german is the same either, Bern is usually easier to udnerstand cause they speak slowly giving you time to process their words while Zürich is on crack and many swiss people have issues understanding them. i mean they actually have different grammar rules and their own dicitonary for a reason. Austrian german uses a lot of slavic loanwords, that again you have NO chance of understanding if you only speak german. Which is why austria too has its very own dictionary with lots of words that dont exist in german-german. Austrians also have a quite unqiue pronounciation and harsh consonants which makes them hard to understand for most germans. Bavarians and tyroleans get along well as they have similiar pronounciation and words. Meanwhile saxony dialect is...understandable to most germans but it sounds very ugly and just bad and its the one dialect everyone makes fun off. Meanwhile north german dialects are more similiar to dutch than to german and again, use a very unique pronounciation and words, making it very difficult to understand for southern germans. The only ones speaking something akin to standard german are the central germans. West germans as in say the swabes, have an insanely thick accent that is, once again, very difficult to understand for most. So CAN swiss, austrian and german people communicate? Yes if they all try to speak high german, theyll have an accent but understadnable. if they go full dialect? No chance
The thing is that all three countries have so many dialects, you cannot just pick three people and say "that is german/austrian/swiss". For instance: The woman on the right comes from West-Austria, very near to Switzerland. So of course her dialect and the one from the Swiss woman are very similar. You just have to pick someone from East-Austria and they have a n equal hard time to understand her dialect as someone from Germany. And the German woman speaks pretty much Standard German (High German; Hochdeutsch), but there are so many dialects in Germany that can sound like completely different languages. In North Germany there is a dialect called Plattdeutsch (Low German) that is more similar to dutch than to Bavarian German. You will probably know this from the UK. Scottish people have a very different way to speak than someone from Brighton. :D
It would have been more funny if the German woman spoke with a destinct northern german accent and the austrian women was from Vienna. Since the austrian woman is from Vorarlberg her german and swiss german sounds very simmilar. And if the German woman was from Swabia, it would be even more difficult to see the differences. And the funny thing is: the rest of Austria doesn't understand people from Vorarlberg at all.
It's fairly similar to the differences between US, Australian, and several British dialects of English. There may be some slang or specialist terms, but it will be generally understandable.
bad luck with picking this video, if you ask me. they made a unnecessary complicated/long video, for missing ways too much relevant informations, that i would await in a video like this. greetings from AUSTIRA ^^, keep up the good work!
The are many diverse Dialects in Germany. And you must Not forget that Germany as a Nation US quite young. There were Nations as Bavaria, Saxonia, Prussia, Württemberg, ... and all over there they spoke different. Because of the Internet the Dialects speakinb Community is decreasing, but they are still strong.
all learn the same Standard German and can of course understand each other. All use basically the same schoolbooks, Netflix Language Setting, German TH-cam Channels and so on.. People should always tell that first, because from the outside perspective of people not knowing that they might think that its really three languages and it might not be worth to learn German at all. Especially people who want be proud of their German country dialect versions are often not reflecting that - while trying to much to focus on the differences instead of encouraging to learn German (the most spoken native EU language after English) ....
In my working live I realised that the germans have almost a command voice “ thats how we’re gonna do it “ while we Swiss would come to the same result saying “what would you say , if we would do it that way “ ! So I preferred to work with international or Swiss people ! For my taste the German are more arrogant in the IT working life …
Austrian here. Austrians are friendlier and more relaxed than Germans. we always find a work around and we do not take rules and laws always that serious. We are always friendly but not always honest. Due to history we have more in common with the balcan countries and Italy than with Germany or Switzerland. Sadly we have looooots of corruption too. but our coffee and food is better 😂
I’m born in South-Germany and well understand Austrian and Swiss People. Nevertheless there is some Vocabulary that so different that one would need to lern them. E.g. Swiss people “go poshta” meaning buying groceries. Me: They are going to the Post (Mail) office 😅
Denise from Austria speaks a much different austrian german, as i do (east of Austria, near vienna). So, from Bundesland to Bundesland, region to region and city to city, you have different austrian german. The most of in asutria living people speaks more like me, because in the east of Austria live, by far, the most people. In central and western Austria, due to the high Alps, the population density is by far not as high as in the east of Austria. No, Austrian German and Swiss German are, for the most part, not similar. But since Denise lives in Western Austria and thus very close to Switzerland, her "German" is more similar to Swiss German than the Eastern Austrian German spoken in Austria for the most part! In whole austria, you have dialects, everywhere. Also in eastern austria.
to be fair, the austrian girl seems to be from Vorarlberg (adjacent to Switzerland) in the far western part of Austria. Even almost no Austrian understands the dialect from Vorarlberg, it´s way closer to Schwyzer-Dütsch than to Standard german.
Well, Swabians and Bavarians have it easy to understand Austrians and the Swiss. Their dialects are similar in pronounciation and even words, which cannot be understood North of the Main river. This is the "virtual" artificial border. All North of that river have it harder and harder the further up you go...and vice versa. East West same thing. Western part with France, Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands, Northern part Denmark, Eastern part Poland, Chechia, Slowakia. Like imagine the area at the border of the United States and Mexico. Both mixed up a bit, as at every border between countries. The culture swaps over the frontiers.
I think it's pretty similar to how dialects are in Britain - the examples here are like strong regional dialects with basicly the same grammar base but very different pronounciation and some vocab differences. Standard German to (e.g.) Vienese would be as different as Oxford English compared to Glaswegian. Then again - some regional dilects in Germany are so strong that Germans from other parts are really lost. If rural "Platt" from the north meets rural Swabian , Bavarian m Franconian , ect. - it could as well be Chinese to us. Same level of comprehension ... 😄
However, Swiss, Austrians, Liechtensteiners, Luxembourgers and the German-speaking parts of Belgium and Denmark, as well as South Tyrolean (Italy) understand Standard German, or High German, very well.
The austrian girl is not a typical representative of Austria, as she comes from the far west of Austria, where they speak an alemannic dialect that is very similar to those in Switzerland and southwest Germany. However, most of Austria, I'd say more than 90%, speaks bavarian dialects. German dialects cross borders and actually have nothing to do with countries, that is, Bavarian is spoken on the german, austrian and italian side of the borders, alemannic is spoken on the german, swiss and french side of the borders (and of course in a very small part at the austrian westend). The German language consists of a dialect continuum, which means that the dialect changes a little every few kilometers until after about 200 to 300 km there are almost no more similarities. The dialect on the German North Sea coast is relatively easy to understand for an Englishman and a Dutchman, but hardly so for Bavarians or Austrians.
It s like Bern, Basel, Luzern, Zurich, Schmyz, Uri, Wallis nidwalden, St. Gallen, Thurgau, solothurn, Aargau, Appenzell, Graubünden, (Liechtenstein), Schaffhausen! These are all different Accents😂
To be fair, the Austrian variety shown here is very close to Swiss German. For instance, I have a lot more trouble understanding people from Vienna than I do understanding her.
For us Swiss, Germans can come off a bit too direct maybe even harsh, eventhough they don't mean it in a bad way. In sales or gastronomy for example, when Germans order something they often say "ich krieg' ein/ ..." (= I will get a ...) whereas us Swiss people would never say it like that. We say "Ig hätt gern es/ e" or even ask "dörft ig ächt es ... ha, bitte?" (I would like to have a... / Could I please have a ...?).
In Switzerland and in Austria you learn German high German at school what they are speaking are dialects in Germany we also have dialects which are hard to understand but we tend to speak high German due to our education but I know people from the kindergarten for example where I could not understand the parents or the girl they came from around the directions lake Constance Although we are from the same region😂
I am german from the north east and i can't understand not one whole sentence in Swiss and have also Problems with southern german dialekts and Austrian, but englisch seams much easier, because the grammar of lower German language (its not just a dialekt, its a real language) is nearer to englisch. (no grammatical genders, cases)
It really depends on where you’re from… I’m from eastern Bavaria so I don’t have a problem understanding people from eastern Austria. But western Austria is more similar to Swabian, so harder for me to understand 😅
The German language is based on the tribal languages of four large Germanic tribes: the Saxons (Low Saxons), the Franks, the Alemanni and the Bavarians and their "tribal areas" are not represented by today's state boundaries. Alemannic is spoken in Switzerland and the Southwest of Germany (Swabia, Baden, Allgäu) as well as in the French Alsace. Bavarian is spoken in the Southeast of Germany (Bavaria without Frankonia) and in all of Austria but Vorarlberg, plus South Tyrole in Italy. Frankish is the central and largest tribe and their tribal language was the base for Standard German but also the root of Dutch (Low Frankonian). Frankonian/Hessian/Thuringian/Kölsch/Luxemburgish are all variants of Frankish, even the modern dialect of the state of Saxonia is not Saxon but Frankish in its origin. Lowsaxon is spoken in the North and had no big influence on the development of the Standard German language, which comes more from the South. But Saxon/Platt/Low German had a big influence on Danish, Swedish, Frisian and also Dutch, since it was the lingua franca of the North and Baltic Sea in the Middle Ages. With the spread of Protestantism and the German of Luther's Bible it slowly became downgraded to a dialect, while it was a written language before. When Tsar Peter the Great learned German in his time, it was this Low German, not Standard German. Berlin - the capital - used to be Low German area as well, that's why the city dialect of Berlin is quite different from Standard German. Unlike the role that Paris plays from French, or London for the English language, Standard German does not come from the capital.
Hagen Rether, a Swiss comedian, claimed that the Germans are friendly, but not courteous while the Swiss were courteous, but not necessarily friendly. I believe, Austrians and Swiss are Generally more laid back people, which imho is a strong contrast to their next German neighbours, Bavarians and Swabians (I lived in both areas for a while).
My 2 cents to this comment: 1. Rether is a Romanian-born German Kabarett artist (that's more than a comedian FMPOV ) and 2. people form northern germany can be VERY laid back and tend to say nothing at all :D BTW: I wonder if Mert is able to speak "Oxford English" ;)
@@agricolon Damn, you're right, but with whom did I mix him up, then? Also, who wants to hear Mert speak Oxford English X) We#re here because his Scottish accent mixes perfectly with his personality!
Swiss accents are rather diverse. I have encountered some that were a bit more difficult to understand but I've heard others that are 100% intelligible. And "difficult to understand" doesn't mean I don't get it, it just means you have to focus and think about it. No such issues with any Austrian accent I have ever heard (including the one in the video). I feel like people strongly overstate dialectal variation, in general. That being said, there are slang words that will differ from place to place but that's just a thing anywhere. I know a word that is apparently only used a certain way where I am from and maybe in a couple neighbouring places. Stuff like that happens. But *in general* , I'd say I (as a "Northerner" (not really but by comparison)) can understand almost any High German (that's the language, not a dialect) speaker. Luxembourghish has a lot of French loanwords, some Swiss just sound too different and there is maybe the odd Bavarian mountain hermit I don't understand bc he/she drops all their consonants (Bavarian has rather different vowels from the other German dialects, so take away the consonants, too, and it sounds like a mess to me), so those I don't understand perfectly but that's mostly it.
I don't know if I count as alemannic, cause I am at the border from 4 different dialects, but the austrian was very easy to understand. I wes jetz grad ned ob mei Dialekt no alemannisch zäjlt, I kum halt fun d'Grenz fun de Dialekte, aba's Ostreichische war sau leicht zu versteje
@@mo_3924 Kummsch du vo de Lechtalr Alpa, Weschttirol, evtl. bei Reutte? Also, I kâ dr itta i seal Dialekt antworta, abr i woiß halt bloaß, dass mr ama Zipfl voma Außerfera (Reutte) no Schwäbisch schwätzt. Gôt mr mit dr Grenz nôch Weschta, grôd zwischa de Allgaiar und Voradlbergar (wo's sprachgschichtlich kaom a Grenz gea het), Richtung Breagaz und wiidr uff Liächtaschtua zua, isch es alls Niederalemannisch bzw. Bodenseealemannisch, do hond die muischta/moischta/meischta/muaschta Litt kuine/kuane Problem, si z' vrstandat (z'vrstong). Odr i meim oignar Dialekt, wo scho fascht Hoachdeitsch klengt (téént) im Vergleich do drzua. Des was i doba grschriba hâo, war ô bloß a groab Spielerei :) - Was i persénli am spannenschda find, isch, dass dia alemannische Mundarta (s Schwäbisch gheart drzua), grâd im Oschta auf'ra Achs fascht no voma Rias ra, da Lech entlang, gemeinsam Merkmal entwicklat hand, s' bescht Beispiel wär des monophthongierte au zu ô (ahd./mhd. au, ou). In Augschburg glob i o, dass i no was eikoffa míaßt. Weniger im Stadtgebiet, abr ao mhd. ê und ô héart mr ao do verzweilautet (Schnea, schéa, béas, groaß, hoach, roat), was si íbr's Allgai, Vorarlberg sogar no ins Tiroler Südbairisch erstreckt. Selbscht de olta Zimbern kennat's.
Uhhh …. I‘m intrigued!! I mean I know that there are places and dialects where it would be hard even in Germany itself to understand one another (Frieden vs. Niederbayern) … it will be possible but there will be ?? In some aspects…
He everyone from Germany has the same accent when they speak English as I do. Germany I understand the woman from Germany and Switzerland. Austria is a bit of a puzzle in some sentences.
Oh, once the Swiss get going with their babbling, nobody will understand anything anymore. But also the German dialects are sometimes very difficult to understand. The old ones usually still know their regional dialect very well and then you are lost. The Viennese dialect always seems to me as if people hold their noses too high. Or as a German comedy actress called Tahnee likes to say: "Viennese is the final enemy. I'm from northern germany and my parents can also speak lower german (Plattdeutsch), but i know it give some other versions of lower german in other northern regions of germany.
There is not one Swiss German. There are huge differences in every part of the country, even differences between neighbouring villages, mostly in terms but also in sentence structure.
There are a lot of prejudices or stereotypes about how people are in certain regions, but i think that's mostly nonsense. roughly speaking, though, you can say that the further south you go, the more open and friendly people are. personally, i've had rather bad experiences in northern germany. and i also know other people who've been there on vacation and weren't particularly impressed. There are certainly others, but that is the tendency. In Baden Württemberg, Austria and Switzerland, the people are somehow more relaxed, more open, friendlier and heartier.
You can extend this topic to all German speaking regions. It's not just DE/AT/CH, it's the same even within each country from region to region. People from North Germany sounds completely different to South Germany. The closer you live together, the easier it is to understand each other. The farer away, the more problems you might have. Common language is High German, but mostly still with your regional accent.
jo, laß ma Platt schnacken. ;)
@@HenryAusLuebeck Dor bün ik ook för! Mook wi!
It is called "dialect" and it is not like other languages does not have their own. Just for example London english and scottish, but also walsh english and irish english. And of course american english and australian english. But i am sure the list goes on.
gutes Beispiel, wo ich herkomme sagt man platt proten ;)@@HenryAusLuebeck
I glab ma kau sogn dass die Voradelberger und Tiroler si leichta tuan mit dem Swizerdütsch. Und das ma ma Österreich in 2 Gruppm eintaln kau. Westn und Osten. Salzburg Ober-Niederösterreich, Wean, Burgnlaund, Steiermark und Kärnten tuan si am leichtesten sie zum verstehen. Tirol Voraldeberger san die Gruppn die uns verstehn wia aber schwerer tuan sei zu verstehn.
The problem with this video is that the Austrian girl speaks 'Vorarlberg' dialect which is not typically Austrian. It is pretty close to Swiss dialect. So the Austrian and the Swiss girl were pretty similar
Danke du sparst mir das.
True uneven! If I recall correctly Vorarlbergerisch is a Alrmanic dialect(like Swiss German). While the rest of Austria rather talks a Bavarian dialect.
I now I have to go and brace for impact 😂 of all the complaints from my fellow Austrians: it is only linguisticly not culturally (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavarian_language?wprov=sfti1 )
I’m from the South East of Austria and can easily understand Bavarians but can’t understand people from Tirol/Vorarlberg. It sounds like Swiss German to me. Couldn’t understand what this “Austrian” representative said 🤷♀️
That's pretty much what I thought too.
I personaly had no problem understanding them, but I am from southern Germany and have family in Switzerland and been in Austria every year since I was 8.
If a northern german speaking platt were in the mix, that might be very different.
@@tidu01 and there are Alemannen in south west Germany as well borders are often political not cultural or ethnical.
There are sooo many dialects and accents in all three countries.. one person per country will never be enough
I am from North Germany and i stayed some time at a family in Bern in Switzerland. They spoke dialect Bern Deutsch and it took me one week to understand the family at the meals.
one week? not bad, not bad at all!
@@sadgfasdg542 Because they were speaking _Hochdeutsch_ and not _Mundart_ ;-)
@@marcmonnerat4850 yeah probably :)
aüä?
The German was quite representative of Standard German, yes. But we have so much dialects here, and some of them are really difficult to understand if you only speak Standard German. Swabian, for example, or the dialect of Saarland. Saxonian, sometimes, if spoken fast. Bavarian and Franconian. And, of course, Plattdeutsch.
There are so many different dialects in each country. Austrians don`t understand each dialect in Austria, but normally we speak a "high" german, so everyone can understand in whole Austria, Germany and in Suisse.
I am Austrian and I dislike speaking "high" german a lot, while I understand all Austrian dialects besides the ones from Vorarlberg (those I understand even less than Swiss German, since I am used to that due to Swiss Television).
@@ekesandras1481 Its important to speak our dialects, BUT its ALSO important to speak "high" german! In many "higher qualifizied jobs you HAVE to speak high german, like teachers, doctors, lawers and so on!!!
As a German I worked and lived for some time in Vienna and there was no big problem with the language. as soon as they recognized me as a German, they switched to a more standard german pronunciation. Some terms are different, but they're easy to convey in the context. Same as e.g. irish, scottish and english speakers, we can meet on a common ground, while listening to native speakers talking to each other is a big difference.
This works to some degree even with Dutch, German, Norwegian and Swedish. 😊
Of course that is much tougher, but you can understand surprisingly much.
Plattdeutsch (N German lower German Dialect) has lots of similarities with Dutch, especially considering Frisians are in both Countries along the coast, up to Denmark.
Danish is a bit harder to understand for Swdes and Germans, it is a bit of a different mix and structure.
It all takes practice and some effort. When I was a kid, Bavarian and Saxon was unintelligible to me. 😅
that must´ve been hard to not be able to undersatand the bully herbig movies.
I'm Bavarian and I can see why people sometimes don't understand what we're saying cause of our dialect. 🙃
Agree
as a north german, dutch is actually decently easy to understand
yeah i come from the dutch border and from both sides the ones who spoke dialect could understand each other very well.
When it comes to languages or more specific dialects/accents, it is always more useful to think in terms of speech areas and not political areas such as countries or states. Languages have formed over centuries with no regard to political borders or borders have been put over existing cultural areas/regions. For example the Alemannic dialects that are spoken in the South of Baden Württemberg (Germany) belong to the same speech area as the dialects spoken in North Eastern Switzerland or the Austrian state of Vorarlberg. Coming from that area, it is pretty easy to understand speakers from those regions although you live in three different countries. Often times it is, at least for me, even easier to understand Swiss and Austrian people then fellow Germans from other regions
It is obvious that the Swiss and Austrian girl understand the German 'Hochdeutsch' as it is used as the official language and also taught in school. Therefore, they should maybe have taken a person that speaks a German dialect (btw, total nonsense, that the German girl said there are not a lot of dialects in Germany. I think there are few countries were there are more.)!
The funny thing is that the austrian girl is from a region in austria, where the language is More Swiss german, an not like austrian common german.
I enjoy your channel. It makes a lot of fun. Greetings from Germany.
The nicest thing I ever experienced happened during my first holiday in Portugal 1990, where I met a black Portuguese woman who works as a housekeeper in Switzerland and I was able to converse with her in her "Schwyzerdütsch"...
Linguistically, Austria and Bavaria are very close. Switzerland comes from the Allemanic language area and has its own dialect. But in general, one understands oneself. Although there are still specific expressions in Austria that cannot be understood. The same also applies to Switzerland.
There are many different dialects in Germany. The German speaks High German, while the other two speak dialect, because the way they speak it is not written. The written language is the same everywhere. There are only sometimes other official words for the same thing: e.g. B. German Fahrrad, Swiss Velo; German tomato, Austria Paradeiser.
It‘s not officialy written, but swiss people usually write dialect on whatsapp and other social medias.
But yes, most books,newspaper ect. are standard german.
Sorry to say that but your comment is not true....and I say this without any means to insult or to offend you.
Austrian German is no dialect.
"Austrian Standard German" is the offical language and Swiss has "Swiss Standard German" both differs in Vocabulary and a little bit in Grammar and Orthography as well in comparision to Germany´s Standard German...
There are 3 official versions of Standard German in place since 1902 in the whole German speaking area..
And the - professional linguistic term "Hochdeutsch/High German" - refers solely and only to the former Southern German languages spoken in Southern Germany + Austria + Switzerland which now are all considered as southern German dialects because of the implementation of the 3 variants of "Standard German" in 1902.
"Hoch" in "Hochdeutsch" just describes the terrain of where the language was spoken, and the South is on higher terrain than the flat North where the common German languages spoken there which today are also just considered as dialects were called "Niederdeutsch"..
"Hochdeutsch" used "colloquially/umgangssprachlich" which is "not professional" and just used as alternative term for expressing "Standard German" is just based on the fact that "Standard German" has taken over way more linguistic characteristics from "Hochdeutsch/High German" and "Mittelhochdeutsch/Middle High German" than from "Niederdeutsch/Low German" which basically is the reason why "Niederdeutsch" vanished in Germany and is just preserved in the Northern German Dialects...otherwise Germans would speak like the Dutch, because the Dutch language is the direct descendent of "Niederdeutsch"
In fact actually - in the professional linguistic sense - all southern German Dialects which includes the dialects of Austria + Switzerland are "actually Hochdeutsch" in the original + professional sense.
By the way Austria has 9 totally different sounding dialects and all are part of the "Hochdeutsch language family"...and Germany also has a whole bunch of it but only the southern Dialects are part of the "Hochdeutsch language family" while the Mittelhochdeutsch Dialects are basically hybrids of Hochdeutsch + Niederdeutsch (= but way more Hochdeutsch with some Niederdeutsch vocabulary) and the Northern dialects are pure "Niederdeutsch" dialects
And "Paradeiser" is just used in Eastern Austria..in Western Austria "Tomate" is the common term.
@@michaelgrabner8977 I have not read all but both is true. Austrian and Swiss Standard German are the official language in those countries. Nevertheless they are also dialects of German.
I live here in Switzerland 11 years and i learned a high german(Hochdeutsch) at language school and i can understand swiss german because the family of my husband speaks swiss german. In first 2 years it was really hard to understand swiss german but now i can understand and speak a little bit. Austrian german is a little of swiss german so i can also understand a little bit. Swiss german is a cute, gentle and soft in all of german language, do not forget liechtenstein is a combination of Swiss-Austrian german.
When I was a little child, I didn’t even realize that my grandma spoke a dialect, I thought everybody would be able to understand and that the words were interchangeable 😂
For example: Vögelchen (little birds) in High german
„Vijelscha“ (there‘s not even a spelling rule😂) in the lower Westerwald (northern part of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate)
Or: Familie - Familisch, Nicht - net, (not) auf - uff, (on/onto/up)
I'm living in Westerwald, but originally from Vienna. I think I've got a keen ear for dialects, working on the telephone, but listening to some "Wäller Platt" is quite hard for me to understand.
Love it though, I was laughing my ass off when watching "Sinnlos im Weltraum" and their "Sejerländer Platt" before I moved here, it has a lot of similarities with Westerwald's version.
But I find it funny how everybody here has troubles understanding bavarian dialects.
Swiss German is super cute to me too. So melodic and rhythmic and bouncy. When I had friends there, I loved listening to them just talking about random shit because it was fun to listen to.
And "Chuchichäschtli" is entirely accurate, my friends there taught me how to say it! It's a shibboleth.
Hardest German accent to understand? Freaking Bavaria. They're like their own language, the pronunciation is so different. I would compare them with Scottish, but Scottish is actually cool, so that doesn't really work xD
Haha. I'm Swiss and this is so hard for me to understand. I know Germans think Swiss German sounds cute, but to me it seems very mundane.
I think of language primarily as a communications tool, and I feel the vocabulary of Swiss German is very limited. Standard German has a much larger range and as such is far more expressive. I find this particularly troublesome because the language you think in defines what you can consciously think about. I would go so far as to say Swiss German is cognitively limiting. I've actually started thinking in English for exactly that reason, but I think standard German would been a similar improvement.
In fact in Austria, people are using their own high german too.
I'm from Vienna, living in western Germany now.
My dad is from the worker class and he uses a straight vienese dialect.
Many words are much more contracted, and use their own terminologies from many different languages, especially french and some slavic countries east of Austria have left their mark.
But most people will just recognize the typical Viennas High German, even Denise thought that this is the only dialect people talk there.
In austrian or at least Viennas High German, they aren't using that much of their own words, but try to keep the words, but use a totally different melody. Words are much more drawn out, which makes them sound longer.
I do use all three of them. Depending on the person I'm talking to I can talk in German or Viennas High German, or Viennas own dialect, but living in Germany, my High German has slowly been replaced by the german version, that you can hear from Vanessa.
I'm from South Germany and had neither problems to understand the Austrian not the Swiss pronunciation. "Häsi kofa" needed some consideration, but we have also "häs" for a costume or a suit. The participant's Swiss German however was not as "deep" at it could be in some cantons. But I know Germans from the far North will have problems to understand me if I speak my mother tongue instead of today's standard German (today's standard German because it was the other way around in medieval times).
Swiss German is High Alemannic, like southern Alsatian and the dialect of the German High Rhine region. My mother tongue would be a mix of Lake Constance Alemannic (middle Alemannic) and Swabian (northern Alemannic), while the dialects in Baden and northern Alsace are a mixture of Lower Alemannic and southern Franconian (and French in the case of Alsatian). Vorarlberg in Austria also has an Alemannic dialect, as well as some villages in Tyrol and South Tyrol, while the other parts of Tyrol and Austria speak southern (Austro-)Bavarian dialects. The northern part of Bavaria speaks Franconian dialects, the westernmost part Swabian, the rest lower or upper Bavarian. It is all very complicated...
this means you are Swabian. As a non-Vorarlberg Austrian I never heard of häsi.
@@ekesandras1481 It is not häsi kofa, but Hääs iikofa
It also depends on the area. Just like the accent in Germany varies between north and south and west and east, the same is true for Austria, despite being way smaller countries. The Austrian people near the German border have a similar accent to the Bavarian near the Austrian border, but the Austrian people further south have a completely different accent and people from Vienna have their own kind of accent, and so on. And even within Bavaria there are different accents, same are no problem to understand, some are pretty hard. Personally I struggle the most with Swiss German, as their accent is pretty heavy and they have a lot of words or phrases that are only used in Switzerland. I can understand most of it but sometimes I have no idea and can maybe only guess a word or phrase by context.
The Swiss Girl was good to understand. I meet Swiss people that were harder to understand.
I even have a relative from the Black Forrest near the Swiss boarder who speaks with a heavier "Swiss" accent.
South of Germany with the Black Forrest, parts of Switzerland, Italy and Austria, Liechtenstein and Alsace and Lorraine in France are the areas where Alemannic German is spoken.
To make it clear: When a Swiss, an Austrian, and a German meet and want to understand each other, they do understand each other. Neither the Swiss nor the Austrians have a problem understanding and speaking Standard German. The difference usually lies between 'ability' and 'willingness'.
Me, being from Northern Germany, have even a hard time to understand bavarian dialect. It´s easier for me to understand frisian or plattdeutsch. Swiss and austrian dialects are really hard for me, sometimes impossible, to understand.
im from middle germany but i enjoy hearing swiss german, it sound so melodic and oldschool. In my opinion, when it comes to history, the swiss german is one of the oldest "versions" of german. so yeah swiss german is the most difficult german out there but sounds realy nice :)
Some side facts: swiss german has many different accents too. It comes from a time, long ago, when there were many different villages and every village got a slidly different language and culture. But its the like same in germany and austria.
From the mid-west of germany frisian (Plattdeutsch) is the most difficult for me, when I was up there I could have been sitting in a finnish sauna and would have understood just as much. And YES, swiss german is the cutest dialect, it´s hard to take even police officers seriously because they sound so darn adorable. Cafe Crema they just call Schümli or "willst du etwas Schokoli (want some chocolate) so cute how they say it.
yoo i can actually speak oecher platt and it was really weird going to bavaria and understanding nothing lmao
I think this comparison is kind of warped. The german woman speaks mostly "Hochdeutsch", the official version of German. That would actually be the same in Austria (I don't know about Austira...) - but in real life Austrians speak in various kinds of dialects. Depending where they come from, Vienna, Graz, or the west it can be more or less easy to understand.
Swiss-German on the other hand is not a dialect - its the official language in Switzerland (next to French and Italian). You can see it clearly if you watch TV from those countries: while german and austrian TV is made in Hochdeutsch (with a little accent in Austria), swiss TV actually uses Swiss-German.
yeah they should have used someone who actually talks in a regional german dialect for the german woman
@@Illuminat-ve5ue yeah, but something heavy like Plattdeutsch - then the other two would not have understood a thing. :)
@@petebeatminister hey, plattdeutsch is quite easy to understand, bavarian is what is really hard
The problem with that video was that it was a western Austrian dialect and an eastern Swiss dialect which are very similar and also closer to standard German... If they had taken a central, southern or western Swiss dialect and a more eastern Austrian dialect they would not have understood each other at all...
This comparison is not quite representative.
The Austrian girl speaks Vorarlberg dialect, which is extremely close to Swiss German as both are Alemannic variations of German.
They should have chosen a person from another part of Austria.
I'm from the South of Bavaria in Germany which is the closest German State to Switzerland and Austria and the Alps aren't that far from where I live and I understand almost all of what they said besides a few words because the Bavarian Dialect is very similar to Swiss and Austrian. I speak mostly High German (the version the German Girl speaks and which also the others learned in school) which hilariously was invented because there are so many dialects in Germany it's hard to understand each other otherwise. Depending on Region you understand Austrian and Swiss better than other Dialects from Germany.
Closest German state to Switzerland is Baden-Württemberg
I don't know if people from Braunschweig are happy if their dialect was invented :D
Swiss German is almost a language of its own and not easy to understand for non-Swiss German native speakers. But after a while you would get the hang of it, particularly if you are familiar with southern German dialects. As for Austrian German , years ago I spent a summer in Vienna, and needed three days or so to understand everything.
Apart from this I think every German native speaker understands nearly every other German dialect. For me personally the only exception is Swiss German to a certain extent and definately _Lëtzebuergesch_ - the dialect of Luxemburg.
Like others have said, this might not have been a good example of dialects. The Austrian being from Vorarlberg where they speak Vorarlbergisch, which is very different from the rest of Austria.
Although having the German one speak Hochdeutsch wasn't bad, it is modeled after an actual existing German dialect after all, spoken in the region of Hanover. It just so happened they this dialect was selected as the standard. There just are many more dialects in Germany that are just as different as these three which are missing.
im german and just can confirm all i have seen :) very good representitive video and also reaction i would say ;)
good work.
German here. I do have difficulties in understanding the local tongue of elderly people from next village. Language has got a more common sound since everybody listen to the same movies, news and shows on TV and the internet.
Austria speaks Bavarian German. Switzerland speaks Alemannic German. The Bavarians understand the Austrians better. The Swabians understand the Swiss better. I'm Rhein-Mosel Franke and I don't understand either of them. But that doesn't mean much, because I don't understand my native dialect either, because in the 70s and 80s it was frowned upon to teach the children dialect.
hello.. i am german and in my family we speak 8 different dialects. I myself was born in Baden-Württemberg and grew up there, now I live in Bavaria, yes, I know what some Germans are saying, but that's the way it is. For free ladies, I understood every word you said and I have to say it depends on which region in Germany you come from and whether you can still speak the regional dialect. If so, then you won't have any problems understanding this and other things, but unfortunately Berson's dialect is hardly ever taught in Germany and that's a shame. As a result, we lose a piece of our culture and also a small piece of our connection with our neighbors.
A friend of mine and his wife are from the North Sea coast and when talk "platt" with their kids, I can barely hear that it's still supposed to be German.
Irony and sarcasm are the standard ways of communication of Austrians in my eyes. Christoph Waltz once said:
"Austrians are very polite, but they don't mean it."
As an Austrian i think, this is the perfect truth.
Basically, everyone can understand each other as long as there is not too much regional dialect (in Germany, for example, Bavarian, Swabian, etc.). Otherwise, it often becomes gibberish for strangers.
Some words are used a little differently in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, but usually you understand what the other person wants to express. 😉
I am German and once we had some technical issues with our satellite dish we changed to swiss TV-channels. The films and shows where the same but I did not understand a word in the commercials. So If swiss people speak high German, that’s ok but when they speak Schwyzerdeutsch you have on chance to understand them.
Im early!! Kinda i guess but anyways love ur vids!!!!
There are so many dialects in German that Swiss ans Austrian German are just two more versions of that. However, it must be said that in Austria as well as in Switzerland, there are more quite distinct dialects.
That is why yes, dialects do shape mentalities and personalities to a degree, but Swiss or Austrian people are not more different than a person from Hamburg is to someone from Stuttgart.
In the same vein, "hardest to understand" is relative. I live in Southern Germany and for me, most Austrian or Swiss dialects are easier to understand than people from the coastal northern regions of Germany. Also: my parents are both originally from very different parts of Germany and although they do not speak strong dialects, I have been introduced as a very young child to versions of their home dialects. So, I know some Saxonian and some Lower-Rhine-Plattdeutsch, which enables me to even understand more Dutch than the average German does (except, of course, for those living close to the Netherlands border).
You can roughly imagine the dialects in German of the different countries if you compare American, Australian and British English. Many words are similar or the same, but some are completely different.
And the pronunciation is fundamentally different.
I am German and I have some problems in English when accents are very pronounced. For example, your pronunciation is sometimes so different from what I know that I now help myself with subtitles so that I don't have to constantly repeat scenes 😉 .
Gotta be Swiss German all the way thru bruh 😎 🇨🇭 🎉
it's funny they didn't get the name of the Swiss girl right, her name is not Dilara, but rather Lara. We put an article in front of the name "I am the Peter" and then shorten it to "I'm t'Peter"
Her name is actually Dilara though
Depending on the dialect even Germans have a hard time understanding each other. And I'm not only talking about the obvious dialects like Bavarian or Frisian. Your local village 20km away might already use a totally different kind of dialect than your own which in parts may not be understandable. BUT, we usually hear when someone speaks a different dialect of German and that includes our dear neighbours from Austria and Switzerland and everyone involved in a discussion just switches to high German. Works extremely well.
please more about Switzerland. As a swiss myself I would agree with your statement about: Swiss is cute, austrian is layed back and german is to the point. Not always but in general.
My wife and I were visiting family in Switzerland. We were sitting in a restaurant and at the table next to us was a Swiss family conversing in German. When they realized that we were also speaking German (Hochdeutsch), they switched to Schwiizerdütsch. We both considered that to be very ignorant. So my wife and I switched to English, with Geordie slang, you should have seen their faces.
I don't see them as arrogant. Perhaps they didn't want you to hear what they were saying. Our family does that too, not to comment on people, but to be within our own. I think you took it too personally.
Never ever would Swiss people speak German to each other.
So you're story cannot be true.
Yes we can. However as I am from northern Germany understanding them can be a little bit difficult for me. The "Chuchichaschtli" is a famous example of Swiss German. Some dialects can be unintelligible for me.Those folks in the south speak a strong German dialect. 😉
And btw: Native German speakers do not speak accents but dialects! Like US-American, Texas, British, Scottish, Kiwi and Australian are dialects of English... however if an Indian speaks English you will hear a tough Indian accent because that person is a foreign speaker. Foreigners have accents, natives speak dialects.
Thank you for clarifying dialect and accent, so often it is used wrong. Accent is the inability to speak a foreign language properly. Dialect is the right way of speaking in that region.
I come from the north in germany and i understand german , Austria and switzer peoples ! No problem when he Spike slowly.
The Austrian girl is coming from Dornbirn in Vorarlberg. Although Bregenz is the capital of Vorarlberg Dornbirn is the largest town of Vorarlberg. She's from the only region in Austria which isn't speaking a Bavarian dialect but an Alemannic one, Vorarlbergerisch or Vorarlberger Alemannisch. Now Swiss German is a family of Alemannic dialects. Hence there are only a few differences in their dialects.
I'm from Upper Swabia which isn't too far from Dornbirn. As a result when the Austrian girl said "I bi vo Dorabira" (Ich bin von Dornbirn) I've recognized immediately where she was coming from.
Swabian is another family of Alemannic dialects. Hence we can easily understand quite a lot of things a person from Vorarlberg or Switzerland is talking about. The word Häs is used most commonly for costumes of Alemannic carnival (Fasnet, Fasnacht). But we're using it for more casual clothes as well.
Typical for all Alemannic dialects:
In High German the direction westen corresponds to the English west. The st sound is pronounced in exactly the same way. In Alemannic dialects the st sound is almost always replaced by an sht sound. Let's take the sentence "The sun sets in the west" as an example:
High German: Die Sonne geht im Westen unter.
Swabian: D'Sonn' goht im Weschta unter.
Vorarlbergerisch: D'Sunn(a) goht em Weschta unt'r.
Swiss: D'Sunna goht'm Weschda_nabi / D'Sunna gäiht'm Weschta_nabi (hopefully this attempt in Swiss German isn't too bad)
The English sh is written sch in German. Just focus on the word Westen and its variations in the three Alemannic dialects. The st sound changes to scht or schd which is very typical for Alemannic dialects. And exactly the same happens with the sp sound becoming schp.
Example: to speak; High German: sprechen; Swabian: schpreche'
In fact the pronounciation of st and sp is gradually changing in Germany from North to South. South of Frankfurt and Mainz you have to expect that the pronounciation will be scht and schp almost always.
The example above is showing another feature of Alemannic dialects: words can get abreviated near the end, ie words will end differently than in High German.
However as a tourist, visitor or expat in Germany you can expect people to speak in a fairly proper High German with you. An chances are good that someone will offer to speak English.
There is an gramatical difference between North German and South German because when talking about the past in the North they use the Präteritum but in the south we use the Perfekt
I grew up on the shores of lake Constance. The Austrian girl is from the West of Austria, near Switzerland. She understand the Swiss girl. A person from Vienna wouldn‘t understand her. Around lake Constance everbody understands each other. Swiss German has parallels with Dutch. The Swiss spoken in Berne has similarities with English (syntax). The Swiss girl comes from Lucerne/Berne. The Swiss spoken in the canton Valais is hard to understand.
hab mal bei einer Familienfeier jemand aus der Ecke von Karlsruhe kennen gelernt...erst dacht ich...er hat verdammt schwarzes Haar, leicht gebräunte Haut das im März und ich habe nix verstanden am Anfang, dachte Türke...nix Türke, man Spricht einfach so in seiner Gegend und nach einer weile habe ich ihn verstehen können und wir uns super Unterhalten können. Egal was für ein Dialekt man spricht, wenn es am Ende die selbe Sprache ist versteht man sich irgendwann super.
As i am from Switzland I can understand all the german dialects spoken. With the nothern territory of Germany I have some struggles, it takes me a few minutes to get in. Also we have a lot of special words, changend from tale to tale for the same thing. It‘s always funny. For the leftover of an apple for example:
Swiss german: Bütschgi and other 26 different words
Austria: Opflputzn
Germany: ? I am sure, another funny name for it 😂
I heard a great comparison about swiss and german. See germany as england and switzerland as scotland.
Also, swiss german has many adopted words from french and italian, they don't have a past tense and despite swiss german has no written rules it is used in every aspect of daily life. standart or high german is only used for writing or when dealing with foreigners
funny to listen to a scottish trying to explain the (more or less) same differences between german, austrian and swiss that he has with the english and irish
I think those three girls represent their country quite good. Austria unhurried, Germany official, Swiss bit uppish, and I like all three habits 😀 But of cause all are countries with a large variety of people.
Watch out. Switzerland is a biotope of accents. That cute swiss girl spoke bernese swiss German. We have 26 counties and all of the swissgerman counties have their own distinctivee dialect.
thing is they picked the 3 worst examples for this as they all barely speak with accent or dialect.
If you take actual dialects its very hard to understand at times. There is after all 5 major dialect regions in the german speaking nations that vary from each other about the same as american english and australian english do.
A swiss german thatm speaks dialect (and not high german with swiss accent) is almost unintelligible to germans as they use very outdated german words in conjunction with french loanwords, a weird pronounciation and they use diminuative a lot meaning they often shorten words.
And not all swiss german is the same either, Bern is usually easier to udnerstand cause they speak slowly giving you time to process their words while Zürich is on crack and many swiss people have issues understanding them. i mean they actually have different grammar rules and their own dicitonary for a reason.
Austrian german uses a lot of slavic loanwords, that again you have NO chance of understanding if you only speak german. Which is why austria too has its very own dictionary with lots of words that dont exist in german-german.
Austrians also have a quite unqiue pronounciation and harsh consonants which makes them hard to understand for most germans.
Bavarians and tyroleans get along well as they have similiar pronounciation and words.
Meanwhile saxony dialect is...understandable to most germans but it sounds very ugly and just bad and its the one dialect everyone makes fun off.
Meanwhile north german dialects are more similiar to dutch than to german and again, use a very unique pronounciation and words, making it very difficult to understand for southern germans.
The only ones speaking something akin to standard german are the central germans.
West germans as in say the swabes, have an insanely thick accent that is, once again, very difficult to understand for most.
So CAN swiss, austrian and german people communicate? Yes if they all try to speak high german, theyll have an accent but understadnable. if they go full dialect? No chance
The thing is that all three countries have so many dialects, you cannot just pick three people and say "that is german/austrian/swiss".
For instance: The woman on the right comes from West-Austria, very near to Switzerland. So of course her dialect and the one from the Swiss woman are very similar.
You just have to pick someone from East-Austria and they have a n equal hard time to understand her dialect as someone from Germany.
And the German woman speaks pretty much Standard German (High German; Hochdeutsch), but there are so many dialects in Germany that can sound like completely different languages.
In North Germany there is a dialect called Plattdeutsch (Low German) that is more similar to dutch than to Bavarian German.
You will probably know this from the UK. Scottish people have a very different way to speak than someone from Brighton. :D
Luxemburgs, Dutch and Belgian people mostly understand German as well.
As a southern German I can only understand about 90-95% of Swiss and Austrian sentences, but 100% of your Scottish accent. 🤔
It would have been more funny if the German woman spoke with a destinct northern german accent and the austrian women was from Vienna. Since the austrian woman is from Vorarlberg her german and swiss german sounds very simmilar. And if the German woman was from Swabia, it would be even more difficult to see the differences. And the funny thing is: the rest of Austria doesn't understand people from Vorarlberg at all.
It's fairly similar to the differences between US, Australian, and several British dialects of English. There may be some slang or specialist terms, but it will be generally understandable.
bad luck with picking this video, if you ask me.
they made a unnecessary complicated/long video, for missing ways too much relevant informations, that i would await in a video like this.
greetings from AUSTIRA ^^, keep up the good work!
A speaker from Wallis / Valais would be more effective for confusing foreign Speakers 😅
As a Swiss person, I don't like to speak "standard" german.
I love our dialects
The only word you need to know regarding people from austria is " Schluchtenscheißer " ^^
The are many diverse Dialects in Germany. And you must Not forget that Germany as a Nation US quite young. There were Nations as Bavaria, Saxonia, Prussia, Württemberg, ...
and all over there they spoke different. Because of the Internet the Dialects speakinb Community is decreasing, but they are still strong.
Nichts trennt uns so sehr wie die gemeinsame Sprache.
Nothing separates us as much as the common language. :)
all learn the same Standard German and can of course understand each other. All use basically the same schoolbooks, Netflix Language Setting, German TH-cam Channels and so on.. People should always tell that first, because from the outside perspective of people not knowing that they might think that its really three languages and it might not be worth to learn German at all. Especially people who want be proud of their German country dialect versions are often not reflecting that - while trying to much to focus on the differences instead of encouraging to learn German (the most spoken native EU language after English) ....
In my working live I realised that the germans have almost a command voice “ thats how we’re gonna do it “ while we Swiss would come to the same result saying “what would you say , if we would do it that way “ !
So I preferred to work with international or Swiss people ! For my taste the German are more arrogant in the IT working life …
Austrian here. Austrians are friendlier and more relaxed than Germans. we always find a work around and we do not take rules and laws always that serious. We are always friendly but not always honest. Due to history we have more in common with the balcan countries and Italy than with Germany or Switzerland. Sadly we have looooots of corruption too. but our coffee and food is better 😂
I’m born in South-Germany and well understand Austrian and Swiss People. Nevertheless there is some Vocabulary that so different that one would need to lern them. E.g. Swiss people “go poshta” meaning buying groceries. Me: They are going to the Post (Mail) office 😅
I think its similar to english speaking countries. There are different words but if you want, you understand each other.
Denise from Austria speaks a much different austrian german, as i do (east of Austria, near vienna). So, from Bundesland to Bundesland, region to region and city to city, you have different austrian german.
The most of in asutria living people speaks more like me, because in the east of Austria live, by far, the most people.
In central and western Austria, due to the high Alps, the population density is by far not as high as in the east of Austria.
No, Austrian German and Swiss German are, for the most part, not similar. But since Denise lives in Western Austria and thus very close to Switzerland, her "German" is more similar to Swiss German than the Eastern Austrian German spoken in Austria for the most part!
In whole austria, you have dialects, everywhere. Also in eastern austria.
to be fair, the austrian girl seems to be from Vorarlberg (adjacent to Switzerland) in the far western part of Austria. Even almost no Austrian understands the dialect from Vorarlberg, it´s way closer to Schwyzer-Dütsch than to Standard german.
Well, Swabians and Bavarians have it easy to understand Austrians and the Swiss. Their dialects are similar in pronounciation and even words, which cannot be understood North of the Main river.
This is the "virtual" artificial border.
All North of that river have it harder and harder the further up you go...and vice versa.
East West same thing.
Western part with France, Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands, Northern part Denmark, Eastern part Poland, Chechia, Slowakia.
Like imagine the area at the border of the United States and Mexico. Both mixed up a bit, as at every border between countries. The culture swaps over the frontiers.
Swiss and Austrian people are our highlanders. 😉
I think it's pretty similar to how dialects are in Britain - the examples here are like strong regional dialects with basicly the same grammar base but very different pronounciation and some vocab differences. Standard German to (e.g.) Vienese would be as different as Oxford English compared to Glaswegian.
Then again - some regional dilects in Germany are so strong that Germans from other parts are really lost. If rural "Platt" from the north meets rural Swabian , Bavarian m Franconian , ect. - it could as well be Chinese to us. Same level of comprehension ... 😄
As a german, I can only say that austrian is no problem, but Swiss German is extremely difficult.
However, Swiss, Austrians, Liechtensteiners, Luxembourgers and the German-speaking parts of Belgium and Denmark, as well as South Tyrolean (Italy) understand Standard German, or High German, very well.
The austrian girl is not a typical representative of Austria, as she comes from the far west of Austria, where they speak an alemannic dialect that is very similar to those in Switzerland and southwest Germany. However, most of Austria, I'd say more than 90%, speaks bavarian dialects.
German dialects cross borders and actually have nothing to do with countries, that is, Bavarian is spoken on the german, austrian and italian side of the borders, alemannic is spoken on the german, swiss and french side of the borders (and of course in a very small part at the austrian westend).
The German language consists of a dialect continuum, which means that the dialect changes a little every few kilometers until after about 200 to 300 km there are almost no more similarities.
The dialect on the German North Sea coast is relatively easy to understand for an Englishman and a Dutchman, but hardly so for Bavarians or Austrians.
It s like Bern, Basel, Luzern, Zurich, Schmyz, Uri, Wallis nidwalden, St. Gallen, Thurgau, solothurn, Aargau, Appenzell, Graubünden, (Liechtenstein), Schaffhausen! These are all different Accents😂
To be fair, the Austrian variety shown here is very close to Swiss German. For instance, I have a lot more trouble understanding people from Vienna than I do understanding her.
For us Swiss, Germans can come off a bit too direct maybe even harsh, eventhough they don't mean it in a bad way. In sales or gastronomy for example, when Germans order something they often say "ich krieg' ein/ ..." (= I will get a ...) whereas us Swiss people would never say it like that. We say "Ig hätt gern es/ e" or even ask "dörft ig ächt es ... ha, bitte?" (I would like to have a... / Could I please have a ...?).
In Switzerland and in Austria you learn German high German at school what they are speaking are dialects in Germany we also have dialects which are hard to understand but we tend to speak high German due to our education but I know people from the kindergarten for example where I could not understand the parents or the girl they came from around the directions lake Constance
Although we are from the same region😂
I am german from the north east and i can't understand not one whole sentence in Swiss and have also Problems with southern german dialekts and Austrian, but englisch seams much easier, because the grammar of lower German language (its not just a dialekt, its a real language) is nearer to englisch. (no grammatical genders, cases)
It really depends on where you’re from… I’m from eastern Bavaria so I don’t have a problem understanding people from eastern Austria. But western Austria is more similar to Swabian, so harder for me to understand 😅
The German language is based on the tribal languages of four large Germanic tribes: the Saxons (Low Saxons), the Franks, the Alemanni and the Bavarians and their "tribal areas" are not represented by today's state boundaries. Alemannic is spoken in Switzerland and the Southwest of Germany (Swabia, Baden, Allgäu) as well as in the French Alsace. Bavarian is spoken in the Southeast of Germany (Bavaria without Frankonia) and in all of Austria but Vorarlberg, plus South Tyrole in Italy. Frankish is the central and largest tribe and their tribal language was the base for Standard German but also the root of Dutch (Low Frankonian). Frankonian/Hessian/Thuringian/Kölsch/Luxemburgish are all variants of Frankish, even the modern dialect of the state of Saxonia is not Saxon but Frankish in its origin.
Lowsaxon is spoken in the North and had no big influence on the development of the Standard German language, which comes more from the South. But Saxon/Platt/Low German had a big influence on Danish, Swedish, Frisian and also Dutch, since it was the lingua franca of the North and Baltic Sea in the Middle Ages. With the spread of Protestantism and the German of Luther's Bible it slowly became downgraded to a dialect, while it was a written language before. When Tsar Peter the Great learned German in his time, it was this Low German, not Standard German.
Berlin - the capital - used to be Low German area as well, that's why the city dialect of Berlin is quite different from Standard German. Unlike the role that Paris plays from French, or London for the English language, Standard German does not come from the capital.
Hagen Rether, a Swiss comedian, claimed that the Germans are friendly, but not courteous while the Swiss were courteous, but not necessarily friendly. I believe, Austrians and Swiss are Generally more laid back people, which imho is a strong contrast to their next German neighbours, Bavarians and Swabians (I lived in both areas for a while).
My 2 cents to this comment: 1. Rether is a Romanian-born German Kabarett artist (that's more than a comedian FMPOV ) and 2. people form northern germany can be VERY laid back and tend to say nothing at all :D BTW: I wonder if Mert is able to speak "Oxford English" ;)
@@agricolon Damn, you're right, but with whom did I mix him up, then? Also, who wants to hear Mert speak Oxford English X) We#re here because his Scottish accent mixes perfectly with his personality!
Swiss accents are rather diverse. I have encountered some that were a bit more difficult to understand but I've heard others that are 100% intelligible. And "difficult to understand" doesn't mean I don't get it, it just means you have to focus and think about it. No such issues with any Austrian accent I have ever heard (including the one in the video). I feel like people strongly overstate dialectal variation, in general.
That being said, there are slang words that will differ from place to place but that's just a thing anywhere. I know a word that is apparently only used a certain way where I am from and maybe in a couple neighbouring places. Stuff like that happens.
But *in general* , I'd say I (as a "Northerner" (not really but by comparison)) can understand almost any High German (that's the language, not a dialect) speaker. Luxembourghish has a lot of French loanwords, some Swiss just sound too different and there is maybe the odd Bavarian mountain hermit I don't understand bc he/she drops all their consonants (Bavarian has rather different vowels from the other German dialects, so take away the consonants, too, and it sounds like a mess to me), so those I don't understand perfectly but that's mostly it.
If it were a German from Swabia or the Allgäu, the title of the video should have been "Can Alemannic people understand each other?" XD
I don't know if I count as alemannic, cause I am at the border from 4 different dialects, but the austrian was very easy to understand.
I wes jetz grad ned ob mei Dialekt no alemannisch zäjlt, I kum halt fun d'Grenz fun de Dialekte, aba's Ostreichische war sau leicht zu versteje
@@mo_3924 Kummsch du vo de Lechtalr Alpa, Weschttirol, evtl. bei Reutte? Also, I kâ dr itta i seal Dialekt antworta, abr i woiß halt bloaß, dass mr ama Zipfl voma Außerfera (Reutte) no Schwäbisch schwätzt. Gôt mr mit dr Grenz nôch Weschta, grôd zwischa de Allgaiar und Voradlbergar (wo's sprachgschichtlich kaom a Grenz gea het), Richtung Breagaz und wiidr uff Liächtaschtua zua, isch es alls Niederalemannisch bzw. Bodenseealemannisch, do hond die muischta/moischta/meischta/muaschta Litt kuine/kuane Problem, si z' vrstandat (z'vrstong). Odr i meim oignar Dialekt, wo scho fascht Hoachdeitsch klengt (téént) im Vergleich do drzua. Des was i doba grschriba hâo, war ô bloß a groab Spielerei :) - Was i persénli am spannenschda find, isch, dass dia alemannische Mundarta (s Schwäbisch gheart drzua), grâd im Oschta auf'ra Achs fascht no voma Rias ra, da Lech entlang, gemeinsam Merkmal entwicklat hand, s' bescht Beispiel wär des monophthongierte au zu ô (ahd./mhd. au, ou). In Augschburg glob i o, dass i no was eikoffa míaßt. Weniger im Stadtgebiet, abr ao mhd. ê und ô héart mr ao do verzweilautet (Schnea, schéa, béas, groaß, hoach, roat), was si íbr's Allgai, Vorarlberg sogar no ins Tiroler Südbairisch erstreckt. Selbscht de olta Zimbern kennat's.
Uhhh …. I‘m intrigued!! I mean I know that there are places and dialects where it would be hard even in Germany itself to understand one another (Frieden vs. Niederbayern) … it will be possible but there will be ?? In some aspects…
He everyone from Germany has the same accent when they speak English as I do.
Germany I understand the woman from Germany and Switzerland.
Austria is a bit of a puzzle in some sentences.
Oh, once the Swiss get going with their babbling, nobody will understand anything anymore.
But also the German dialects are sometimes very difficult to understand. The old ones usually still know their regional dialect very well and then you are lost. The Viennese dialect always seems to me as if people hold their noses too high.
Or as a German comedy actress called Tahnee likes to say: "Viennese is the final enemy.
I'm from northern germany and my parents can also speak lower german (Plattdeutsch), but i know it give some other versions of lower german in other northern regions of germany.
As a learner of german german, seeing a native german german speaker not quite get austrian and swiss german, I feel vindicated, and much better
There is not one Swiss German. There are huge differences in every part of the country, even differences between neighbouring villages, mostly in terms but also in sentence structure.
There are a lot of prejudices or stereotypes about how people are in certain regions, but i think that's mostly nonsense. roughly speaking, though, you can say that the further south you go, the more open and friendly people are. personally, i've had rather bad experiences in northern germany. and i also know other people who've been there on vacation and weren't particularly impressed. There are certainly others, but that is the tendency. In Baden Württemberg, Austria and Switzerland, the people are somehow more relaxed, more open, friendlier and heartier.