[decimon]

Try walking across a hill 1n Germany, and see how much the language changes.

I've heard that the dialects persist in Germany. Hard to imagine how.

[patton]

Try this -

“’etzat ma klur”, in low german (Austrian, actually)

“Jetzt ist es mir klar”, in high german (Duden).

both mean, “ok, I get it.”

Both are used today - one in the local vernacular, the other in trade, or on TV. Actually, TV does more to unify language than anything else...

The US version of “High Englisch” is a midwest accent. Indiana, I think. All else is slang.

Funny thing - if you didn’t have two code talkers in WWII, put two southern hicks on the radio. It confused the heck out of the germans. GA, MS, LA - another language to them entirely.

Or, as I tell my my kids - there is no such thing as French. Just badly mispronounced peasent Latin with an attitude,

[matchgirl]

We lived in Luxembourg from 1986-1999 and were told that the northern dialect is difficult to understand in the southern part of the country. (Luxembourg is about the size of Rhode Island) The official language of Luxembourg is French.

[matchgirl]

We lived in Luxembourg from 1986-1999 and were told that the northern dialect is difficult to understand in the southern part of the country. (Luxembourg is about the size of Rhode Island) The official language of Luxembourg is French.