High vs Low German and Standard vs dialect as brickwalltool?

In einer eMail vom 23.04.2007 08:42:43 Westeuropäische Sommerzeit schreibt
dhk3502@hotmail.de:

Standard German in
German is simply called "Hochdeutsch" throughout Germany. And "Hochdeutsch"
literally translated into English is "high German".

Hello,

another thing is that "standard German" or "Hochdeutsch" is a construct
while "lower German" is a name for all "original" German languages. Hochdeutsch
is like Esperanto, needed for Bavarians being able to talk to people from
Hamburg as well as from the region where I live (Saarland). I assume that the
slangs in America originate from a standard English mixed with idioms brought
along by immigrants from their native countries. While Hochdeutsch was put
together from our "slang" to have an accepted base for all. Thus the German
spoken by the Amish in Pennsylvania Dutch County is the standard German spoken in
that particular countryside.

Yours

Roland Geiger, St. Wendel, Saarland, Germany
with sun shining through the window and no rain clouds in the sky
nevertheless badly needed :slight_smile:

I think our friend from across the Atlantic got in a way mixed up with "oberdeutsch" = "upper German" which is as "original" as the "Lower German" or "niederdeutsch"; both names are just a common name for a group of similar German dialects. Luther was insofar rather clever to choose the Saxonian office language (s�chsische Kanzleisprache) which was understood in both German regions and, thus, the origin of Rolgeiger's German "Esperanto" (although the actual and the linguistic history of this "Plansprache" is completely different from the development of Hochdeutsch).
With greetings from the Weilburg area - the historical home of the Granddukes of Luxembourg.

Dieter H. Kniese