Plattdeutsch

A limited language certainly does express social
standing as do other outward signs of being different from
those we deem our equal. That's simply how the cookie
crumbles.

As a bit of anecdotal evidence - my wife does not speak Platt
today because her father would not allow it in his house.
There was a reason for that. He was fluent of course.

The same applied to me, with a slightly different twist. Though my mother was an educator, it was my father (barely a high school grad, but you'd never know it) who insisted I never pick up 'pidgin', as was spoken on the Hawaiian Isles where I was raised (for those who don't know, pidgin is a 'calabash' collection of English, Hawaiian, Oriental and just about everything else thrown in for good measure as spoken by many on the Islands). We could joke around in it a bit for sure, but were never to immerse ourselves in it, as it was sort of contagious (and fun!).

My sister would go on to marry a fella who, like herself, was a local kamaaina Haole (Anglo born on the Isles). He on the other hand was reared by no such standards, and while not always speaking pidgin, he clearly had picked up the pidgin accent from his childhood and adolescent years. Soon after their marriage, he and sis relocated stateside to further their careers. It took him the better part of 10 years to shake the accent (albeit only a subtle one), but folks in the Northwest where they relocated constantly asked him where he was from with that inflection. No one would have known it with my sister.

Beyond mere accents, I'm afraid Fred is quite right: if it were all you could actually speak, you would indeed be judged by different standards, and that's just the way it is.

Jb