Talk:High German languages

message: Please mention at least a few references for the article. Squash Racket (talk) 14:19, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: :Category:High German languages is itself a category within :Category:West Germanic languages. — Robert Greer (talk) 14:58, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Category:West Germanic languages]] ''vs.'' [[:Category:High German languages]]  

message: As a technical term, the "high" in High German is a geographic reference to Southern German. In the same way, the "low" in Low German refers to the geographic North. The reason behind that is the positions of the language areas on maps which, at the time when the terms were coined, hat the South at their high ends, and the North at their low ends. Anything else is coincidental. Specifically, the references to high lands and low lands happens to be popular belief and is both factually and historically wrong. (Btw., it had been strongly supported by NAZI pseudoscience, afaik)
:Sorry, but this is not correct. The maps of Germany that I have seen from the relevant period (14th-18th century) all have north at the top. The reason our article has a footnote referencing the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of "high" is because that dictionary clearly says that the phrase "High German" is using the word "high" in the literal sense of "up high". Similarly if you explore the etymologies of "Low German", "the Low countries" or "the Netherlands", you will not find that it has anything to do with "low" meaning "north". In Scotland, the Highlands are futher north than the Lowlands. Final thought: in German, the Low German language is formally called "Niederdeutsch" (Low German), but it also has another name, "Plattdeutsch" (Flat German). This is not because the north part of maps are flatter than the south part. It is because of the land itself. --Doric Loon (talk) 15:17, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "High" is "South". Only.  

message: The language family template is necessary in order to make the subdivision visible (field child). In the language template they are not available. -- ZH8000 (talk) 02:21, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  language family template 

message: Here and in an number of related articles there is mention of a "(continental) West Germanic dialect continuum" and the presence in it of some or other WGmc dialect or language. As far as I can see, not one of these claims in WP is sourced. In a quick of check of a number of English-language books on the history of German (OK, I haven't had time to start checking the German-language stuff yet), I haven't been able to find an index entry for the term anywhere. The only reference one I can find is in Chambers and Trudgill's Dialectology book (Map 1-1) but the accompanying text mentions only German, Dutch and Flemish. Also, their claim is not sourced.
Now, of course, I'm not questioning the High German dialect continuum, nor that there is a German-Dutch continuum (Frankish dialects on both sides of the border). But is it clear that there is a Dutch/LG continuum, and is there really a LG/Frisian continuum? I don't mean, do the speakers in neighbouring communities understand each other's varieties, or have neighbouring varieties borrowed a few words from each other or the standard language, but are there genuine transitional varieties between LG and Dutch, LG and Frisian? 
It is worth noting that even the fairly detailed Kontinentalwestgermanisches Dialektkontinuum article does not deal with these issues, and its secondary lit. seems only to deal with Dutch/High German.
If the claim is true, it must be possible to find better and more comprehensive sources in peer-reviewed publications than this. Please can we find them! --Pfold (talk) 16:28, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  West Germanic dialect continuum 

message: Maybe I am missing a nuance or something, but if not, then our article opening needs a fix.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:17, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Colloquial varieties of "German" throughout Germany are mostly if not always varieties of High German. The sociolinguistic situation is comparable to the one prevailing in neighboring France. Dialectology sees France as Gallo-Romance in the North and Occitano-Romance in the South though colloquially, say in the bistros, it's a variety of Gallo-Romance that's prévailing. Locals and tourists not trained in linguistics refer to such varieties simply as French and German. The decline of Low German and Occitano-Romance might be attributable to some sort of small-scale linguistic imperialism where all sorts of social forces can have a sway favoring the emergence of lingua francas lexically based on language varieties of prestige. Eklir (talk) 20:31, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Isn't "normal" German also a High German language? 

message: I've taken a look at your recent edit, and I'm confused. What makes you think Ashkenazi Jews, Austrians, Germans, Hutterites, Liechtensteiners, Luxembourgers, Pennsylvania Dutch, Silesians, and Vilamovians aren't ethnic groups? ~Nai of Arctic Circle System (talk) 23:40, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Apart from Ashkenazi Jews, about which there is no argument, what makes you think they are? You're not seriously going to argue that Bavarians and Austrians are ethnically distinct? Confusing modern nation state boundaries with ancient ethnic (or even tribal) boundaries is exactly that: confusion. --Pfold (talk) 15:25, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Template:Ethnic groups in Germany and articles like Luxembourgers ("Luxembourgers [...] are an ethnic group [...]") call them ethnic groups (or similar, e.g. the article Swabians uses the term people: "Swabians [...] are a Germanic speaking people [...]").  --05:49, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I am probably missing something but the edit involved does not seem to be about ethnicities, but simply about the "regions" in which High German languages are spoken? Are you both looking at another edit?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:23, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: If this is the type of edit intended, then the above discussion makes more sense.  I am wondering whether your preferred version is not pushing Wikipedia to say that Austrians are a type of German?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:49, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Firstly, I would doubt that the inheritors of the multi-ethnic Habsburg empire can be ascribed any single ethnicity, and surely the same goes for tri-lingual Switzerland (Italian-speaking Swiss are ethnically German, seriously!?). Secondly, the political boundary is irrelevant - Austro-Bavarian is a single dialect area, and the German-speaking Austrians share their ethnic origins with the Bavarians in the Elbe Gmc tribes which settled the area in the early middle ages. As Bavarians says, "There is no ethno-linguistic distinction between Bavarians and Austrians." And surely there can be no one who believes that the East Frisians and the Swabians are ethnically close and equally belong to a supposed German ethnic group, while the Swabians and the German-speaking Swiss (both use Alemannic varieties) are ethnically distinct. The idea that ethnicity exactly follows the boundaries of modern, in some cases very recently created nation states is surely self-evident nonsense. --Pfold (talk) 20:23, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: If an infobox refers to Austrians it will be understood that it is referring to citizens of the modern country of that name, and not the historical empire you mention? I think you are avoiding my simple question a bit? Austrians do not see themselves as Germans do they? :) I think on WP we need to avoid making statements about ethnic identity that are based on the simple equation of language and ethnicity.  --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:46, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I would argue that it's much sounder than basing it on present-day national boundaries - don't forget that before 1870 German meant a cultural and linguistic identity not one based on national borders. As I said, surely it is utterly absurd to argue that there is Swiss ethnicity. To me the whole ethnicity question is entirely pointless for this article - not a single future reader is helped by the proposed revision --22:11, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: People in Germany and Austria traditionally don't really self-identify in an ethnic sense or along  dialect lines, but by nation and region. Old political entities play a more significant than linguistic boundaries (Baden-Württemberg is a prime example for this). –Austronesier (talk) 21:01, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: So do we always need to fill in a box about ethnicities in cases like this? Can we just remove this?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:05, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be my view, certainly. --Pfold (talk) 07:42, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethnicities 

message: Hello, I was just wondering about the title of this article. "Hochdeutsche Sprachen" is very unusual and also not used in professional scholarship. It is about developments in High German dialects, not about the standardisation of modern languages (such as Luxembourgish). The current title is rather confusing and does not correspond to the use in linguistics. Therefore, I am in favour of changing the title back to "High German dialects". Ziko (talk) 12:08, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: A much straightforward solution is to move it to "High German", without the natural disambiguator "languages", because it's unnecessary since there is no disambiguity with "High German" (unless you are talking about a German indivdual under the influence–not quite an encyclopedic topic). See, Low German, Upper German, Low Franconian etc. Also, it helps to maintain NPOV. While a few High German varieties have undergone Ausbau to become distinct literary varieties, High German as a whole forms a dialect continuum without clearcut language borders. –Austronesier (talk) 19:07, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: "High German dialects" would give people a misleading impression. I'm with Austronesier on this - I've never seen the point of "languages" in the title. "High German" is the term used in the literature, so I don't see there's really a case for anything different here.--Pfold (talk) 22:44, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the word "languages" was put in by someone who wanted to highlight that Yiddish is not German, and even Luxemburgisch makes claims to "separate language" status, whatever that fraught idea might mean. I don't see the phrase used much outside Wikipedia though, so I agree there has to be a better solution. Maybe call it "High German", focus mainly on the southern dialects of German, which is what the phrase mostly refers to, and have a section explaining how Yiddish fits in? Doric Loon (talk) 12:23, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title "High German languages" 

message: I changed 'Middle German' to 'Central German'. 'Middle' refers to chronology (in contrast to 'Old' and 'New'), 'Central' to Geography (in contrast to 'Upper' and 'Low'). Eklir (talk) 16:04, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Central German vs Middle German