One recurring assertion in the debates about refugees in Germany has been the demand that migrants have to be fluent in German in order to integrate into, and function within, the society. Standard or High German is what's meant. But amidst the drive to get everyone who lives in Germany speaking "Hochdeutsch," others are concerned with preserving the many diverse regional dialects inside and outside the country.
On Wednesday, September 28, the University of Erlangen is to host a four-day conference devoted to German dialects. Organizers say fewer and fewer Germans speak dialects, and many of those have lost some of their local color. [...]
The original Low German dialects of the Ruhr Valley, for instance, died out when the region was industrialized, with a large number of non-speakers moving there. And school authorities in Hamburg once estimated that the speakers of traditional northern variant of Low German declined from 29 to 10 between 1984 and 2007.
Currently, UNESCO considers seven dialects, including Bavarian, to be "vulnerable." Four, including Yiddish, are deemed "definitely endangered," and two (Saterlandic and North Frisian) "critically endangered."[...]
Dialects are a major part of this linguistic diversity. Distinctions between dialects and languages often have more to do with political expediency than with any objective differences. Northern German Frisian, for instance, differs more from Bavarian in southern Germany than Spanish does from Portugese - even thought the former pair are considered dialects and the latter as two separate languages.
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