Although school in Germany is taught in Hochdeutsch (High German), there are roughly thirteen different dialects of the language spoken in the country, not including the German spoken in Austria and parts of Switzerland.  As a student who has studied the linguistic elements of each of these dialects, I still had trouble communicating with the speakers of these dialects when I was studying in Germany.

One of the dialects which has a very heavy stigma surrounding it is Sächsisch. This dialect is one of the “ostmitteldeutsche” dialects and is spoken mostly in the east of Germany- traditionally a poorer area of the country after it got divided up after WW2

Because the Eastern part of Germany was worse off than the west after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there is a stigma about the people who come from those states, aka “ossies” and speak the eastern dialect.

In this portion of the youtube video “Dialekte in Deutschland: Sächsich Sexy?”  (watch until 3:03) a women tries to flirt with men in two different dialects- one the standard Hochdeutsch and the other the eastern Sächsisch dialect. What makes this portion of the video noteworthy is that the man with whom she is flirting instantly interjects “Oh, you’re an Ossie!” which would actually be mildly offensive to someone who was from the east. He continues to reject her invitation for drinks and, when interviewed afterwards, admits that he would have said yes if it weren’t for her accent.

When asked why he was “turned off” by her accent, he admits that he doesn’t have an explanation and that he just finds it off putting.

3,2,1 analysis of this video:

Three Things Learned:

1. Language variants have deeper connotations than just what sounds good and what doesn’t.
2.  Outsiders have established certain connotations around certain dialects that come from poor areas and associate the language variant with an undesirable culture.
3. This particular dialect sounds the same as hochdeutsch when listened to by a non-German speaker but is vastly different when heard by a speaker, therefore people who do not know that this is an eastern dialect would not have a negative opinion about this dialect

Two Things I’m curious About:

1. Do other languages (other than German and English) have negative connotations associated with language variants?
2. How are language variants formed- and why does German have 13 language variants?

Application:

1. It takes and outsider to point out that this dialect is not that much different from hochdeutsch, so maybe more people should look at this variant ( as well as other cultural differences) from an outsider’s perspective to realize that they are not that different.

I would compare the way Germans, in particular westerners, view this dialect to the way that Americans, in particular northerners, view the southern accent. Eastern Germans were, in the past, poor and uneducated and are still viewed as such based on the way they speak. I would say that the same can be said about why the rest of America has a stigma around the southern accent– they associate it with low education and farm folk.

Have you ever met someone who’s accent, or lack thereof, influenced the way you thought about them? Do you think that people may have a certain idea in their head about you when you speak based on your accent?