Folk etymology (Was Re: Swiss enchiladas)

[A. Vine]

Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote:
>
> At 04:02 PM 10/30/99, Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU> wrote:
> >I don't know who "they" are, but a former student of mine from die Schweiz
> >told me the term 'Schwyzertueuetsch' is commonly used (and note his
> >spelling, with 'y' and a doubled umlauted vowel, presumably to signal
> >lengthening ['ue'  substitutes for my lack of the umlaut diacritic--how do
> >you get that, Greg?]).  Trudgill, in his _Sociolinguistics_ (1995 ed., p.
> >101) uses this spelling also, but he does note that his example is "based
> >on Zurich speech."  My student taperecorded T's example for me, with
> >wonderful intonation and very prominent vowel lengthening; I play it every
> >year for my Sociolx class.
> >
>

My Swiss friend, who admittedly is not a linguist, is from Bern, and her husband
is from Luzern, and they definitely have different dialects.  Then again, so do
the Germans.  The question is, once you depart from the Hochdeutsch writing,
does the writing become dialect specific?

As for the four languages of Switzerland - well, I can ask her for the
"official" written form of that, if anyone is interested.

I notice that Peter Richardson is conspicuously silent... ;-}

Andrea