Coffee as a last name

Seán Fitzpatrick grendel.jjf at VERIZON.NET
Sun Dec 9 07:16:34 UTC 2007


I lived with and worked for a German family during the grape harvest.  The
two oldest children went to a boarding school during the week, but the three
youngest went with us to the vineyards.  One day Gabby, age 3, said
something I didn't catch.  Ah, said Hermann, she speaks like a true
Leiwener.  There were six villages on that 10-KM bend in the Mosel.  One
could tell which village someone came from by the way he spoke Plattdeutsch.
I asked Hermann if the older children learned Plattdeutsch at school.  Of
course not, he said.  They learned Hochdeutsch there.  They could learn
Plattdeutsch at home.  He seemed quite satisfied with that.  It must have
come from a certain degree of cultural confidence.  The little ones moved,
probably unconsciously, along a dialectical spectrum.  They spoke
Hochdeutsch to me except when the Plattdeutsch was the only word they knew.

Seán Fitzpatrick
"...the heart that you break--That's the one that you rely on."
http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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