no standard German?

[Peter &/or Graham]

Joat said:>

>Check out Martin Luther's choice of language for his German bible.  There was
>nothing _but_ regional dialects until then.  Unless you count the language of
>the German equivalent of troubadors, which nobody used but them.

Rubbish, I'm afraid.
(a) There was a substantial literature in Middle High German, in a form
which avoided the more obvious local peculiarities.
(b) Saxony Chancery German was wide spread as a precise language, needed for
legal use over a wide German speaking area.
(c) Luther himself says that he uses "the common German language which both
High and Low Germans understand ... that is to say, the Saxon Chancery
language ... which all princes and kings in Germany use."  (My translation -
I'll give you Luther's German if you want it.)

Peter