On 4/30/2012 9:15 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 4/28/2012 10:49 PM, Warp wrote:
>> Kevin Wampler<wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote:
>>> You might be interested in this reading of Beowulf:
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13cES7MMd8&t=25
>>
>> Sounds like a mixture between Old Norse and German.
>>
> Actually, from some of what I have read there was, until fairly
> recently, a "High German" and "Low German". The low version was very
> close to English, enough that it was fairly understandable.

High German, Low German, and Dutch are actually rather specific points 
along a very smooth spectrum.  I am told that if you were to walk from 
southern Austria up through Germany all the way up to the Netherlands, 
you will observe no sudden shifts in the speech of the locals at any 
given point.  The exceptions occur if you wander into a French-speaking 
area or a region whose inhabitants have consciously altered their 
dialect (in order to conform to another dialect).

In a like manner, walking from the tip of the boot of Italy, up the 
coast into France, and then down into Spain will result in to sudden 
shift in language along the way (although signs placed by the government 
will generally be in the official dialect).

Or I could be wrong.

Regards,
John

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