any language questions will go here

[kaigou]

Questions for DE-fandom

From one of the beta-reviewers, this point/question, about this question:

Schreibst du auch eigene Geschichten/freie Arbeiten?

"...original fiction stories were mostly called "Originale" ... "freie Arbeiten" comes from the original fiction category of fanfiktion.de ... but I'd never call it that. Is it possible to discuss this with the other betas? Three parallel words
might be a bit much? *ponders*"

Any suggestions? What's the most common/best-known way to refer to "original fiction (as in, NOT fanfiction)" versus "fanfiction" -- which admittedly can be highly original, hence the massive confusion THANK YOU ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

Just thought I'd toss it out there. Once the translations are finalized, this post will come down, but until then, feel free to weigh in.

Also, question for other French speakers (in comments).

Comments

[sevilemar]

One of my flatmates is from Bavaria, and when she talks to her folks, I can't understand most of it^^ But it was the same with the father of another friend, who came from the deep east (Erzgebirge). I really had to strain my ears to understand the general gist of his words^^

[kaigou]

Ahaha, yeah. I remember asking my step-mother about some dialect in Sweden, and she replied: "I'm pretty sure they speak Swedish there. It's a Swedish that no one else on the planet can understand, but it's still considered Swedish."

[ravensilver]

My still-husband's from the Westerwald - the area around Koblenz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koblenz). It's taken me *years* to get to the point where I can *understand* most of what they're saying. Don't even *think* about trying to speak it.

Here we have several Bavarian dialects because I'm living in what's considered to be Swabia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabia). The closer you get to the Alps, the worse it gets.

[billie]

Bavaria ≠ Germany. :P And that's at least something both sides agree on, mostly...

All jokes aside though, it's amazing how much it takes to get used to hearing "your" language spoken in a dialect different to what you grew up with. Anything north of Kassel is pretty much a-okay, but go further south and I'll be wearing a "?" expression pretty much permanently -- and that's after living 5+ years slapdash in the middle of Swabia.

[dancing_serpent]

*g* I grew up near Hanover, speaking nothing but High German. It was quite a shock for me when I moved to Hesse.

[billie]

High German is a highly relative thing. Seen as linguistically speaking "high German" refers to the dialects spoken around Swabia, Baden and the Swiss border (Alemannisch) ... but I digress.

It's weird, isn't it. It's just baffling to notice cultural differences where you aren't expecting any, and language is a huge part of that ...

[dancing_serpent]

*g* Maybe I should have decided on "standard German" when I looked for "Hochdeutsch" on Leo, then.

Oh yeah, so true. Also, baffling but fascinating, too.