# The "pure German" of Hannover



## AndrasBP

Hello,

I've heard and read a number of times that the "best" or "purest" form of Standard German (Hochdeutsch) is spoken in the city of *Hannover*.
I wonder how this view (myth?) came to exist, since Hannover lies in the North where traditionally Low German (Niederdeutsch) was spoken.

Could someone enlighten me please?

Edit: The name of the city is spelt *Hanover *in English.


----------



## berndf

The peculiarity of the region is that the historical dialect is extinct. Not just the city of Hannover. The southern limit of nodern Low German is about 40-50km further north. But even there Low German is retreating. In the south, the border to Hessian dialect areas is Hannoversch Münden.


----------



## bearded

berndf said:


> Not just the city of Hannover


Then why, out of all places where Low German is extinct, should precisely Han(n)over have the best pronunciation? Or do you mean the speech is outstanding in  the whole formerly-Low-G. region?


----------



## berndf

I don't know what other regions you are thinking of. What comes to my mind is Southern Westphalia and the northern half of Berlin/Brandenburg and of Sachen-Anhalt. What distinguishes those areas from Eastern Niedersachsen is that neighbouring Central German dialect have radiated into these areas, e.g. Ripuarian dialects in Southern Westphalia and the Southern Brandenburg/Sachsen-Anhalt dialects have advanced into the northern parts of the countries. There is no such effect in Southern Niedersachsen. When you cross from Hesse into Niedersachsen the language abruptly changes from one village to the next. This may be due to the long standing political border there (Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel - Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg, later Kingdom of Hanover).


----------



## JClaudeK

So steht es in der _Zeit_ (8. Juni 2000 )





> Angeblich sprechen die Hannoveraner das reinste - sprich dialektfreieste - Deutsch und kommen dem Hochdeutschen am nächsten. Stimmt's? [....]
> Hochdeutsch ist nichts weiter als der Versuch, das seit dem späten Mittelalter einigermaßen vereinheitlichte geschriebene Deutsch auszusprechen.
> .......
> es stellte sich heraus, dass das Plattdeutsche der Niedersachsen (deren kulturelles Zentrum damals noch Braunschweig war und nicht Hannover) über den besten Vorrat an Lauten verfügte, um das Schriftdeutsch wiederzugeben.
> ZEIT ONLINE


----------



## berndf

Die Zeit ist normalerweise eine seriöse Zeitung aber das halte ich für ziemlichen Stuss.


----------



## JClaudeK

Das erzählt (in der _Zeit_) Herbert Blume,_ Sprachwissenschaftler an der TU Braunschweig._


----------



## berndf

Ich nehme mal an, dass die Zusammenfassung durch den Autor und deine Wahl des Ausschnittes das ganze ziemlich verzerren. Dieser Satz ist zentral und dann macht das ganze schon wieder etwas mehr Sinn:
_In den norddeutschen Städten schaffte es das neue Hochdeutsch schnell, den Dialekt fast völlig zu verdrängen. Um 1790 riet schließlich der Schriftstellers Karl Philipp Moritz den Berliner Damen, denen er das feine Sprechen beibringen sollte, sich die Braunschweiger und Hannoveraner zum Vorbild zu nehmen._​Die Vorstellung, dass sich irgendein hochdeutscher Dialekt aus irgendeinem niederdeutschen entwickelt haben soll, ist absurd. Wenn man aber nun sagt, dass der nach dem Niedergang der Hanse im Braunschweiger Raum unter Einfluss des alten niederdeutschen Dialektes entstandene Akzent des Hochdeutschen sich in einer zweiten Etappe im ganzen Sprachraum durchgesetzt haben soll, dann ist das schon sinnvoller. Ich halte es aber trotzdem zumindest teilweise für Legende. Der Hauptgrund für das Phänomen ist m.E. das Fehlen von weiterdauernden Dialekteinflüssen, weshalb sich die Sprache der Region leichter an die Entwicklung der Standardsprache anpassen konnte als in Regionen, in denen lebendige Dialekte auch die Standardsprache der Region immer eine bestimmte Richtung gezogen haben.


----------



## JClaudeK

berndf said:


> deine Wahl des Ausschnittes


Man darf ja keine allzu großen Ausschnitte zitieren.......!

Hier kann man den ganzen Artikel (ohne Werbung) noch mal nachlesen.
*Der hannöversche Sprachgebrauch*


----------



## berndf

JClaudeK said:


> Man darf ja keine allzu großen Ausschnitte zitieren.......!


Wir sind hier in EHL und nicht im Deutschforum. Da sind die Regeln, angepasst an die etwas akademischere Natur des Forums, etwas anders. Siehe Regel #14 hier.


----------



## Penyafort

AndrasBP said:


> the "best" or "purest" form of Standard German (Hochdeutsch) is spoken in the city of *Hannover*.
> I wonder how this view (myth?) came to exist, since Hannover lies in the North where traditionally Low German (Niederdeutsch) was spoken.



That shouldn't be a handicap but the reason, actually. If you replace your old language with a new one, the fact that it is a learnt language means that your use of it will be closer to the expected standard version of it. That happens too in other plurilingual countries.

This said, I'm not confirming the 'myth?', just saying that it's not an incompatible phenomenon.


----------



## AndrasBP

Thank you very much for the interesting replies. I have no more questions.


----------



## merquiades

berndf said:


> I don't know what other regions you are thinking of. What comes to my mind is Southern Westphalia and the northern half of Berlin/Brandenburg and of Sachen-Anhalt. What distinguishes those areas from Eastern Niedersachsen is that neighbouring Central German dialect have radiated into these areas, e.g. Ripuarian dialects in Southern Westphalia and the Southern Brandenburg/Sachsen-Anhalt dialects have advanced into the northern parts of the countries. There is no such effect in Southern Niedersachsen. When you cross from Hesse into Niedersachsen the language abruptly changes from one village to the next. This may be due to the long standing political border there (Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel - Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg, later Kingdom of Hanover).


Just to be clear, since I'm not familiar with these dialects and how they sound.  You mean these central/southern dialects radiating into the north and replacing Niederdeutsch are not standard.  Whereas, on the other hand, Hannover lost its traditional language but was spared the infiltrating dialect influences coming from further south.  That's right?



Penyafort said:


> That shouldn't be a handicap but the reason, actually. If you replace your old language with a new one, the fact that it is a learnt language means that your use of it will be closer to the expected standard version of it. That happens too in other plurilingual countries..


There might be a comparable phenomenon in Italy.  I had always heard that it was tough to understand northern Italians.  Well, I read it and southerners told me that.  However, after a stay in Lombardy (MIlan, Bergamo, Varenna, Como etc) I found the standard Italian very easy to understand, perfectly articulated, more so than in Tuscany.  I then realized that the original dialect had all but disappeared.  I heard no one speaking it, not even older people in remote villages.  So I reasoned that bookish standard Italian had replaced dialect.


----------



## berndf

merquiades said:


> Just to be clear, since I'm not familiar with these dialects and how they sound. You mean these central/southern dialects radiating into the north and replacing Niederdeutsch are not standard. Whereas, on the other hand, Hannover lost its traditional language but was spared the infiltrating dialect influences coming from further south. That's right?


Yes, that is my assumption.


----------



## Schlabberlatz

AndrasBP said:


> I've heard and read a number of times that the "best" or "purest" form of Standard German (Hochdeutsch) is spoken in the city of *Hannover*.


In the German forum, MrMagoo said (a long time ago) that that was just a myth:


MrMagoo said:


> In den 20er oder 30er Jahren waren amerikanische Wissenschaftler damit beschäftigt, die Aussprache des Deutschen zu untersuchen. Sie untersuchten dabei allerdings hauptsächlich die Sprache in der Region um Hannover/Osnabrück, da von dort aus seit den 1850er Jahren viele Deutsche nach Amerika ausgewandert sind.
> Auf Grund dieser Untersuchungen konnte (und kann?!) man in amerikanischen (Schul)büchern immer wieder lesen, daß das Deutsche im Raum Hannover das "beste Deutsch" sei.


He does not name a source, though, so this story itself could be a myth, a kind of urban legend.

Some searching has yielded:


berndf said:


> Ich habe mal gehört, man könne in der Stadt Hannover und in der Umgebung vier verschiedene Dialekte/Akzente unterscheiden. Ich kann aber nur zwei unterscheiden. Das kann aber an meiner mangelnden Kenntnis der Gegend liegend (südlich des Walsroder Dreiecks wird's bei mir dünn).


… so it seems you can still tell (by listening) who's from the region?


----------



## berndf

Schlabberlatz said:


> … so it seems you can still tell (by listening) who's from the region?


There are of course at least some differences in local accents, even if calling them _dialects _would be exaggeration.


----------



## merquiades

berndf said:


> Yes, that is my assumption.


I can understand how/why standard German would creep northwards, being the language of schooling, media, work, but how were the dialects taken from Central and Southern Germany to the north?  Was there a large migration of people northwards, taking with them their dialect variation?  I could imagine this in large cities like Berlin.


----------



## berndf

I never said anything about "Southern Germany". The isoglosses between Upper and Central German dialects haven't budged an inch over the centuries. It is only between Central and Low German. And yes, it has mainly to do with the cities. After the demise of the Hanse, most cities adopted high German as their business and administrative language. And in a second step it radiated from there into surrounding regions. If we take the development around Berlin as an example: Berlin was originally Low German speaking. High German gained ground there in the 18th and 17th centuries. The modern Berlin dialect is close to that of southern Brandenburg, probably because those were the High German speakers people in Berlin learned High German from. Until the late 19th centuries the area around Berlin was still Low German speaking. There is a famous poem from 1889 Theodor Fontane (every child in Germany knows it), about Ribbeck manor NE of Berlin. The quotes there are in Low German ("Lütt Dirn, Kumm man röwer, ick hebb 'ne Birn"). Today, no Low German can be heard in the area and people speak with the normal Berlin-Brandenburg accent of High German.


----------



## Frank78

berndf said:


> Today, no Low German can be heard in the area and people speak with the normal Berlin-Brandenburg accent of High German.



At least "highly endangered". Here are some numbers (page 15). Interestingly the number of people who speak it "very well" do not differ much from Hamburg. But Brandenburg lacks "well" and "intermediate leveled speakers".


----------



## merquiades

berndf said:


> I never said anything about "Southern Germany".


 I meant from areas originally speaking high German and not low German



Frank78 said:


> At least "highly endangered". Here are some numbers (page 15). Interestingly the number of people who speak it "very well" do not differ much from Hamburg. But Brandenburg lacks "well" and "intermediate leveled speakers".



Interesting, so if I understand correctly....  the further north, the older the person, the more rural the area, the more likely it is to find low German speakers.  With younger, urban people from more the southern parts of the north it is very rare.   Low German is retreating northwards, away from cities and towns, and is not transmitted to the young anymore, either at home or at school.  There are many more people who can understand it but not speak it.  Up until recently the numbers of speakers dropped regularly and dramatically, but now it has slowed down but not stopped.  In SH low German has suffered less where half can understand it and a quarter can speak it
Around half of the people have a positive attitude towards low German the other half do not.


----------



## berndf

Frank78 said:


> At least "highly endangered". Here are some numbers (page 15). Interestingly the number of people who speak it "very well" do not differ much from Hamburg. But Brandenburg lacks "well" and "intermediate leveled speakers".


Hamburg is a city. The comment about the 19th/20th century shift of the language border was expressly not about cities. If you look at villages around Hamburg at a similar distance as Ribbeck has from Berlin, you will find Log German being very much alive, at least among the older people.


----------

