Kaliber
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Joined: 8/11/2008
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quote:
ORIGINAL: lordhoff
quote:
I don't speak German or Italian but I can understand that. Perhaps they were just being obstinate?
I learned some French in high school and college and a bit of German when I lived there: I was at a volksmarch in the Alsace area of France and spoke in French. The reply was (in English), "we don't speak French here". I think there are many areas in Europe where this sort of thing might happen such as Switzerland with four official languages or Luxembourg also with four (I believe).
That's weird. I've lived 18 months in Alsace (Strasbourg). Even though you can still hear it quite often (amongst older people), Elsassian is no longer so widely spoken in Alsace (with the exception of some rural areas), even though it is still widely understood, except amongst young people (and immigrants from the rest of France or other countries). After the war, there was a strong social stigma against speaking elsassian, so many people didn't speak it for a generation. Btw. older alsacians have a strong germanic accent when speaking french (although they all speak it fluently). Sometimes, they mix elsassian words with french. Who were these people at the "Volksmarch"? Alsacian independentists? They are a pretty margianl and insignificant group. Actually, Alsace (and Lorraine) are amongst the most patriotic people in France.
German tourists often adress waiters in german.
In Europe, quite often, the underlying political questions arising from the use of one language vs. another, is avoided by speaking english. This is for example often the case in Belgium, where french and dutch speakers increasingly communicate in english, at least amongst the young people who know it). Personnaly, although it's obviously an advantage to have a common language, I find this a bit sad and lazy.
In Luxembourg, where pretty much all the natives speak four languages (german, french, letzebürgisch and english), letzebürgisch is only used when talking amongst themselves, the other languages when adressing immigrants or workers from the neighbouring countries who account for about half the work force.
In Switzerland (I've lived in Bern, on the german side of language border), the language issue is somewhat less politizised (the swiss are very sure of their common identity regardless of the language they speak), but here you will also hear people from different language groups communicating in english. Interestingly enough, both in Belgium and Switzerland, the german or dutch speakers tend to speak considerably better french than the other way around.
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