Best High German: “The older, the better ‘shower’ and the younger, the more ‘shower’.”

It was a new serious blow for Lower Saxony. The paint is not only off at the VW Group, but also at the “best standard German” spoken in Hanover. Scientists at Leibniz University in Hanover, of all places, have shattered the myth. This is the result of a large-scale research study that WELT reported on three years ago. We asked its leader, the German scholar François Conrad, whether he still ventures among people in Hanover.

QUADEL: A few days ago, German media reported “Study disproves the myth that the best standard German is in Hanover.” How did you and your colleagues find out?

Francois Conrad: That wasn’t our title, but the dpa adjusted it a little accordingly. Pure standard German is not spoken anywhere, we knew that in advance. Even in Hanover there are regional pronunciation characteristics. And when I say “regional” it refers to the region. Göttingen, Braunschweig, Celle, Hildesheim and Hanover also speak almost the same, based on what we know

QUADEL: Nevertheless, it is said in Hanover that the purest High German is spoken. Who believed that?

Francois Conrad: It is a historically created myth. And as myths are, they persist. In fact, many people in Hanover attribute this to themselves. So when asked “How do you speak?” they answer “Of course the best standard German”. But many older people in particular know that it is more complicated. They say: “No, no, it’s not that easy.” Others say that about us, but we still have the Hanoverian language.” That’s the old urban vernacular.

QUADEL: So the Hanoverians didn’t see it as a narcissistic insult that you refuted the old myth?

Francois Conrad: I actually received a few nasty letters. I quote: “I’ve had enough of this Hanover bashing now. Now they’re taking away our beautiful language too!” Other people say: “No or what? Hey, we don’t have that much to offer. Now our language is no longer as beautiful as we thought.” And there are a lot of memes circulating on social media where people practically bury their heads in the sand and complain, “No!” My identity is gone.”

QUADEL: Since when is Hanover considered a city where the purest German is spoken?

François Conrad: For about 200 years. There are first reports in the 19th century in which language historians or early linguists mentioned this. For example, Hermann Carl Otto Huß in his 1879 work “The German in the Mouth of the Hanoverian”.

QUADEL: How did the myth arise that people speak particularly purely there?

François Conrad: There are three reasons for this. The first is that Low German used to be spoken throughout northern Germany, including in Braunschweig and Hanover. In the course of the Reformation and with Luther’s translation of the Bible, the view spread throughout Germany that Meissnian Saxon, a special variant of High German, was the best German. From this the High German that we know today developed.

Dialectologically, Low German was very dependent on High German. That’s why North Germans learned High German as a foreign language. When you learn a foreign language, you will of course pronounce the language particularly perfectly. This means that the North Germans still speak so close to standard High German today because their original language was so far removed from it.

QUADEL: And what is the second reason?

Francois Conrad: Hanover was the residence of the King of the Kingdom of Hanover. That is the reason why the focus of this myth was not Braunschweig, Celle or Göttingen, which probably spoke and speak exactly the same, but rather Hanover. Because it was the most important city in the kingdom and later also in the Prussian province. It used to be Braunschweig and the larger city. But as a royal residence, Hanover had greater prestige. And then the Prussian officials came there after the annexation of the Kingdom of Hanover in 1866 and got to know Hanover German and found it exemplary. Prussia then became the largest state in the German Empire. And so the myth became super-spread.

QUADEL: And what is the third reason?

Francois Conrad: In the peripheral areas of northern Germany on the coast, Low German has been preserved for much longer, in isolated cases to this day. This development has therefore been limited to Lower Saxony and specifically to Hanover.

QUADEL: I’m from Braunschweig and my Berlin children and my Swabian wife always look at me strangely when I use the word Pens Pronounce as “stifs”. But apparently I’m not the only one.

Francois Conrad: This is a relatively new phenomenon that exists throughout northern Germany. Of course also in Hanover. I investigated this in a follow-up examination. A sound change is currently taking place: If an i is followed by a consonant in which the lips are rounded, i.e. protruded, articulated (e.g. with sh as in fish or with f as in pencils), this rounding “pops up”. that I about. And if an i is spoken with rounded lips, an ü is automatically created. It also makes pronunciation easier. Changes like this happen all over the world from time to time. In Northern Germany, the i before r, as in church or in some way, is also affected by this. Hopefully I’ll find out why exactly.

QUADEL: Can this also explain my “stiffness”?

Francois Conrad: Yes. Pen, Church, Table with ü, there are lots of examples. This is a general North German trend. But it is relatively new. I also have recordings from 60 years ago where this is already being done in some cases, but only sporadically. While almost everyone in the younger generation is currently doing this.

QUADEL: I speak the words shower and Shower with a short u. This irritates my children. Is this also typically northern German?

Francois Conrad: Yes. This falls into the same category as “the bathroom” and “the bike” recently. High German would be Shower with a long u, Low German – also Low German – would be Shower with a short vowel. These are old Low German short vowels, remnants from Platt, which have also been preserved in High German – like many other features that we found in Hanover and the surrounding area. For example, “der Zug” – pronounced “Zuch”. This is particularly common among older people. The older, the less “shower” and the younger, the more “shower”. Standard German is much more pronounced among younger people than among older people.

QUADEL: How exactly did you and your colleagues go about this study?

Francois Conrad: The project had two pillars. In my words: “Language in the mouth” means: How is actually spoken? What comes out of people’s mouths when they talk? And “language in the head” means: How do people think about language? How do you rate the language? What do you know or think you know about language? These are the two areas that we covered in parallel. For both, we spoke to 100 volunteers, native Hanoverians who also grew up here.

QUADEL: What did they do there?

Francois Conrad: For example, in a language experiment that lasted two to four hours, quite a long time, these people had to name pictures. Then they saw a shower and simply had to say “shower” or “shower” without knowing that it was about pronunciation. Or they had to read small sentences and fill in the gaps. That was “language in the mouth”

In “Language in the Head” we mainly conducted a long linguistic biographical interview and asked them, for example: “How did you used to speak?” “With whom?” “What languages ​​do you actually speak?” “Do you still speak flatly?” “Have “Did you speak differently at school than at home?” “Were there any linguistic changes in your life?” “What else do you know about Low German in Hanover?” And so on.

QUADEL: What came out of these language interviews?

Francois Conrad: That was very exciting. We also gave them a map of Germany and they had to mark where they thought people spoke in a similar way to Hanover. You will also be asked to create a mental language map. And they actually marked the surrounding area over a large area, more or less the Hanover region. But it partly goes down to Göttingen. A region emerged here in the Eastphalian area.

There were then two more hearing tests. One was that we played them recordings from seven cities – Bremen, Magdeburg, Braunschweig, Hildesheim, Hanover, Bielefeld, Kassel. And then we asked: “Where do you think the person comes from?” To find out: Can you even hear when someone comes from Hanover? Most people couldn’t actually distinguish between Braunschweig, Göttingen and Hanover. In some cases, even Bielefeld no longer exists. That means the differences aren’t that big here in all of these cities.

QUADEL: And the other test?

Francois Conrad: We played sentences to the test subjects, whereby one element was always changed, i.e. it was not standard German. For example: “The cleaning schedule says that he has to clean the bathroom” – with a short vowel in the word “bathroom”. The question to people was: “What isn’t the best standard German here?” What do you notice here and why do you notice it?” We wanted to find out, what are certain pronunciations like? How are they rated? What are their connotations? Do people even notice? Older people in particular, who still use these non-High German pronunciations themselves, rated them very little negatively, while younger people were much more judgmental and said a lot indirectly: “No, that’s not real High German, I would never say it like that. “ “There were exciting differences between the generations.

QUADEL: These Low German pronunciation habits are old. If I understand you correctly, not much has changed and people in the extended Hanover region can still rightly claim to speak comparatively better standard German than people in other areas of Germany?

Francois Conrad: Yes, actually I can answer it like that. Firstly, because people still believe that. They will continue to believe that. No matter what they found out. That’s just what myths are. On the other hand, one can say that in the Eastphalian area, compared to other regions of Germany, there are particularly few regional characteristics to be heard. This area extends from Göttingen all the way up to Celle. Braunschweig is included. Hamelin, Hildesheim. And Hanover too, of course. You can say with a conscientious wink: Yes, High German is the “best” here; there are particularly few features that deviate from High German.