[Sa'ar Chasm]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0]But then again, most Dutch people do know English.[/quoteost_uid0]

Most Dutch people speak better English than the average North American, I've found.

[quoteost_uid0]I'm one of those superior snotty central Germans who thinks that the Bavarians need to get a damn clue.[/quoteost_uid0]

Bavarians are the Newfies of Germany, but without the fish.

[quoteost_uid0]Why can't you all learn something simple, like English for instance?[/quoteost_uid0]

Says the Scotsman.

[quoteost_uid0]On the other hand, modern German is essentially a streamlined Frankenstein of many different local dialects strung together into a halfway coherent monster.[/quoteost_uid0]

That's what you get for changing the dialect in every village. Go mass communications! *g*

Actually, I believe there's a continuum of Germanic dialects from the North Sea to the Polish border, which is why Cat can understand the Platt Germans (although not Dutch people from the North, which is baffling). Each dialect can more or less make out what its neighbours are saying, but the changes add up, so someone from Hamburg can't make sense of someone from Brandenburg unless they speak Frankenstein.

Same deal for the Romance languages. Supposedly there's a Portuguese-> Galicia -> Castilian -> Catalan -> French -> Provencal -> Italian continuum.

*pedant mode off*[/colorost_uid0]