High German vs. Swiss German

[nicoleamericano]

this guy talks like he's on the office

[CeCiixCeCii]

Swiss people understand each other also if they speak different dialects. we don't like to speak high german.

[matthewjohnson]

The things said in this video are not exactly true. If you learn a dialect of Swiss German very well, you should be able to communicate with people all around Switzerland. 

I also thought the comments of High German being "elite" were quite silly. The German spoken in Berlin is also not "High German", in the strictest sense, most certainly not the most standard form of the language spoken in Germany. 

[aKnightWhoSaysNee]

2:47:  for "bi gsi" there surely is a word in high german. it is "bin gewesen" or in englisch "have been".
it's correct, there's no "was", we have just the present perfect for preceding actions

[MrSaemichlaus]

The big difference regarding grammar is that there's no Präteritum in Swiss German, we just use the Perfekt. So Germans say "Ich machte einen Tee" (I made/prepared a tea), Swiss Germans say "Ich ha en Tee gmacht".

[cyndie]

1:11 Isn't it called "High German" because it originated from higher altitudes (i.e. the Alps)?

[HotelPapa]

As for the dialects being specific to cantons: Not really. Like it is the case with most dialects, this is really a "Dialektkontinuum", meaning that the dialects change gradually from town to town. So a person from Sins, in the southernmost tip of the canton Aargau will speak a dialect that anybody would recognize as coming from the Lucerne region, whereas a Person from the lower Fricktal, the northwest corner of the Aargau, would be recognized as a "Baselbieter" (person from the canton of Basel-Landschaft) by anybody versed in the dialects.

[herbertpaneth]

actually "gsi" is the word for the high german "gewesen" which means "have been". In stead of saying "ich war in Bern", in Swiss German you say "i bi zBärn gsi" which corresponds to "ich bin in Bern gewesen" (so instead of saying "i was in Bern" they always say "I have been in Bern")

[HATECELL]

There's actually a whole bunch of different Germans. The Germans have a lot of different accents which are put in different groups like Niederdeutsch, Platt(deutsch), Hochdeutsch or Standarddeutsch (high German). It is said that people in and around the city of Leipzig have the purest standard German. Standard German is also the language that is used in books and movies and is also the German you learn in school.
Switzerland however has its own standard German called "Schweizer Hochdeutsch". It has some special words called helvetisms like for example "grillieren" instead of "grillen" (a form of barbecue with high temperature over a short time), lacks one grammatical gender and has less tenses. Schweizer Hochdeutsch was used in school, books and television. But Swiss people are abandoning it for the regular standard German, probably because we have more and more German media and Swiss highgerman starts to sound silly and uneducated when compared.
And then there are the spoken Swiss-Germans... Switzerland is divided into 23 or 26 (depending on how you count) Kantons and each of them has a rather distinctive dialect (not all of them are based on German because Switzerland has 4 official languages). Of course there are also regional variations inside these Kantons, even the small ones. Some of them can be difficult to understand, even for the Swiss. And since Switzerland isn't that big, there are a lot of people who travel around different dialect-regions and start coming up with a mixture of dialects, just as a sidenote ;)
Did I mention the 4 official languages yet? This of course means that some areas near the borderline of these language zones, for example Fribourg have German and French dialects.

[ElParodista]

high german has two different meanings. the high german dialects and the standardized german (schriftsprache meaning written language) the high german dialects are located in southern germany. the middle german dialects are located in the middle of germany. the low german dialects are in northern germany.

the funny thing is that standard german or so-called high german is mostly spoken around the city of hannover (more or less), though it is located where the low german dialects belong.

[TheSashaholic]

swiss german is actually very close to badisch or allemannisch, wich are both accents in germany. the main difference is, that swiss german is more extreme & sometimes sound like a completely different language to most germans, especially bc there are so many different swiss accents too.

[ulrichlehnhardt]

You are a very good observer. I am impressed. You also have a very good accent when speaking German. In the southern dialects of Germany the past tense is never used in spoken language, so it is always present perfect instead and the swiss use that funny "gsi" instead of "gewesen" in German.... it is actually a short version - badly pronounced - of this word, which exists well in Germany.

[axisboss]

Isn't Berliner Dialect more Low Germanish. They say Ick instead of Ich

[yurismir]

The term "high German" is a confusing one.  You're using it to mean "Standard German".  However, funnily enough, another definition of high German includes Swiss German :)
Look at the "Hochdeutsch" article on Wikipedia for more info.

[claudiaf.]

You should encourage the missionaries to learn the dialect where they stay most. Swissgerman is the Language of our heart of you want to reach the heart you Need to learn swissgerman. By the way the grammatic of swissgerman is much simpler than highgerman. You just have to learn the Swiss pronounciation of CH.

[solus]

Swiss dialects sounds like they're choking

[SuperMagicFingers]

So If I want to learn German I should learn HG? I was also told to speak in HG and write in SG.. this is very confusing for me. any advice will be appreciated :)

[Chregi]

''gsie'' basicly means ''gewesen'' in standard german which means was in english

[TheRavenir]

It's always funny when Americans try to speak German (any kind of German, really). But the relationship between Swiss German and High German is rather complex. It's a situation that is called a diglossia, meaning two different "languages" are used in different social situations. High German is the written language and used in schools and higher educational institutions. Swiss German is the spoken language and is used in everyday situations and is also slowly encroaching on more formal situations.

[johnpreson]

High german more clean cut than swiss german.. I'm swiss and thats sacrilege! XD schwiizer tütsch > Hochdeutsch