# "If... we'd now be speaking..."

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [August 13, 2013, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120 "2013-08-13T11:06:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/41 "2013-08-16T16:17:37Z")

</div>

> [@vontsira](#):
>
> Nonetheless: I persist in considering that people often make more drama about matters of language, than is really called-for. If one’s birth-speech is, in whatever way, a minority tongue – need it be a huge problem for one to use a more common and widespread language to deal with “the world at large”, and to use one’s birth-speech among one’s own folk?

This is something you can easily experience. Next time you go on vacation to France or Spain, simply avoid using any English to anyone other than you family for a couple of weeks. (This also means you’re not allowed to read English signs in public, which is harder to do.) See how it goes. Now imagine doing that for the rest of your life, including the next time you have to go to hospital, to court, etc.

It really is a big deal. Some people DO make more drama than is called for, but then, that’s some people. Remember Gwynfor Evans, who went on a hunger strike and was willing do die to force the BBC to allow a dedicated Welsh-language television channel? Seems dramatic, but this was an elder statesman who made a quite calculated decision that his community’s language was worth more than his life. (For those who don’t know, he both won and lived to a ripe old age.)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/42 "2013-08-20T16:30:49Z")

</div>

> [@Mops](#):
>
> I understood what you meant, but (as a German reasonably well educated in the history of the Third Reich) cannot identify which policies you refer to.
> 
> IOW: _Cite?_

Tongue in cheek response: I have a friend from Hamburg, Germany. At one time, I asked him whether he spoke High German or Low German, having heard there was a distinction. He looked puzzled for a moment, then said, dismissively, “there’s no such thing as High German and Low German. You must mean German and _Bavarian._”

Maybe that’s what was meant by “The version of German officially authorized by the Nazis for use by Germans.”

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120.md?page=2)