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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   25087 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023

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any of the times he went to visit France he was treated better when he spoke English than when he spoke French with a Quebecois accent.

Many places are like that. In Germanic Switzerland you’re better off speaking English than German with a German accent, because they dislike Germans over there.

We love them though. Silly mountain Germans, denying our obvious brotherhood.

Swiss German (or Alemannic in general) should probably be classified as its own language, it's as different from Standard German as Ukrainian is from Russian, if not more.

And if you speak Swiss German in Berlin you might as well be speaking Choctaw, for all the ability the locals will have to understand you.

Swiss language politics is weird and incomprehensible to outsiders. When I worked at Credit Suisse, the investment bank was basically American Anglophone (in London they had taken the First Boston signs down by then, but this apparently provoked resistance in New York), but when we had to interact with "head office" it was noticeable that there were French-speaking and German-speaking teams (all of which would talk to us in fluent English). I remember visiting Geneva and noticing that the second language on signs (after French, of course) was always English, and that German and Italian were supported to the bare minimum required by Swiss federal law.

As someone living there … I think the Swiss -> German attitude is not that bad. But maybe the Swiss are just too polite to show their contempt :P

Austria though … they are certainly more open about their attitude towards Germans (though again it’s mostly just harmless ribbing, nothing that would actually get in the way of living there).

Austrians, at least cultured Viennese, have an actual air of intellectual superiority versus most Germans (especially north of Bavaria, which they somewhat identify with, and Baden, which was iirc Austrian territory for a while anyway). The Swiss don’t think they’re intellectually superior to the Germans, they have the kind of attitude that like a wealthy Texan who ‘identifies’ as a salt of the earth good ol boy has to a Yankee intellectual, even if the latter is poorer. That’s my experience.

Urban Swiss tend to be less prejudiced toward Germans since a lot of valuable jobs like doctors are done by Germans and the Swiss are usually find with them. The Swiss who dislike Germans tend to be the more rural ones in the mountains because 80% of tourists and many retirees are German, push up prices and consider themselves ‘equal’ to Swiss-Germans because they speak the same language. That equal thing is important, I was in Flims over the summer and it was funny because I got the impression (again) that Swiss Germans don’t necessarily mind ubiquitous Italians in the service (and every other besides) industry in Germanic Switzerland because the Italians have an attitude of conscious or subconscious deference to them. Even Brits and Americans usually have a certain ‘respect’ for the ‘superior’ Swiss way of life, praise the cleanliness, order etc even as they struggle with it.

Germans, on the other hand, don’t consider themselves inferior to Swiss despite coming from (in Swiss eyes) a much poorer and worse country. They consider themselves equals and will walk into a Migros and make small talk with the cashier or try to joke around with the local hiking club while waiting for the cable car to reopen after lunch as if they’re “one of them”. To the German, the Swiss is just a rich hick who can be conversed with as usual and is expected to understand them, and is still fundamentally a German. Why show deference?

Why does being different mean you should show deferrence?

Germans (especially north of Bavaria, which they somewhat identify with, and Baden, which was iirc Austrian territory for a while anyway). The Swiss don’t think they’re intellectually superior to the Germans, they have the kind of attitude that like a wealthy Texan who ‘identifies’ as a salt of the earth good ol boy has to a Yankee intellectual, even if the latter is poorer. That’s my experience.

In my experience, the swiss are a materialistic bunch. Austrians, on the other hand, are a depressive bunch. I still remember when I went to Viena and everyone seemed so miserable. It was real downer tbh.

Damn, I really need to visit Vienna.

they have the kind of attitude that like a wealthy Texan who ‘identifies’ as a salt of the earth good ol boy has to a Yankee intellectual

This certainly can be quite hostile.

a wealthy Texan who ‘identifies’ as a salt of the earth good ol boy

Lol. If the Bushes were still active in national politics, would we be calling them transTexan?

They're the Mother Fucking Swiss, what did you expect?

I love them so much. I’d live there if I could, at least half the year after I have kids. Undoubtedly the world’s most civilized society.

It is difficult to understand normal-speed spoken swiss as a german and quebecois when you’re french. But the reverse is not true. So the clean, formal, hegemonic version of the language forces itself into the conversation, and people resent that, especially if they’re at home.

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