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Originally Posted by 12B4S
Take all the advice you have been given to this point. When I served in SF in Germany. my team was sent to language school in O'gau. We were taught the proper (Hoch Deutsch). At that time there were 16 dialects of the German language. NONE, more different than between Hoch Deutsch and Bayerish. Have stories if you want.
Came down to this, ALL Germans learn Hoch Deutsch in school growing up. Whether they choose to use it down the road is thier decision. In Bavaria, they were and have always been proud. Going back to WW2. (That may open up some stuff). They understand Hoch Deutsch (proper German), BUT refuse to speak it. Enough of that, those previous posts were dead on.
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Bavarian pride goes back well before World War Two. Bavaria was an independent kingdom, a rival to Prussia and a Catholic state in a heavily Protestant country.
Bavaria was established as a duchy in the late 8th Century. In 1180, the Holy Roman Emperor gave the duchy to Otto von Wittelsbach, whose family would rule Bavaria until 1918.
During the Reformation, many German states converted to Lutheranism, but Bavaria remained staunchly Catholic. Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria headed the Catholic League in the Thirty Years' War, and during his reign, the Duke of Bavaria became an elector (
Kurfürst) of the Holy Roman Empire. Bavaria allied with Napoleon and when Napoleon dissolved the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Bavaria was elevated to a kingdom. Bavaria changed sides in 1813, and lost almost none of its territory after the Congress of Vienna in 1815, although its status was lessened as Prussia and Austria became the main rivals for German leadership.
Under King Maximilian II, Bavaria was known as a relatively liberal place, politically and culturally, and the king tried to form an alliance of the predominantly Catholic southern German states to rival Prussia. Unfortunately, he died in 1864, and was succeeded by a lunatic, Ludwig II, AKA "Mad King Ludwig". Also, in 1866 the southern states, led by Austria and Bavaria, were soundly defeated by Prussia and the northern states in the Seven Weeks' War.
Bavaria and all of the southern states except Austria joined the Prussian-led North German Confederation, which became the German Empire after the defeat of France in 1871. However, Bavaria retained more freedom than most of the other German states, including its own army. The Kingdom of Saxony also kept its own army, while all of the other German states' forces became part of the Prussian Army (Württemberg's was also nominally separate, but was effectively just a corps of the Prussian Army).
Defeat in World War One would lead to the abdication of King Ludwig III in 1918, ending 738 years of Wittelsbach rule. A short-lived socialist republic was crushed and Bavaria became a state of the Weimar Republic. It lost what autonomy it retained during the Third Reich, but the Free State of Bavaria (
Freistaat Bayern) was created after World War Two.
Most German states today are the result of the break-up of Prussian lands or the mixing of smaller German states (Baden-Württemberg, for example, merged the Grand Duchy of Baden with the Kingdom of Württemberg). Only Bavaria is effectively the same state it was before the Nazi era.
By the way,
bayerisch is not the most different German dialect from standard
hochdeutsch. Lëtzebuergesch, the language spoken in Luxembourg, is further removed, as are
plattdeutsch dialects like
friesisch and Dutch, which are so different they are considered separate languages from German.
Actually, most of the
plattdeutsch dialects of north Germany are not mutually intelligible with
hochdeutsch, but unlike the south, most have given way to
hochdeutsch. The dialects are still spoken in villages, but in the major north German cities like Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin, standard
hochdeutsch is spoken. Among working class folk in places like Cologne, though, local dialects can still be heard (
Kölsch is not just the local beer, but also the local language).
Swiss German, also known as Schwyzerdütsch, is an Alemannic (
alemannisch) dialect and is also further removed from High German than
bayerisch.
Also,
bayerisch is the dialect of Munich, much of Austria, and the Alpenvorland, including places I'm sure you're familiar with like O'gau, Garmisch and Bad Tölz, but other parts of Bavaria speak different dialects. In the area between Nuremberg and Würzburg, Franconian (
fränkisch) is spoken. Swabian (or
schwäbisch), the main dialect of Württemberg, reaches as far as Augsburg. Swabian is the "hick" dialect of Germany, and Swabians are routinely the butt of jokes for their thick nasal accents and pig-farming. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was a Swabian, and was known for his thick accent.
One advantage I had, was that most of the folks I knew in Toelz also spoke English. Without that, I would have learned very little bayerisch. Did notice one thing though. The more beer, the better I could speak both languages/dialects. 
Hybrid Mode
