Originally Posted by
MichaelBrighton
Dutch is, more or less, German from the middle ages and then grown along a different path. The two words have the same meaning.
Not according to quite a few folks I've talked to who insist the Germans and the Dutch do things differently.
Originally Posted by
MichaelBrighton
Why would you think that a standard German word would have different meaning in different parts of Germany? There are several dialects in German and the word may well be different in these dialects, but the meaning will almost certainly be the same.
I didn't ask for the dictionary meaning, I asked for a personal/cultural
interpretation of the concept. My great-grandparents from southern Germany had very different cultural traditions than the ones from northern Germany - one of the things stressed by my professor is how culturally different the various regions of Germany are because the area we now call "Germany" has historically been a group of smaller states with political/cultural ties of varying strengths. Does a Bavarian celebrate the same way as a Bohemian and a Hanovarian(sp?)?