Plausibility check: Seperate West and East German languages

Is it possible that West and East Germany decide to develop their own languages? Maybe East Germany, in order to develop a seperate East German identity, decide to implement some German dialect as an official language, like Low German.

This has happened in other countries, such as Moldova and Romania, where Moldovan is technically just like Romanian, but has been renamed Moldovan for the sake of national identity.

AFAIK, both West and East Germany always had the goal of in the end uniting, thus there was no concious effort in either country to develop a seperate culture from each other, but I might be wrong?
 
AFAIK, both West and East Germany always had the goal of in the end uniting, thus there was no concious effort in either country to develop a seperate culture from each other, but I might be wrong?

As far as I know,the east germans dropped the whole "united germany" thing after it became clear it wasn't going to be communist one,in the 70s I think.
 

orwelans II

Banned
Austria has a government with no intention of rejoining Germany, a traditionally distinct dialect where even some very common words are different to their equivalents in ''German'' German (Tomate-Paradaiser) and they can still understand each other quite well with no reason for the two standards to be classiffied . I don't think it would really be possible for the GDR to create something that could be considered a different language even if they tried their hardest. In modern times media from the other German states would be available in some form for the people of GDR and there would still be contact with the people from the FRG.
I guess they could try to make some sort of a Prussian or Branderburgian indentity their focus, but that might need a longer time to catch on. If Austrians still considered themselves German untill it meant paying war reparations in '46, then Ossies will be German for a good while too.
 
With Russian communists controlling media and schools, it would still take 2 or 3 generations to impose a single dialect on all of East Germany. Make the 'official' dialect mandatory for government jobs and university education. The farther east and north - say East Prussia - the more distinct.
Maybe moving the East German Bundesrat (parliament) to East Prussia would allow 'good communists' to better 'advise' the East German government.
 
Well, sice Austria was mentioned, Austrian German is codified differently. There are lots of shared words, sure, but many words for produce or other foodstuffs are different, and even some very common words have different genders. German High German is codified in the Duden, while Austria's High German follows the Oesterreichisches Woerterbuch. Austrian has some substratum of old Upper German, one of the 3 German dialect groups that began its decline in the 16th and 17th century, and more loanwords from Frensch, Italian and the Slavic languages. Not as harsh and fastspoken as its northern sibling, an elegant language for a more civilized age, before the dark times... before the Republic.
 
Top