[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] difference betw Dutch and German language?

[Otto]

On Sep 13, 2013, at 2:51 PM, Charlotte Dubay wrote:

> 
> What pleasure this mailing list brings...thank you all...
> 
> Another question, triggered by your posts:
> My Block ancestors (German Lutherans) lived in Posen area (about 100 NE of Berlin) from 1700-1892, until my great-grandparents came to USA. 
> 
> My great-grandmother Wilhelmina Meyer Block spoke Dutch, but was born in Posen, baptized in near-by Lobsens.
> 
> Any ideas on why grgrandmother spoke Dutch? If her parents were Dutch, you would still think she learned German in Posen. How different does Dutch sound from German? (Great-grandmother passed away 2 years before I was born, so I never heard anyone speak Dutch. Guess I should google a translation program and hear what it at least "sounds" like!)


Block, Bloch, Blech as the spelling dances with the vowel sound. Block sounds anglicized, (ck use). . .maybe.
Grandma probably spoke a Frisian (name sounds frisian) or Lower Saxon dialect. Very similar to Dutch(Deutsch).  All are Lowland German dialects. The German of the North Sea and Baltic coast shores was Platt-Deutsch, Flatland/Lowland German.

She didn't learn German from anyone in Posen, she already spoke it. 
Since 1871 it became fashionable to speak the "Hochdeutsch"/High German of Luther's bible (in public anyway) High German has nothing to do with superiority of language, it was geographical, the speech of the hill dwellers from Luther's vicinity. I refer to it as 'hilly saxon.'

. . .   Otto
         " The Zen moment..." wk. of January 01, 2013-
                _____________________________________
                  "Answers out there . . .  Seeking us."