Every time I hear “Moin moin” in the streets of Hamburg, I start to reflect about regional dialects. Okay, not every time: but often. You see, as a child growing up in London, I quickly learnt that accents from other parts of the United Kingdom were to be understood either as signs of below-average intelligence or as a misguided attempt at comedy. After all, nobody really wanted to speak like that, did they?

There were, for example, arguments when the first regional accents appeared on the BBC Radio News in the 1990s. Until that time, the media had allowed non-standard English no more than a few soap operas where all the characters were supposed to be uneducated and/or of morally reprehensible conduct anyway.

Germany is, in this respect, an entirely different kettle of fish. For starters, where Britain has regional accents, Germany has regional dialects. The difference is big: an accent is just a way of forming words in the mouth. A dialect is a more complex thing involving not just a different pronunciation, but a substantial number of actual words that are not understood by other speakers of the standard language.

This combination leads to ways of speaking German that are simply not intelligible to speakers from other regions: Bavarian, for example, or Swiss German. Some people in Britain would of course claim that Scotland or Liverpool have dialects. And indeed Britain does have a few spots where the average English-speaker would need to listen carefully; but after having experienced arriving in Bavaria by night-train directly from Hamburg, I can tell you that Germany really is a different kettle of fish. Babel fish.

For a perfect example of just how varied German is, you need look no further than the first words two given speakers say to each other. On meeting, people in North Germany say “Moin moin!”, in South Germany “Grüß Gott” or “Servus”.
Now let’s just take a step back from that. In London people say “Alright mate”, in northern England people tend towards “You alright” – shortened more often than not to “y’aright”. That’s a small, but important regional difference.
The difference between “Moin moin” and “grüß Gott”, however, is by comparison enormous. “Moin” is old Low German for “schön” (Engl: nice, beautiful). Yet hardly anyone, even in North Germany, knows this anymore and, even if they do, can’t explain to you why repeating it twice without any further ado makes it into a greeting.

“Grüß Gott”, meanwhile, is short for “Ich grüße Gott”, or “I am greeting God”. Now, most South Germans could tell you that, but they couldn’t explain to you why saying hello to a friend requires you to exchange a few courteous pleasantries with the big man upstairs.

All South Germans can tell you is that they don’t understand “Moin moin!” And all North Germans can do when confronted with “Grüß Gott” is roll their eyes and mumble something about the power of the Catholic Church in Southern Germany, especially when followed by the distinctly Latinate “Servus”.

On the subject of Latin: The language of the Romans has given German several words for goodbye, too. Where British people almost everywhere use the rather prosaic “see you” or “bye”, Germans tend to use rather poetic variations on “a deus” (which gave Shakespearean English “adieu”).

Yet Germany wouldn’t be Germany if North and South didn’t use different forms. In the northern half of the country, a deus has given birth to “Tschüs”. In the Southern half, people seem far more inclined to “Ade”. What Northerners frequently don’t know – or forget – is that “Tschüs” is often considered insulting in South Germany: far too sloppy and informal.

Basically, somewhere south of Frankfurt, people start to wonder what kind of idiot would say “Tschüs” to anyone but their best friends; and accordingly, they make sure that their state-run regional television and radio station only employs decent, upstanding speakers of South German dialect. Meanwhile in the North, anyone saying “Ade” on air would quickly be short of a job. All this variety is, in comparison to countries like the U.K, somewhat confusing. But at least you always know you’re back home in Hamburg when the radio greets you with “Moin moin!”

Check out Brian’s amusing and entertaining short video clips on different aspects of German culture here:
www.lostindeutschland.de