Eivind schrieb:
> For example, in Germany, you'll hear statements like;
>
> Everyone says "gukken", but the correct pronounciation is really
"kukken"
>
> I've tried asking why, exactly, something is "wrong" german if it is
> infact what most people who actually speak german actually say. Mostly I
> get a blank stare, people don't even get the question. They're so used
> to outside authority defining "right" and "wrong".
This particular example is pretty much meaningless, considering this is
one of the classic north/south differences. There are large parts of
Germany where, in cases such as this one, people think the less popular
pronunciation is "correct" because, having grown up speaking a dialect
or High German with a heavy regional accent, they have a tendency
towards hypercorrection when speaking "pure" High German. I don't think
Helmut Kohl pronounces "Geschichte" as "Gechichte" because of a fierce
belief in outside authority.
> In this particular
> case, that imagined "authority" does not even exist! the closest you get
> is something like 'whatever the publishers of Duden put in their books'.
Actually, there *is* an official German *orthography*, laid down by
international agreement. There is no official German pronunciation,
though, beyond the usual TV and radio RP, which is ultimately based on
Siebs' manual for stage German IIRC, though some slight north/south
discrepancies persist (between ARD and ZDF, for example).
mawa
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