Klarinet Archive - Posting 000430.txt from 1995/06

From: John Baetens <JSBtens@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: Bas klarinet gezocht
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 09:43:04 -0400

I just said that Dutch was a dialect of German just so I could
get all our friends from the Netherlands to speak up. I see it
worked very well.

I am not going to get away with this, am I? Okay, I goofed. If
I am allowed to once again stray from the clarinet I would like
to explain.

A long time ago I was at a party at my inlaws where a
conversation was struck between a friend of my father in law,
who was from the Netherlands, and a German foreign exchange student who was
living with my wife's uncle's family. Someone asked what language they were
speaking, and the Dutch
gentleman answered that he was speaking Dutch and the
student was speaking German, and that since Dutch was a
dialect of German, they understood most of what each other
was speaking. Was he just putting us on, or is this possible?
Or maybe they were indeed speaking their own language but understood the
other.
Anyway, I did my homework and realize now that the two
languages are similar, but independent. They both originated
from the same group of the West Germanic languages.
So I am learning much about languages as well as about
playing the clarinet.
To make another point, it has been said that you have to be
careful about gathering information on the Internet because
anyone can post information about any subject whether it is
true or not. Well one thing I have learned is, at least on this
mailing list, if you try to print a falsehood as fact, you are
not going to get away with it.

John Baetens