Yesterday, a friend told me a fun linguistic experience: He and his partner (both speaking standard German) spent some time in Switzerland, both kids are born there. Kids went to crèche and kindergarten, they moved back to Germany when the oldest was 7. At home, all 4 spoke standard German. The parents only realized by visiting hours to crèche and kindergarten, that both kids were fluent in Züridütsch
1/n
Back home they one day visited another couple, also with two kids, roughly the same age. Those other kids came running to their parents, basically complaining that the two started speaking in tongues!
Turned out, the kids had not associated different languages with different contexts, but with the age of conversation partners: With adults, one speaks standard German, with kids, one speaks dialect
Easy, right?
2/n n=2
#LinguisticsInTheWild
Cerstin Mahlow