German lumpers and splitters [View all]

Is German a language or a family of languages? Experts disagree about this. Depending on how you answer the question, you are either a lumper or splitter.

Similar questions can be asked about other languages and even about taxa in biology, where the struggle between lumpers and splitters can be intense. But I digress.

I'm no expert, but I side with the lumpers. I think of Standard German, Swiss German, Plattdeutsch, etc. as dialects of a single language, because having taken German classes in school I find that I can understand most of them to some extent. Plattdeutsch, aka Low German, is borderline. It's close to Dutch, which I can't begin to understand.

Once I tried having a conversation with someone who was fluent in Yiddish. The experiment was moderately successful. Therefore I would argue that even Yiddish is a German dialect, although it's usually classified as a separate language.