Rhine water levels 2023 and similar topics

[notamermaid]

13 hours ago, bundtkate said:

He also speaks French because his home town was on the French border and was periodically part of France over the course of history

Which puts him into the Lorraine or Alsace border region on the German side. Remote enough for American German teaching I can imagine.

 

To give you an idea what I may say. "I have washed my car" is "Ich habe mein Auto gewaschen". Umgangsdeutsch, or everyday language can become "Ich hab' mein Auto gewaschen". With me this can become "Ischhab' mein Audo gewasche'". On a good (or bad depending on how you look at it) day this turns into my real dialect, which I am not good at speaking (too much schooling and good influence of a certain relative insisting on High German). In some areas grammar can change "dramatically", but spoken and written (taught) language often differs anyway, for example the equivalent ing-form of an English verb is not often used in High German or even frowned upon in many cases in writing but very much exists in common language and dialects, we form it with "am", for example "Isch bin am koche" is Rhenish German for "I am cooking". I am not too familiar with Cologne dialect but I know they have some nice words that you do not hear much further South like "ming" for "mein" (English "my").

 

Basically, everyone, do not be too frustrated when you try out your school German on the general public. The language you learn is confined (when spoken) to a well-defined area to the Northeast of Cologne where there are no navigable rivers, okay, a couple of canals... But everyone is taught High German in school and most people will speak something close to it, like in my example of Umgangsdeutsch and try their best High German if the situation requires it, I am sure

 

Now, a quick look at river levels. Kaub is at 193cm, slow rise predicted over the next few days, stabilizing at those higher levels, with a potential further slow rise in the first few days of April, depending on what happens upstream around Maxau, which shows a potential strong rise around 2 April. All looking good from now till 2 April.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

9 hours ago, Canal archive said:

The boat is a punt just like the U.K. university punts, in my case I tried them once and I’m still not sure.

I thought that may be the case. Being on the Stour (a tourist experience) was a bit odd. Very different from my huge and wild river and its excursion boats that I am used to.

 

I think every language is different in school from outside of school. Over the years I have listened to quite a few different dialects and accents of French. I do not speak enough French and especially not often enough to figure much out these days. I am just happy to be able to follow any conversation without losing the plot.

 

Mind you, the Hungarian guide we had in Budapest told us that there are no proper regional versions of Hungarian, just proper grammar and good and "elegant", i.e levels of education. Still cannot believe that can be fully accurate.

 

Here on television we had a fun series of the kind "man moves to opposite end of his country and gets into tricky or fun situations" some years ago. It was called "Ein Bayer auf Rügen". This means "A Bavarian on Rügen Island". You can imagine that the places being 800km apart makes for some cultural and dialect differences...

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Briefly returning to the Romans. I mentioned that Nickenich is just within the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire obviously varied in size throughout its existence but you may be interested in how it related to the Rhine, which was the border for quite some time and along a certain stretch. Anyway, here is the map with the established border that is the Limes. When you are past Rheinbrohl at Rhine kilometre 620 you have the Celtic/Gaul/Belgica Romans on the left bank and the Germanic tribes on the right bank. Basically. Courtesy of a gentleman through wikipedia https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Agri_decumates_Karte.png

 

Most of the names are modern settlements and the forts that had been there in Roman times, but you can recognize the Roman settlements that turned into Mainz, Bonn and Cologne, among others.

 

notamermaid

 

Edited March 24, 2023 by notamermaid

[Canal archive]

I wonder if they shouted insults to each other across the river?

[RDVIK2016]

7 hours ago, notamermaid said:

 

To give you an idea what I may say. "I have washed my car" is "Ich habe mein Auto gewaschen". Umgangsdeutsch, or everyday language can become "Ich hab' mein Auto gewaschen". With me this can become "Ischhab' mein Audo gewasche'". On a good (or bad depending on how you look at it) day this turns into my real dialect, which I am not good at speaking (too much schooling and good influence of a certain relative insisting on High German). In some areas grammar can change "dramatically", but spoken and written (taught) language often differs anyway, for example the equivalent ing-form of an English verb is not often used in High German or even frowned upon in many cases in writing but very much exists in common language and dialects, we form it with "am", for example "Isch bin am koche" is Rhenish German for "I am cooking". I am not too familiar with Cologne dialect but I know they have some nice words that you do not hear much further South like "ming" for "mein" (English "my").

 

 

Where I learned Umgangsdeutsch one would say (adding a couple of words to your example): "Heid hob I mei neies Auto gwaschn" - Today I washed my new car.

 

"beim kochen" sounds more familiar to me that "am kochen".

 

Anybody have a birthday today?  Ois Guade zu deim Geburtsdog! (ois = alles).

[RDVIK2016]

11 hours ago, rcaruso said:

My Oma and Opa immigrated from Silesia too around 1915 or so.  My Oma's family had a small store in Gleiwitz (now Poland), my Opa was mostly Polish from same area. Small world!

My in-laws were from Oels (today Oleśnica) near Breslau (now Wrocław). They fled the advance of the Russians in the winter of 1945.

[RDVIK2016]

6 hours ago, notamermaid said:

Briefly returning to the Romans. I mentioned that Nickenich is just within the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire obviously varied in size throughout its existence but you may be interested in how it related to the Rhine, which was the border for quite some time and along a certain stretch. Anyway, here is the map with the established border that is the Limes. When you are past Rheinbrohl at Rhine kilometre 620 you have the Celtic/Gaul/Belgica Romans on the left bank and the Germanic tribes on the right bank. Basically. Courtesy of a gentleman through wikipedia https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Agri_decumates_Karte.png

 

Most of the names are modern settlements and the forts that had been there in Roman times, but you can recognize the Roman settlements that turned into Mainz, Bonn and Cologne, among others.

 

notamermaid

 

The Museum der Bayerischen Geschichte in Regensburg had what I thought was a fun video introduction to Roman settlement there, however there are only a few artifacts of Roman construction around the town, mostly underground. Nothing compared to Trier, etc.   

[RDVIK2016]

13 hours ago, notamermaid said:

I like that comparison.

 

Hmm, plattdeutsch. That is something you will not hear on a German Rhine cruise as that is too far North of course, unless you spend some time in the border districts with the Netherlands, like the ports of Wesel and Emmerich. Language nerd at work: the Benrather Linie - a linguistic geographical line - near Düsseldorf divides the dialects. South is the standard German - what you are taught in school more or less, North are the Northern dialects that did not shift some time before the Middle Ages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benrath_line

Of course, almost all people in the North speak High German, but Plattdeutsch is very much spoken and can be watched on regional television.

 

To look at it another way, you can see that English and German are still sometimes very close, but there are certain characteristics that show that Anglo-Saxon and Middle High German went in a slightly different direction, meaning Low German in the North is closer to English, as the High German (modern German) evolved whereas the Low German did not or differently. It mainly affected certain consonants and happened in several phases. Vowels as well but the consonants are the more important marker. When you learn the patterns Low German gets easier to understand, but I still struggle to get more than the basic sense of a conversation.

 

notamermaid

 

Very interesting about the linguistic geography and the several lines linguists have drawn. But one should also definitely become aware of the Weißwurstäquator. 

RDVIK

[Canal archive]

Well there is one word of German that every English youngster would learn and maybe understand and that’s ‘Fhart’ a real giggle word for ever under ten. If seen on a road sign for instance could cause paroxysms of hilarity. 
My husband was speed taught German six weeks of a few hours one to one then telephone, of course now it would be over the internet. As he said it was restaurant German but enough to worry his German colleagues, they were quite convinced that their English counterparts could not understand them. I really don’t know why they were so worried their English was superb although the little asides to me to check that they were correct were really sweet.

[notamermaid]

15 hours ago, RDVIK2016 said:

Very interesting about the linguistic geography and the several lines linguists have drawn. But one should also definitely become aware of the Weißwurstäquator. 

RDVIK

Yes, that is a good one, albeit not scientific. Would you believe it, there is a Wikipedia page on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weißwurstäquator

 

6 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Well there is one word of German that every English youngster would learn and maybe understand and that’s ‘Fhart’ a real giggle word for ever under ten. If seen on a road sign for instance could cause paroxysms of hilarity. 

Tons of fahrts around on German roads: Auffahrt, Abfahrt. And Einfahrt, Ausfahrt in multi-storey car parks, etc.

 

Overall I think the English beat us to it with place names, but there are some fun ones around. Not far from the Rhine, completely benign but weird, is Katzenelnbogen, "cat's elbow(s). That made the old noble family "The Counts of Cat's Elbow" . That just demands a fairy-tale, doesn't it? 😉

Apparently, it is not sure where the name came from, may have been a connection with the Germanic Chatti tribe. Oh well...

 

The castle called "Katz" which you see next to "Maus" when sailing through the Rhine Gorge belonged to the family, Katz is shortened for Katzenelnbogen.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

19 hours ago, Canal archive said:

I wonder if they shouted insults to each other across the river?

What fun, I am trying to picture it. 😁 There is still the idea of a boundary, especially when you have no bridges right into the modern era and rely on ferries. The Schäl Sick is a Cologne area way of describing the right bank of the Rhine, usually interpreted as the "wrong" side. It is a contested explanation that it is to do with the horses pulling the ships. But it is a fact that Mainz, Koblenz, Bonn and Cologne are the cultural hubs on the left bank and on the right bank are the suburbs that those on the left bank, errrhm ((restrained cough)), may find less desirable. The left bank railway is certainly the higher ranking one.

 

Caesar by the way did tell the tribes on the right bank off for doing deeds on the left (against Roman-friendly tribes) they should not do. He crossed the Rhine twice by building wooden bridges, told them "stop doing that (roaming, harassing, stealing) or else" and returned to civilized Gaul. My way of putting it.

 

One site is most likely near the railway bridge at Engers port, called Urmitzer Brücke. On Ehrenbreitstein Fortress you can admire a reconstruction of the pile driver used: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesars_Rheinbrücken#/media/Datei:Roman_Pile_Driver,_Festung_Ehrenbreitstein,_Koblenz,_Germany.jpg

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

To be fair to the French, I need to say that we have had a strike (Warnstreik) on 21 March in the public sector. Will happen again on 27 March and could affect public transport.

 

notamermaid

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

22 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

To be fair to the French, I need to say that we have had a strike (Warnstreik) on 21 March in the public sector. Will happen again on 27 March and could affect public transport.

 

notamermaid

 

But it isn’t your National Sport…. 🤣

[notamermaid]

1 minute ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

But it isn’t your National Sport…

Nooo... You are right. That is for another nation. I actually had a French teacher in college who when she told us somebody did not like something in France and/or history "faire la grève" and raised her fist to indicate protest. Had not thought about that image for many years, it came back to me a few days ago. Grin.

 

notamermaid

 

[RDVIK2016]

5 hours ago, notamermaid said:

Yes, that is a good one, albeit not scientific. Would you believe it, there is a Wikipedia page on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weißwurstäquator

 

From the Bavarian perspective the Boarische Wikipedia explains:  "es hoasst, daß nerdlich vo dera Grenz koa echte Weißwiascht gem dad und damit aa koane echten Bayern" [aba laute Breissn]. 

Kathi has a map:  https://*****.com/yckt4k5x

[notamermaid]

I actually understood that, but then I am a little used to Bavarian. No real Bavarians, only Prussians? Ha! No way are there only Prussians. A crude, understandable, distinction. But we in the West are Rhenish (or this or that tribe, citizen, etc.). For us the Prussians are far away - kind of in a some foreign land that appears to have a city called Berlin.

 

I am a girl of the Bonn Republic, descended from Franconians and Rhenish Germanic people, with a strong affiliation to cultured Celts in Gaul. Happy to talk to Anglo-Saxons and their descendants. Obviously cannot tell if a mounted Roman soldier from Spain caught the eye of a Germanic girl in my ancestry at some point in time.

 

The map I posted above ends at Cologne, so here is the continuation, the Lower Germanic Limes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Germanic_Limes

 

Xanten was an important Roman centre, would love to see the museum there.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[RDVIK2016]

3 hours ago, notamermaid said:

I actually understood that, but then I am a little used to Bavarian. No real Bavarians, only Prussians? Ha! No way are there only Prussians. A crude, understandable, distinction. But we in the West are Rhenish (or this or that tribe, citizen, etc.). For us the Prussians are far away - kind of in a some foreign land that appears to have a city called Berlin.

 

I am a girl of the Bonn Republic, descended from Franconians and Rhenish Germanic people, with a strong affiliation to cultured Celts in Gaul. Happy to talk to Anglo-Saxons and their descendants. Obviously cannot tell if a mounted Roman soldier from Spain caught the eye of a Germanic girl in my ancestry at some point in time.

 

Notamermaid, The Boarische Wikipedia and Dahoam in Bayern do play along with the exaggerated stereotypes and friendly rivalries between Bavarians and non-Bavarians (Preissn). 

 

That puts me in the non-Bavarian category in way, because some of my ancestry traces back to the Rheinland-Pfalz. The memory of the ancestry was apparently lost by the time of my mother's generation, because she never mentioned it, but today's genealogy resources are incredible. Some of her ancestors emigrated in the 1730's from what are now the districts of Kusel and Südliche Weinstraße. My upcoming Rhine cruise is allowing me to really place those locations in their context. Recently I discovered that one of the families, named Riegel, had departed from Speyer and found a ship in Rotterdam bound for Philadelphia. What was river travel like in 1733?

 

[Canal archive]

Wooo are you attempting to inquire about a ladies age?  🤣

[RDVIK2016]

6 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Wooo are you attempting to inquire about a ladies age?  🤣

Well, after the discussion of the Roman Limes, I would have thought I was safe. 

[notamermaid]

Major strike action expected in Germany on 27 March

 

This will affect the public/services sector, including airports and trains: https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/03/23/german-unions-call-for-widespread-transport-strike-on-monday

 

It could also involve the lock in the Upper Rhine valley at Iffezheim in Germany, it has been mentioned that at least some lock personnel will be part of the strike. I have seen the North of Germany mentioned and the Neckar river. It has been reported that regional trains may run, but long distance trains are expected to be cancelled all over Germany. Local buses should run. But we will see how it goes.

 

All in all, people will have their own opinions about all this and the news be filled with voices from "the man on the street" - in Germany usually not with fires burning in the background. This is not Paris. Touch wood.

 

The weather is boring, rainy and quite windy. I can think of a better time to be in Germany than right now.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[notamermaid]

10 hours ago, RDVIK2016 said:

Notamermaid, The Boarische Wikipedia and Dahoam in Bayern do play along with the exaggerated stereotypes and friendly rivalries between Bavarians and non-Bavarians (Preissn). 

Aahh, they would. No problem. Nought like a good bit of poking fun and feeding the stereotype beast. 😉 I do, too, as you can tell.

 

10 hours ago, RDVIK2016 said:

I discovered that one of the families, named Riegel, had departed from Speyer and found a ship in Rotterdam bound for Philadelphia.

That is quite a typical time - 1730's - and area to have left for the Americas.

10 hours ago, RDVIK2016 said:

What was river travel like in 1733?

Need to think about that for a bit.

 

What I can say is that people did take a ship to Rotterdam where there was either an ocean ship already waiting or people found a place on a ship for passage while waiting in the town. We need to remember that people did not leave from Amsterdam - normally - if they came from Germany. Until well into the 20th century Rotterdam was the seaport for Germany to the West, obviously, as it is the mouth of the river Rhine. It remains a main thoroughfare and port for the shipping industry. Amsterdam was only well connected and used for river cruising - an older shipping canal existed - with the building of the Amsterdam Rhine Canal: https://www.hollandlandofwater.com/amsterdam-rijn-kanaal/

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

I have just read that the personnel of the Federal waterways is expected to be on strike in Rhineland-Palatinate. This will affect the lock at Koblenz on the Moselle and the lock on the Main at Mainz. Those are confirmed, there may be other disruptions. Buses operated by Deutsche Bahn may also not run.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

On 3/26/2023 at 4:23 AM, RDVIK2016 said:

What was river travel like in 1733?

In the absence of steam technology, which came to the Rhine in 1816, river travel was different. I am not sure how travel for individual travellers was organized. Goods have been transported on a regular basis on the Rhine since Roman times. From Cologne upstream travel and transport was aided by horses due to the strong current and therefore slow, so people may have taken a carriage or walked upstream and took the ship downstream. William Turner walked from Cologne, for example, but Lord Byron took a ship. People leaving the country took ships as well, not sure how regularly. I have read a story of emigrants from the Westerwald hills boarding a ship in Neuwied - the nearest port. Such stories are described in books that focus on emigration.

 

You can learn about life along the Middle Rhine in the museum in Koblenz-Ehrenbreitstein. Apparently they offer an app with English audio guide: https://www.rhein-museum.de/besucher-infos

 

Oh, and the Rhine was still in its natural bed in the 1700's. In Winter the river froze, ice floats during the thaw were a great hazard.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

To all those interested in German-speaking ancestry. If you have looked into this topic you may well know this website already, but perhaps you have just started researching: https://www.palam.org/

 

I have read the book "Becoming German" by Philip Otterness and found it quite fascinating.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Furball83]

On 2/16/2023 at 6:53 AM, notamermaid said:

Alaaf and helau to you! Or any other "rallying cry", I mean greeting, you may encounter or use at this time of year. Today is Weiberfastnacht here, my office is closed, time to get cheeky and annoying, girls! Or just joyous. Or legless if you feel the need to... It is the day for the ladies traditionally, so all men watch out! 😁

 

They say the tradition started in Bonn, in the district of Beuel, with the washer women. https://www.bonn.de/microsite/en/events-calendar/events/main-calendar/eigene/womens-carnival-day.php

 

Not in Bonn, but closer to home, I hope to be able to watch a storming of the town hall. It is time for the folk to capture the mayor and fools to take over the administration of the place for a few days. Now I will bite my tongue, you know, who are the actual fools, those in the street or those sitting on office chairs...

🤡🥸🥳

 

notamermaid

 

P.S.: Still think Germans are efficient, humourless, etc.? Come at Carnival to the Rhineland and prepare to be amazed.

 

 

 

My grandmother was from Germany, and I never underestimated her sense of humor!🤣