The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the German ChancellorOtto von Bismarck sought the imprisonment of Admiral Reinhold Werner, who nearly precipitated a war between Spanish rebels and Germany in 1873?
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Latest comment: 13 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
The article says he was given the nickname Schweizer (Swiss), as his North German shipmates found his accent to be particularly foreign compared to their native Plattdeutsch.
He was born in Weferlingen, a place in North Germany and a place where Plattdeutsch is spoken too. Even if despite his place of birth he was raised with High German only his accent should have been the same North Germans are used to. So there must be more about his language that earned him his nickname. The article should tell us that. --::Slomox::><12:05, 7 October 2011 (UTC)Reply
I tried to look it up and in Erinnerungen und Bilder aus dem Seeleben, p. 7, Reinhold von Werner himself gives an account of the origin of his nickname. The first day he entered a ship as a simple hand-deck to be he had problems understanding the Low German-speaking boatswain. Von Werner says he could understand most of it but not everything. He probably grew up in a High German-speaking household, but it's almost impossible that he didn't pick up at least a passive knowledge of Low German in Weferlingen. Most likely also active knowledge. His problems with understanding the boatswain probably stemmed from the nautical lingo of the boatswain (he gives an example how the boatswain told him to pick up Spikers (nails) and von Werner has no idea what is meant because nails usually are called Nagels outside nautical lingo). And if von Werner answered Low German questions in High German that's a good explanation why the boatswain called him Schweizer (or Swiezer in Low German). So after this first day on the ship the boatswain sticked with calling him 'Swiss' instead of using his name.
So his language wasn't actually that particularly foreign, he just had the bad luck of meeting a grumpy boatswain who exaggerated his understanding problems. --::Slomox::><17:28, 7 October 2011 (UTC)Reply
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