@Finn dAbuzz,
Finn dAbuzz wrote:Whether the German spoken in Germany is identical or only similar to the German spoken in Austria is immaterial in the context of Obama's comment.
They don't speak Austrian in Austria.
There's a good chance that people (both Austrians and Germans) will actually refer to the language as
, even if you're going to insist that it's really just a written dialect. Similarly, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are really just dialects of a North Germanic language.
Just because both Americans and Brits refer to the language they write and speak as 'English' doesn't mean the same's true for dialects or variations of every other language that's being spoken in more than one country.
Finn dAbuzz wrote:It's a simple mistake and not indicative of anything important about Obama.
I'm really not concerned about this one way or the other.