Session 2 May 1998

[forge]

Something strange going on in a couple of Gallus' works.

Especially in Ecce quomodo moritur. Check out the strange effect it produces in you even with different choirs:
Choir 1:
_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q03gmomyTBY&feature=related
Choir 2:
_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXetEt6Rdlg&feature=related
Choir 3:
_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vuN1sOkUvU&feature=related
Choir 4:
_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFBk1MGhYjE&feature=related
Choir 5:
_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHISjWRu-Fo&feature=related

Also in Subsannatores subsannabit Deus. High quality recording and performance.
_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VixJRAaCMec&feature=related

Ascendit Deus sounds at places like the trumpet recordings :)
"God is gone up with a shout,
the LORD with the sound of a trumpet."
_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrqG8yuDItI&feature=related

 

[truth seeker]

Not sure if any of this is significant.

Q: Can you comment on Pannonia in general? Is it in any way significant? This lake Neusiedl?
A: Eiswein: Eisenstadt.

I thought it was interesting that both words have the same beginning but mean two different things:

http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/etymology.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/ie/piet&text_number=+409&root=config

Basically, it seems to mean glacier, wet, cold or soaked. Breaking it down to just "ei", it can mean strong depending upon the country.

In wondering what the connection was, I looked up iron glacier and found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Falls

One of the things this reminded me of was the recently posted ringing rocks story:

http://www.davidhanauer.com/buckscounty/ringingrocks/

So perhaps if the area contains a lot of minerals, maybe it's conducive to sound?

Q: Now, in reference to your question to me: 'where is Arcadia,' that I need to look at this some more, I was reading in Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks, and he was recounting that the Franks who colonized along the Rhine in the area about which we are seeking clues, came from an area called Pannonia. I looked up Pannonia. It is in Eastern Austria and crosses the border into Hungary. In Pannonia there are vineyards. It is a very famous grape growing and wine making area. A statement from the 4th century says: 'Pannonia is a land rich in all resources and fruits, beasts and commerce.' Pannonia is also the location of an interesting lake. The lake is called Neusiedl, or 'New Town.' This is the only 'steppe lake' in all of Europe. It is only six feet deep at it's deepest point and is a giant, shallow sweet body of water surrounded on the Eastern bank by marshlands, numerous salty ponds and pools. Apparently, this place produces a very fine environment for grapes and wine, in particular a type of wine called 'Eiswein.' This Eiswein is called 'The treasure of liquid gold.' It says here: 'the production of Eiswein remains the winemakers ultimate challenge.' Only a small amount of this wine is produced. Etomologically speaking, Pannonia is probably named after the God 'Pan,' and that derived from Sylvanus, the 'Shepherd God.' So, all in one spot, we have shepherds, a wine called liquid gold, a lake called Neusiedl, and an 'Arcadian environment.' Can you tell me if there is any particular significance to my discovery of the terms relating to this area from whence came the Franks to the Rhineland? Is this, in fact, Arcadia?
A: Arcadia is a crossroads for the one Essene, the Aryan one of Trent.

In addition to this being an actual place, there seems to be a lot of symbolism in that passage.

edit: clarity

 

[mkrnhr]

The mention of the white house and and Washington DC as related to certain artifact made me think about Alan Butler and Christopher Knight interviews. I found a fun page _http://www.washingtondcschamberofsecrets.com/
In a radio interview they talk about an organization that is "higher" than the 33degree masons and its possible relation to a Nordic society. They also mention briefly that the metallic hats used to give extra psychic powers to these ancients Nordics. It could be also a very false trail altogether though.

 

[Palinurus]

On this 'handl' business - while searching for more info about electrophonic sounds I happened upon the Handle System of which I have never heard before.

Here are the relevant links in case anybody would be interested:

_http://www.handle.net/index.html

_http://hdl.handle.net/

_http://www.cnri.reston.va.us/

Welcome to the Handle System

Current Release — Version 7.0

The Handle System provides efficient, extensible, and secure resolution services for unique and persistent identifiers of digital objects, and is a component of CNRI's Digital Object Architecture. Digital Object Architecture provides a means of managing digital information in a network environment. A digital object has a machine and platform independent structure that allows it to be identified, accessed and protected, as appropriate. A digital object may incorporate not only informational elements, i.e., a digitized version of a paper, movie or sound recording, but also the unique identifier of the digital object and other metadata about the digital object. The metadata may include restrictions on access to digital objects, notices of ownership, and identifiers for licensing agreements, if appropriate.

The Handle System includes an open set of protocols, a namespace, and a reference implementation of the protocols. The protocols enable a distributed computer system to store identifiers, known as handles, of arbitrary resources and resolve those handles into the information necessary to locate, access, contact, authenticate, or otherwise make use of the resources. This information can be changed as needed to reflect the current state of the identified resource without changing its identifier, thus allowing the name of the item to persist over changes of location and other related state information. Some examples of applications that use HDL® identifier and resolution services as infrastructure are rights management applications, digital object registries and repositories, and institutional data preservation and archiving.

Can't make heads nor tails of it, so fwiw.

 

[Muxel]

If Handl's true birthplace was Šentviška Gora, that would be in present-day Northwest Slovenia. Which, prior to Roman invasion, was Celtic area1. They were known as the Taurisci2. His Latinized name already contains all the clues: Jacobus Gallus Carniolus. "Gallus = rooster" is a red herring. Take Gallus to be the Latin singular of Galli3, and what do you have? "A Celt"! Or, "Jacob the Celt"! Carniola4 was the area inhabited by the Taurisci. Now you have "Jacob the Celt from Carniola"!


References
1 _http://illyria.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=slovenijaslovenia&action=print&thread=11011
2 John Thomas Koch, Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia

Groups left the central European area known to have been inhabited by Celtic-speaking tribes in the earlier Iron Age and migrated, virtually simultaneously, in several directions, including into northern Italy and towards the Balkans. They brought obvious changes of material culture, and probably of language, to south-eastern Europe, particularly to the west and central Balkans. Towards the end of 4th century BC, they reached the Danubian Iron Gates, in present-day Bulgaria, as well as Transylvania, in present-day Romania.

3 _http://fsos.com/celtic_history.htm

Modern France is a composite of many earlier peoples. The Celts settled there and the largest tribe, called the "Galli" by the Romans, gave their name to the region and people, the Gauls. The Gauls were heavily involved in the invasions of Northern Italy. When the Roman Empire expanded many of the Gaullish tribes fled, but some stayed and became Romanized, losing the Celtic language. Later a Germanic tribe, the Franks, invaded the area and settled. The Franks gave their name to the region but adopted the language and customs of the people. Thus France is a Celtic people, speaking a Romance language in a country with a Germanic name.

4 _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurisci

 

[Muxel]

It all comes down to Iron.

[quote author=_http://fsos.com/celtic_history.htm]The original Celtic homeland was an area of Austria, near southern Germany.[/quote]
Southern Germany is where the "highlands" are. (The people speak "High German".) Alfalfa grows in the "German highlands". Alfalfa is rich in Iron.
[quote author=_http://garden.lifetips.com/cat/7402/soils/index.html]Alfalfa is a perennial with strong deep-reaching roots. It fixes the soil with nitrogen, accumulates iron, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium.[/quote]
Does that mean alfalfa's deep-reaching roots "draw up" iron from deep within the earth?
[quote author=_http://fsos.com/celtic_history.htm]
The Hallstatt Culture

This was the first of the Iron Age cultures. The western regions of this culture, between France and west Germany, already spoke a Celtic language. Around the year 600 BC the Greek geographer Herodotus writes of the Celts dwelling beyond the "Pillars of Hercules" (i.e. Spain) and the Upper Danube. The name "Celt" probably came from the dominant tribe of the Hallstatt, and became a unifying concept for the whole culture.[/quote]
Lake Neusiedl (once part of the Pannonian Sea) was first inhabited by the Hallstatt culture (Early Iron Age). City of Iron (Eisenstadt)!

There appears to be some confusion between "Ice" and "Iron" so here's what I dug up:
[quote author=_http://starling.rinet.ru/]
Germanic: "*īs"
Proto-IE: *ayes-
Meaning: metal, ore (copper, magnetic)
Old Indian: áyas- n. `iron, metal'
Avestan: ayaŋh- n. 'Metall, Eisen'
Germanic: *aiz-a- n.; *ī́sarn-a-, *īzarn-a- n.; *aiz-ug-a-z m.
Latin: aes, gen. aeris n. `Erz, Bronze, Kupfer, Geld'
Other Italic: Umbr ahesnes `aenis'
Celtic: *īsarno-: Gaul pl.Isarnodori gl. `ferrei ostii'; Isarnum; OIr iarnn; OBret Iserninus (Männername); Cymr hayarn, Corn hoern
Russ. meaning: металл, руда (медная, железная)

Proto-IE: *īs- (?)
Meaning: pelvis, hip, hip-bone
Old Greek: iskhío-n n. `Hüftgelenk, Hüfte', ískhi = osphǘs (Hsch.)
Germanic: *ī́s=
Russ. meaning: тазобедренное что-то

Proto-Germanic: *ī́s=
Meaning: hip-bone
English: dial. ice-bone
Old Saxon: īs-been
Middle Dutch: īse-ben, ijs-been `heupbeen, heiligbeen'
Dutch: ijsbeen n. `dijsbeen in een varkensham'
Middle Low German: īs-been
Old High German: { īs-pein }
[/quote]
Note: Isern (Celtic), Eisen (Germanic) — connotes "metallic".
Isn't it curious that "hip bone" cropped up? Jacob's hip...Jacobus Handl...?
Now we have: Ice, Iron, Hip bone.

From truth seeker's link:
[quote author=_http://starling.rinet.ru/]
Proto-IE: *eig'-
Meaning: ice-floe, icicle
Hittite: eka- n. 'Eis?', ekuna-, ikuna- 'kalt' (Tischler 103, 105)
Slavic: [ *jьkrā `льдина' - с глухим под влиянием прочих "икр" ? ]
Baltic: *eĩǯ-iā̃, *eĩǯ-ia- c., *iǯ-ā̂ f., *iǯ-a- c.
Germanic: *jik-an- m., *jik-il-a-, -ul-a- m.
Celtic: MIr aig, gen. ega f. `Eis'; Cymr iā m. `Eis', iaen `glacicula'; OCorn iey gl. `glaties', iein gl. `frigus'; MCorn yeyn, yen `kalt'; Bret ien `kalt'
Russ. meaning: льдина, сосулька
[/quote]
I don't feel that "Ice" applies here. The results show "Eis" is found in two Celtic languages and one Hittite language. However the "Eis" we want is a Germanic one, if that makes any sense. So, I think "Eis" comes from the Germanic "*īs". Which makes sense because then "Eisen" would be the adjective form of "Eis".

"But eiswein translates to ice wine—it says so on Wikipedia!" you exclaim. "Not so," answered I. Ice wine is basically the grapes being left out to freeze so a more concentrated wine can be produced. Raisins are a recommended source of dietary iron for anemics; they're more "efficient" than grapes because they've been dehydrated. One could say the iron has been "concentrated". Same with eiswein—would it be a stretch to say that it's iron wine because it's concentrated?

Celts, Iron, Faerie. Any fellow Terry Pratchett fan here remember "iron in the head" from Lords and Ladies?

 

[cassandra]

High German is spoken all over Germany. Every area has its own dialect, some very hard to understand. Here in Bavaria lots of people speak "Bayerisch" as well as High German or Hochdeutsch. High German is always used in schools, and these days most people communicate in Hochdeutsch. I would have problems understanding someone from East Germany, unless he spoke High German. Hell, I used to have problems understanding Bavarian. My husband uses both.
In the old days, before Bismarck, Germany was split up into kingdoms. High German was used as the standard language to communicate.

 

[Muxel]

A couple more.

[quote author=_http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/isern]
Noun
īsern n (nominative plural īsern)
[list type=decimal]
[*]the metal iron
[*]an instrument or tool made from iron, especially an iron sword
[*]an iron shackle or fetter
[/list]

Adjective
īsern
[list type=decimal]
[*]consisting or made of iron
[/list]

Etymology
From Proto-Germanic *īsarnan, probably from Proto-Celtic *īsarno-. Cognates include Old Saxon īsarn (Dutch ijzer), Old High German īsarn (German Eisen), Old Norse ísarn, járn (Danish jern or jærn, Swedish järn), Gothic (eisarn), Old Irish īärn (Irish iarann, Welsh haearn). The Celtic source was related to Latin aes ("bronze").
[/quote]
I wonder why "bronze" comes into this:
[list type=decimal]
[*]The Bronze Age preceded the Iron Age, and bronze is a copper alloy, so the "Aes/Eisen/Isern"-type words may have originally meant "copper"? (Perhaps during the mining craze for copper, like in Wisconsin.) And these words somehow carried over into the Iron Age to mean "iron"? (Maybe they ran out of copper.)
[*]The "Aes/Eisen/Isern"-type words could mean crystallized/concentrated/hardened? Eiswein = concentrated wine. Prime alchemical matter = heavy water (which is basically water that is concentrated via means like electrolysis to get a high percentage of deuterium). Ice and glaciers. Interesting what "glacial" means in Chemistry: for example, "glacial acetic acid" means anhydrous acetic acid—no water in it, just pure 100% concentrated acetic acid. Metals like copper and iron. Would it be farfetched to include crystallization of the soul?
[*]I'm not sure if "Isern" is really Celtic, or borrowed into Celtic from Latin. For example, Saint Iserninus (an Irish missionary) was originally called Fith. It was common at the time to give Latinized names to Irish clergy. If "Isern" isn't Celtic, it might mean Celts adopted iron from their foes/neighbors. ("Make up your mind Celts, did you like 4D-copper or 3D-iron?")
[/list]

Okay I'll stop now and see what you guys have to say. :D
Sorry for the lengthy posts, the quotes make them so long...


Timeline excerpt:
[quote author=_http://www.gallica.co.uk/celts/timeline.htm]

1200 BC	Start of the Bronze Age Urnfield Culture in central Europe.
1000—750 BC	Proto-Celtic people of the Urnfield culture dominate much of Continental Europe. Also start to spread out over northern Asia as far as the frontiers of China. Development of the deliberate smelting of iron in the Middle East and China around the same time. Prompting the title "the Iron Age" for this period.
700—500 BC	Hallstatt culture develops in Austria.
700 BC	Early Celts in Austria bury iron swords with their dead.
600 BC	Greeks found the colony of Massilia, opening up trade between the Celts of inland Europe and the Mediterranean. First evidence of Britain having a name—Albion—(albino, white—called after the chalk cliffs of Dover). A major rebuild of old Bronze Age defences, and construction of new hill forts takes place in Britain.

[/quote]

 

[truth seeker]

Okay, throwing two more bits in that may or may not be relevant. I've been going over this the last couple of days and while I think I'm seeing connections, after awhile, it becomes clearer that everything is connected in some way which makes it harder to find the beginning of the thread. Parts in teal mine.

One possibility is Hortobágy:

Hortobágy (Hungarian pronunciation: [ɦortobaːɟ]) is both the name of a village in Hajdú-Bihar county and an 800 km² national park in Eastern Hungary, rich with folklore and cultural history. The park, a part of the Alföld (Great Plain), was designated as a national park in 1973 (the first in Hungary), and elected among the World Heritage sites in 1999.[1] The Hortobágy is Hungary's largest protected area, and the largest natural grassland in Europe.[2]

Hortobágy is a steppe, a grassy plain with cattle, sheep, oxen, and horses, tended by herdsmen, and it provides habitat for various species (342 bird species have been documented, including the Common Crane, Dotterel, Stone Curlew and Great Bustard). One of its most iconic sites is the Nine-holed Bridge. Traditional T-shaped sweep wells dot the landscape, as well as the occasional mirage of trees shimmering in the reflected heat of the Puszta.

Until recently it was believed that this alkaline steppe was formed by the clear cutting of huge forests in the Middle Ages, followed by measures to control the course of the Tisza River, allegedly resulting in the soil's current structure and pH. However, Hortobágy is much older, with alkalinization estimated to have started ten thousand years ago, when the Tisza first found its way through the Great Hungarian Plain (this is the largest part of the Pannonian Plain), cutting off many streams from their sources in the Northern Mountains. The formation was finished by grazing animals, mastodons, and wild horses during the Ice Age, followed by domesticated animals.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hortob%C3%A1gy

Three rivers of the Hortobágy is considered to be important: the Hortobágy, the Árkus and the Kadarcs. As a fourth one, the Tisza can be mentioned even if it only touches the north-western corner of the Ohat puszta by a 1200-metre-long stretch.

The shepherds of the Hortobágy form a determining part of the traditionalist community that the ethnographic literature calls "the shepherds' order". In case of the Hortobágy the shepherds were carriers and vivifiers of a particular culture more archaic than that of the peasants until the middle of the 20th century.

The most important tool of shepherding is the stick. The rangeman does not use it. The shepherd makes himself it from the offshoot of a chosen oak, dogwood, plum- or pear-tree.

Shepherds' Art of the Hortobágy

Ottó Herman introduced the concept of shepherds' art in the ethnographic literature in 1892. In his study he differentiated between shepherds' arts of the Great Plain, the highlands, the Transdanubian and the Transylvanian variants. In 1940 Gábor Lükő investigated the psychic basis of this art, he characterized its style and motifs. He claimed that the shepherds' art of the Hortobágy is essentially similar to the Hungarian folk-art. Its merit is that it conserved the carving and engraving art of the Great Plain. A surplus of its merits is that it preserved the technical and formal treasures of the decorative art of the Magyars of the Conquest for more than a millennium, in such patterns like the tree of life, spinning-rose, chalice, etc. that were only partially conserved in other artistic creations. Its artistic merit is its individual nature.

http://www.hnp.hu/78-210.php

More on Otto Herman:

Ottó Herman (1835 - 1914) is one of the most adventuresome Hungarian scientists of the 2nd half of the 19th century and the turn of the century, who publicly declared to have been born in Alsó-Hámor (Lower-Hámor), though, actually, he was born in Breznóbánya, Zólyom county, but then his parents soon moved to Hámor. It was here that the relationship between the would-be scientist and nature came to life. "He did not think of changing his name for a Hungarian one in time, so he found a Hungarian birthplace for himself. He wanted to be a native of the Bükk Mountains, so he made his contemporaries believe that he had really been born there", writes Kálmán Lambrecht (1889 - 1936), one of his most prominent disciples, the famous Hungarian palaeontologist.

http://www.lillafured.org/kalauz_en.html

It's said in this guide (link below) that the flora and fauna of this are is unique to the Plain (page 69). The central european area contains the Pendunculate Oak (page 70).
http://books.google.com/books?id=NJNODA_0IOgC&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq=the+%C3%81rkus+river&source=bl&ots=BEYjAqh5Gt&sig=PuormY9Jcp1Vb3NEyogc-G4DL_8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_lAnT__nGMzhggfZ3czcBA&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=the%20%C3%81rkus%20river&f=false

Lucern/alfalfa is also said to grow here (page 78).

 

[Graalsword]

The tribe of the Carni seems to be a Venetic tribe(indoeuropeans), that is, of the same group of peoples than the ancestors of current inhabitants of Venice. They have the same name than the celtic Veneti of Armorica, however historians consider them a different people that happened to have the same tribal name. It could be just coincidence, but it is too similar to be just coincidence and unrelated. Both being seafaring people.

_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carni

The Carni (Greek Καρνίοι) were a tribe of the Eastern Alps in classical antiquity, settling in the mountains separating Noricum and Venetia.

They are usually considered a Gaulish tribe,[1] although some associate them with the Venetic peoples, a group closely related to but probably distinct from the Celts.[2] Their area of settlement isn't known with precision. Strabo confines them to the mountains, while Ptolemy assigns them two cities near the Adriatic coast. They are likely eponymous of the regions of Carnia, Carniola and Carinthia.[3]

The first historical date related to the arrival of the Carni is 186 BC, when some 50,000 Carni, composed of armed men, women and children, descended towards the plains (in which they previously used to winter) and on a hill they founded a stable defensive settlement, Akileja.

The Romans forced back the Carni to the mountains, they destroyed their settlement and they founded a defensive settlement at the north-east boundaries. The new settlement was named Aquileia, after the former Celtic name Akileja.

_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriatic_Veneti

The ancient Veneti spoke Venetic, an extinct Indo-European language which is attested in approximately 300 short inscriptions dating from the 6th to 1st centuries BC. Venetic appears to share several similarities with Latin and the Italic languages, but also has some affinities with other IE languages, especially Germanic and Celtic. Venetic should not be confused with Venetian, a Romance language presently spoken in the region.

In Italy, these ancient people are also referred to as Paleoveneti to distinguish them from the modern-day inhabitants of the Veneto region, called Veneti in Italian.[2] They are unrelated to the Gaulish Veneti, a Celtic tribe formerly living on the coast of Brittany, despite confusion by classical scholar Strabo (see the History section below).
[...]
The origins of the Veneti are not completely formed and is a much debated topic. However some scholars link them with the Illyrians.[5] An expert on the language of the Veneti, Karl Pauli, has declared that the language is mostly related to that of the Illyrians than any other language.[6] A people called the Enetoi (Eneti) is mentioned by Homer (who lived ca. 850 BC) in the Iliad, as inhabiting Paphlagonia on the southern coast of the Black Sea in the time of the Trojan War (ca. 1200 BC). The Paphlagonians are listed among the allies of the Trojans in the war, where their king Pylaemanes and his son Harpalion perished.[7]

Roman historian Titus Livius (59 BC – AD 17), himself a native of the Veneti town of Patavium, claims that Trojan leader Antenor, together with a large number of Paphlagonians who had been expelled from their homeland by a revolution, migrated to the northern end of the Adriatic coast, where they later merged with indigenous people known as the Euganei.

_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneti_%28Gaul%29

The Veneti were a seafaring Celtic people who lived in the Brittany peninsula (France), which in Roman times formed part of an area called Armorica. They gave their name to the modern city of Vannes.
[...]
The Veneti inhabited southern Armorica, along the Morbihan bay. They built their strongholds on coastal eminences, which were islands when the tide was in, and peninsulas when the tide was out. Their most notable city, and probably their capital, was Darioritum (now known as Gwened in Breton or Vannes in French), mentioned in Ptolemy's Geography.

The Carnac megaliths are in the area of the gaulish Veneti. And the Carni are a tribe of the Adriatic veneti. Couls there be any connection there?

Also -though maybe totally unrelated- carni and carniola are very similar to the spanish word 'carne', which means 'meat' :D

 

[Eboard10]

The Carnac megaliths are in the area of the gaulish Veneti. And the Carni are a tribe of the Adriatic veneti. Couls there be any connection there?

Also -though maybe totally unrelated- carni and carniola are very similar to the spanish word 'carne', which means 'meat' :D

'Carne' is the word for 'meat' in Italian too.

The word Carni probably derives from the root Karn- (rock) of the Carno-Celtic language.

http://www.cjargne.it/storia.htm (it's in Italian)

The word Akileja, settlement of the Carni tribe, seems to derive from carno-celtic 'akiljs' which means 'deep', like the waters of the nearby river Natissa.

(added) The settlement was renamed Aquileia by the Romans due to its strong assonance with the Roman eagle (aquila).

 

[Graalsword]

(added) The settlement was renamed Aquileia by the Romans due to its strong assonance with the Roman eagle (aquila).

Oh, I hadn't thought of the word aquila/eagle, I had just made the connection with Achilles. Thanks for the imput.

 

[truth seeker]

Looking more into alfalfa/lucerne. The link below has several references:

French luzerne, from Provençal luzerno, glowworm (perhaps from its shiny seeds), from Latin lucerna, lamp, from lūcēre, to shine; see "lucid"

http://www.memidex.com/lucerne

 

[Mr. Premise]

High German is now spoken all over Germany, but originally it was the chancery language developed in medieval Southern Germany, while the chancery language of the lowlands of Northern Germany was Low German or Niederdeutsch (similar to today's Dutch). So originally High German was the official written language of Southern Germany or the German highlands.

High German is spoken all over Germany. Every area has its own dialect, some very hard to understand. Here in Bavaria lots of people speak "Bayerisch" as well as High German or Hochdeutsch. High German is always used in schools, and these days most people communicate in Hochdeutsch. I would have problems understanding someone from East Germany, unless he spoke High German. Hell, I used to have problems understanding Bavarian. My husband uses both.
In the old days, before Bismarck, Germany was split up into kingdoms. High German was used as the standard language to communicate.

 

[cassandra]

Thanks, Mr. Premise for correcting my mistake! Sorry folks.