Re: Ivo Andric

jimcolli@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote: 
Paul Ilechko wrote:

JimC wrote:


(With respect to Keller - I don't think there is a translation into
English, but it is written in standard German rather than, as one
might suppose, the uncomprehensible Swiss dialect.)


I presume you mean "incomprehensible" ... but to who? Not to the Swiss,
surely.


To whom?

Exactly ;-) 

("Uncomprehensible" seems to be one of those American inventions, like
"flammable", that are created because the average idiot can't comprehend
the meaning of words that start with the prefix "in")



No, I did intend uncomprehensible, and had thought about it for a few
seconds.  It doesn't carry an additional connotation of "unfathomable"
as in, "I could not make a bit of sense out of his mostly Swiss
vocabulary.
It wasn't merely South German.  It was beyond anything in my
expanded Cassell's.  It was incomprehensible."

That isn't what I meant.  What I meant was, I don't comprehend
Swiss.  Maybe the gradation is too fine.


But unfortunately "uncomprehensible" is appearing as a synonym of "incomprehensible", without your interesting shades of meaning.
.

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