entertainer
Ina Müller even dreams on Platt
Ina Müller stands by her north German origins. As a child she could not speak High German. Photo: Swen Pförtner/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
She comes from a village in the far north. Until she started school, she only spoke Low German, she says. She has not forgotten the language.
The singer Ina Müller (56) even dreams on Platt. «Yes, today I love the language, I speak Platt with my whole family, I dream in Platt, I can even sing better in Platt. So technically better, higher and lower and with more feeling anyway,” said Müller of the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”.
In her village school in Lower Saxony in the 1970s, however, Platt was a deficit for her. “At that time, the first class sat in the front rows, the second in the back, and then we were divided again – into “flat” on one side and “high” on the other side,” said the singer, who was the fourth of grew up with five daughters on a farm in Köhlen, Lower Saxony.
It was very uncomfortable for her that she couldn’t speak High German. “Up until I started school, I had only spoken Low German. And back then it was clear: anyone who chats flat comes from a farm. The more educated parents in our village would never have spoken flatly to their children. But my parents couldn’t speak good standard German at all,” said the moderator, who now lives in Hamburg.