Why, therefore, do I believe that the Bavarians should also be included on the list? Well, it's like this. So far, this year has been pretty quiet and August was the quietest month since I started translating. Which means I watched an awful lot of German TV - not live, but in the archives. At one point, I hit upon Die Rosenheim Cops, a police series set in the quaint town of Rosenheim, about an hour's drive from Munich, with a view of craggy mountains in the south.
Having been going for 23 series, it's got over 555 episodes and hundreds of them are to be found on the so-called "Mediathek" (or archive) of the ARD TV channel.
It is my stated aim to eventually be able to understand the Bavarian accent and dialect of some of the characters without having to resort to the subtitles. After a few hundred episodes, I'm slowly getting there.
What is striking, however, is how many of the people involved in each episode - the staff at the police station, the murder victims and anyone capable of being suspected - is described as being single, childless and living alone. Given that there is at least one murder victim an episode and that nearly everyone else isn't reproducing, then surely the Bavarians are soon doomed to die out, to become as extinct as the renowned and once prolific dodo.
We must do something to prevent the death and extinction of the Bavrians, their accent, dialect, gastronomic delights and culture. So, quick, put them on The Red List and let's see what conservation ides we can come up with to save the Bavarians.
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