> favoring the dialect predominantly spoken in Prussia
Was it though? Historically Low German was spoken in Brandenburg (and the rest of pre 1800s Kingdom of Prussia). Standard German is a High German language closely related to the dialects in Saxony/Thuringia etc. (thanks to Luther) and predates Prussia's status as a major German power by a few centuries or so.
Paradoxically in the 1600s and 1700s Prussia invested a lot of effort into replacing in replacing its local dialects with Standard German (which by modern standards was effectively an entirely foreign language to most people living there. I think technically even Dutch/Flemish might be closer to Standard German than Eastern Low German was).
Austrians, Bavarians etc. didn't really need to do the same since it was already much easier for them to 'learn' Standard German if they needed to (and of course its association with Protestantism played a role initially)
It's a bit like if Scotland replaced Scots with Shakespearean English, then proceeded to takeover the rest of Britain and moved its capital to Edinburgh.
Was it though? Historically Low German was spoken in Brandenburg (and the rest of pre 1800s Kingdom of Prussia). Standard German is a High German language closely related to the dialects in Saxony/Thuringia etc. (thanks to Luther) and predates Prussia's status as a major German power by a few centuries or so.
Paradoxically in the 1600s and 1700s Prussia invested a lot of effort into replacing in replacing its local dialects with Standard German (which by modern standards was effectively an entirely foreign language to most people living there. I think technically even Dutch/Flemish might be closer to Standard German than Eastern Low German was).
Austrians, Bavarians etc. didn't really need to do the same since it was already much easier for them to 'learn' Standard German if they needed to (and of course its association with Protestantism played a role initially)
It's a bit like if Scotland replaced Scots with Shakespearean English, then proceeded to takeover the rest of Britain and moved its capital to Edinburgh.