That said, not only was his use of ‘demotic’ entirely proper, but you also imply that you’re not chatting up the locals very much yourself. When you speak schoolboy German to a Swiss native, you do not get Schwyzerdütsch in return. You may get high German, Italian-accented German, or the amusingly hostile fiction that said native only speaks French.

Moreover, Schwyzerdütsch is hardly incomprehensible. It’s a strong accent that includes some nonstandard vocabulary at which you can guess from context. It takes a little doing to parse without effort, but spend a few weeks hearing nothing else and you’ll be fine. The real trick isn’t understanding it, it’s speaking it.

2. In general sense: Of, pertaining or proper to, the common people; popular, vulgar. Also as n.
1831 SYD. SMITH Wks. (1859) II. 220/1 Demotic habits will be more common in a country where the rich are forced to court the poor for political power. 1872 O. W. HOLMES Poet Breakf.-t. viii. (1885) 189 The one..does what in demotic phrase is called the ‘sarsing’. 1881 Times 26 Apr. 4/1 There is nothing in the position that the demotic mind can apprehend. 1922 T. S. ELIOT Waste Land 212 Mr Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant..Asked me in demotic French To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel. 1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 17 Jan. 30/3 Mr Amis’s attitudes as a writer are not so demotic as his choice of terms seems to pretend. There is a suggestion of linguistic slumming, tweedy slanginess. 1961 Listener 30 Mar. 573/3 In fact advertising has, of necessity, to use simple, forceful, easily understandable words{em}‘demotic’ language, as Mr Whitehead might call it. 1967 R. MABEY Class 110 Not only did ITV develop the popular touch{em}it nurtured those diverse speech tones and accents which belonged naturally to the more demotic channel. 1968 A. COWAN Fortunately in England 162 An occasional class of boys would do their best to add a gaiety of their own by singing unusual and demotic versions of such songs as Men of Harlech. 1969 R. HEPPENSTALL Portrait of Artist as Professional Man 101 To a north countryman of demotic antecedents like myself, Louis’s background, manner and social attitudes were characteristically southern English upper-middle class. 1970 C. P. SNOW Last Things 7 At that stage, he had a knack of speaking what he thought of as American demotic.