Swiss German (Collaborative writing) Language Learning Forum

Swiss German
Tags: Swiss-German
Language Learning Forum : Collaborative writing

manna Groupie Kyrgyzstan Joined 7261 days ago 94 posts - 112 votes	Message 1 of 4 23 March 2005 at 4:31am \| IP Logged
	In case this if of interest, here's a beginning for Swiss German. INTRODUCTION Contrary to common understanding, there is not one single Swiss German dialect. There are a variation of Alemannic dialects used in the German speaking part. As a learner of German, the Swiss dialects may be surprisingly different, maybe initially completely incomprehensible. After a while, learners tend to find some patterns in how the pronunciation varies, but indigenous words are more difficult to learn. There are a relatively large number of French loan word. USEFULNESS Useful only in the German speaking part of Switzerland. Everyone learns standard German at school, although not everyone is comfortable speaking it. The different dialects in different regions may be offputting at first, but it's the only way to dive deeply into the culture. English is widely spoken in Switzerland, and many people are keen to show off their skills. CHIC FACTOR Swiss German is not a common language to learn, it's probably more exotic than many others. Learn to pronounce the notorious 'Chuchich�schtli' and your hosts in Switzerland will be impressed. ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE Negligible. TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES Switzerland, and then only the German speaking part. COUNTRIES Switzerland, Liechtenstein, along the borders in Austria and Germany. SPEAKERS About 4.5 million. VARIATIONS There are regional variations which are very distinct from each other. The main dialects are of the north west (Basel), the western region, the area around Berne, the area around Fribourg, the Valais, the Ticino, central Switzerland (Lucerne), north east and Liechtenstein, as well as around Zurich. CULTURE Swiss German is closely linked to cultural traditions in the country. Just like there are local customs, there are local variations. There is a great deal of local music, traditional folk songs, and poetry in Swiss German. Knowing the local language is a key to these treasures. DIFFICULTIES Hard to get any learning material. GRAMMAR Compared to standard German, Swiss German comes with a radically simplified grammar. For example, there are only three tenses: present simple, present perfect, and conditional. There is no genitive cause in Swiss German, and the accusative and nominative case look the same. Relative clauses are simplified using a simple word 'wo'. The syntax is freer than in standard German, and sometimes subject to small regional variations. PRONUNCIATION There are many regional variations. The 'ch' pronunciation is well known beyond the borders of the country. The pronunciation is similar to that of Dutch. Many sounds are produced in the rear of the throat. VOCABULARY There are many French and a few Italian loan words, so basic knowledge of French is a boon. There are also a large number of indigenous words, many of which differ regionally. There is a tendency to use standard German words rather than the indigenous ones, of course with a proper Swiss German pronunciation, but do not count on it. Recently, many English loan words have been added to Swiss German � some of which acquired a new meaning. TRANSPARENCY No text yet. SPELLING There are no official spelling rules. Swiss German is not generally written at all. If it is written, then almost exclusively in informal contexts. For learners, the Dieth transcription is probably the best: it's based on pronunciation rather than anything else. Problems may arise as Swiss people are not usually familiar with the Dieth transcription, and in fact if they write in Swiss German, they write in any way they please. Such spellings are often informed by the standard German spelling and misleading in terms of pronunciation. TIME NEEDED After learning German, Swiss German is much easier to learn, but do not underestimate the time needed. On its own, it's almost impossible to learn Swiss German, since the only way to do so properly would be by living in Switzerland � where one is surrounded by standard German in almost everything printed. BOOKS Hard to get by. The few books that exist out there include: Schwyzert�tsch f�r Anf�nger, J�rg Bleiker; ISBN 3-7607-4564-4 Urs D�rig: Schweizerdeutsch f�r alle. Sidus-Verlag. Isabelle Imhof: Schwiizert��tsch - das Deutsch der Eidgenossen. "Kauderwelsch Serie". Reise Know-How Verlag. Viktor Schobinger: Z�richdeutsche Kurzgrammatik. pendo-verlag, Z�rich, 1984. Interestingly, there is a Pimsleur course in Swiss German (10 lessons), and also a Eurotalk CD-ROM (basic). SCHOOLS Swiss German is not usually taught at schools. Classes are available in Zurich. LINKS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_German_language http://www.dialekt.ch/forum.htm http://dialects.from.ch/ http://members.hp-interex.ch/Thomas.Schmid/schweizerdeutsch/ DEFAULT.HTML http://www.eldrid.ch/swgerman.htm 1 person has voted this message useful
administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7379 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, English^C2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map	Message 2 of 4 23 March 2005 at 8:03am \| IP Logged
	Manna, I must congratulate you for making such a good draft on this language. How come you know so much about Swiss German? Do you speak it? Here are my contributions: INTRODUCTION The most spoken language in Switzerland is neither French, nor Italian, nor even German but a variety of Germanic dialects called 'Swiss German'. People who speak these dialects are usually referred to as 'Swiss Germans'. They do not write the dialect - regular German is used for that. This phenomenon of a spoken language different from the written language is called diglossia. Swiss German is an easy and fun tongue to learn. It is a very useful asset when travelling, dating or doing business in the Eastern part of Switzerland, as people always prefer to speak in their own dialect rather than in German. Contrary to common understanding, there is not one single Swiss German dialect. There are a variation of Alemannic dialects used in the German speaking part. As a learner of German, the Swiss dialects may be surprisingly different, maybe initially completely incomprehensible. After a while, learners tend to find some patterns in how the pronunciation varies, but indigenous words are more difficult to learn. There are a relatively large number of French loan word. ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE If you are doing business in Switzerland and have to deal with the Swiss-German speaking part of the country, speaking the language is a definite asset. In the French speaking part of Switzerland, people often refer to Swiss German as a language with the same role as yiddish plays amongst diamond dealers in Antwerpen. Either you speak the lingo and you are in, or you don't and you are perceived as an outsider. VARIATIONS Swiss German, being not written, varies a lot between one area of Switzerland and another. This surprises people from centralized or linguistically homogeneous countries but is very much a feature of Swiss German. In the alpine part of Switzerland, valleys mark heavy differences between dialects. The most emblematic example is High Valaisian (Haut Valaisan), the dialect spoken in the germanic part of the canton of Valais. The main city of that part of the canton is Brig and several speakers of High Valaisian, which is usually seen as a Swiss German dialect, have told me personnally that as you climb the side valleys stretching North and South of the Rhone valley, each village pronounces the same words a bit differently. High Valaisian is actually barely intelligible to other Swiss German speakers. There are regional variations which are very distinct from each other. The main dialects are of the north west (Basel), the western region, the area around Berne, the area around Fribourg, the Valais, the Ticino, central Switzerland (Lucerne), north east and Liechtenstein, as well as around Zurich. DIFFICULTIES Although grammatically Swiss German is simpler than German, learning the language presents some unique difficulties. First there is not a wealth of learning material. This difficulty is met by any student of a rare language and could be dealt with if there was a lot of material accessible. But this is namely the second difficulty, the language is almost never written and apart from Internet forums, a few films and very few local books, there is just nothing for you to practice your Swiss German on. Apart from staying for 3 months in Switzerland or getting a Swiss German girlfriend, I have not found a way to learn the language. VOCABULARY Swiss German had imported many French, English and even a few Italian loan words and makes heavy use of extremely colorful idiomatic expressions. For instance, the head of human ressources will be called 'de Sklavenmeister' (the slave master), a toilet can be reffered to as a 'pisseria' (From French 'pisser' - to piss and Italian 'pizzeria' - the place where one can eat pizzas. The use of these idioms make the language fun to learn and to speak and fosters a sentiment of informality and relative closeness to anybody speaking to you. Many of these idioms are quite similar to private jokes a group of friends use between themselves which also serve to reinforce their bond. German words are the most common 'imported words', but you many not recognize them immediately as they are pronounced in a 'Swiss-Germanized' fashion. SCHOOLS You can find Swiss German classes all over Switzerland. Edited by administrator on 23 March 2005 at 8:27am 1 person has voted this message useful
rome753 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6250 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German	Message 3 of 4 18 October 2007 at 9:46pm \| IP Logged
	Are you familiar with Pimsleur's "Swiss German"? If so, do you recommend it, and which dialect or dialects does it present? Edited by rome753 on 18 October 2007 at 9:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful
Aval Newbie Switzerland Joined 5902 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes	Message 4 of 4 30 September 2008 at 5:52pm \| IP Logged
	Some remarks from a mother tongue speaker and professional linguist. First I'd like to assure you that most of your explanations are very adequate! Thank you. But here a warning concerning the "Chic Factor": I would say that it's not true that you can impress a average Swiss person by pronouncing the word Chuchichäschtli (even when you pronounce it perfectly well). Maybe some 60 years ago you could, I don't know. But the word is really kind of worn-out completely due to overuse by foreigners who thought they could fish for compliments by using it! Besides, I would say that most Swiss are aware of the fact that a single word is not proving anything. And even if it were Chuchichäschtli wouldn't be a good indicator for it - since it's far too easy. We can show off with much better examples. Another remark on "Variations": Yes, it is true that there is something like big gravity centers of main dialect groups. So your "north west" is around Basel, then you mention the Berne and the Zurich areas, then the central parts (biggest city there: Lucerne), the Valais, the north east and Liechtenstein. I do not know exactly what you mean by "western region". I would basically subsume it under "Bernese Dialects". More to the west comes the French speaking area... Also the area around Fribourg could be included in the Bernese Cluster. Of course they speak different in Fribourg then in Bern, but the also speak different in Liestal and Basel (both in the Basel Group). Moreover it is not clear to me what you mean by "Ticino". The prominent language there is Italian. The Swiss German speakers living there now basically moved to this warmer part of the country from all different Swiss German speaking areas of the country. Traditionally there was one Swiss German speaking village in the Ticino county, Bosco Gurin. The there are not many speakers left (language shift to Italian is happening). Next remark. About "Grammar": Yes, compared to "Standard German" Swiss German is "simplified" in many ways. But at the same time you should be aware of the fact that we also have some grammatical constructions Standard German doesn't have (for example the very complex so-called "context sensitive" constructions which were documented for Zurich German). Other things are part of Standard German but clearly in decline in every day language, for example the "proper" conditional, e.g. verb + conditional derivation. In Germany the construction auxiliary ("würde") + infinitive is much more common. In Swiss German, on the other hand, the "proper" conditional is very much part of every day language. Moreover, the "wo" - Relative Marker is very widely used in all kind of Germanic dialects, for example in North Frisian in the very North of Germany! So, in general (not only when it is about Germanic languages!) I would be very careful with classifying one language as "easier" or "more difficult" than another one. I even advise to abstain from such judgements altogether. First because they always depend on one's point of departure - for me knowing Latin and French it was easy to learn Romanian. For my colleague knowing English and Czech it was somehow more difficult. Second because every language has more easy and more challenging parts. If for example the sound system of language X might be easy for you, the verbal system might be more tricky, or you might have problems remembering all those very foreign words, or you struggle with the speakers' figurative way of talking. Next remark. On "Spelling": That "Swiss German is not generally written at all" - as you put it - is just wrong. Even though we are not using any "standard orthography" we write text messages, shopping lists, letters, songs, sermons, etc. in our own dialects. There are whole books written in Swiss German. Every writing person uses its own speech variety and way of spelling. So, in the last maybe 20 years Swiss German has definitely become a "written language". There evolved some consensus as well about spelling. It is true that - as you correctly mentioned - that the Standard German orthography plays an important rule in this. Moreover it's true that Swiss German writing is more used in informal domains - although those books written in Swiss German are somewhat popular. But there is for example no Swiss German newspaper. I also do not agree with the remark given later in this forum that "Swiss German, being not written, varies a lot between one area of Switzerland and another." I think the factor for variation here is not geography but age (e.g., older generations much less using their mother tongue in writing and feeling much less comfortable reading it). Remark on "diglossia": The "definition" of this term given by someone else later in this discussion form is a bit too shortened... You can look up on Wikipedia quite a good description of the phenomenon. Also the sentence about Swiss German being useful for different stuff "in the Eastern part of Switzerland" sounds a bit strange. East is a bit too broad. I would add "Central" as well. 1 person has voted this message useful

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