Swabian German
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Swabian (Schwäbisch) is one of the Alemannic dialects of High German, spoken in the region of Swabia. Swabia covers much of Germany's southwestern Bundesland (state) of Baden-Württemberg (including the capital Stuttgart and the rural area known as the Swabian Alb) and the southwest of the Bundesland Bavaria. Swabian is also spoken by part of the German minorities in Hungary, former Yugoslavia, Romania, and the former Soviet Union.
The dialect ranges from a 'standard' Swabian, spoken in Stuttgart, to slightly differing and 'thicker' forms found in smaller towns in the countryside. Older people can often tell the exact village a person comes from merely by hearing his or her accent.
Swabian is difficult to understand for speakers of Standard German. It contains vocabulary that differs altogether from Standard German (eg. 'jam' in Standard German is Marmelade while in Swabian it becomes Gsälz).
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[edit] Characteristics
[edit] Linguistic
Characteristics (in comparison to Standard German) include:
- The Middle High German monophthongs î and û have become [e͡i] and [o͡u], not [a͡ɪ] and [a͡ʊ].
- the ending "-et" for verbs in the 3rd person plural
- as in other Alemannic dialects, the pronunciation of "s" before consonants as [ʃ] (e.g. Fest 'party' is pronounced as Fescht)
- the diminutive ending "-le" (spoken very quickly, e.g. Haus may become Häusle, Bisschen may become Bissle) and "-la" for plurals (e.g. Spätzle becomes Spätzla)
[edit] Sound
The Swabian dialect is spoken with a unique melody that is also present when Swabian native speakers talk in Standard German.
[edit] Variation
The Swabian dialect is composed of numerous sub-dialects, each of which has its own variations. These sub-dialects can be categorized by the difference in the formation of the past participle of 'sein' (to be) into gwä and gsi. The Gsi groupe is nearer to other Alemannic dialects, such as Swiss German.
There is also a big difference between Swabian German spoken by Catholics and the Swabian spoken by Protestants.
[edit] Swabian dialect writers
- Sebastian Sailer (1714-1777)
- August Lämmle
- Sebastian Blau
- Peter Schlack, b. 1943
