German Dialects Research Articles

Dialectal phraseology of German dialects in the Altai (linguoculturological aspect)

Dialectal phraseology of German dialects in the Altai (linguoculturological aspect)

Perception and Asymmetry in the High German Consonant Shift

This article addresses the shift asymmetries of the High German Consonant Shift. In one part of this sound change, Pre-Old High German ⁺/p/, ⁺/t/, and ⁺/k/ shifted to the Old High German affricates [pf], [ts], and [kx], respectively. However, the voiceless stops did not shift in every dialect of Old High German. The uneven distribution of the shift is referred to in the literature as shift asymmetry. Much work by Iverson, Davis, and Salmons has attributed the asymmetry to markedness. While maintaining their overall analysis of the shift, this article shows that markedness can be dispensed with in accounting for the shift asymmetries. In accordance with Evolutionary Phonology, perceptual and phonetic data are presented which account for the asymmetries without making any reference to markedness. Since it rejects markedness in diachronic sound change, the present analysis also has broader implications for markedness diachronically and synchronically.

Dialektwandel als Systemwandel: Die Genuskongruenz bei den Numeralien zwei und drei in den deutschen Dialekten und darüber hinaus

Abstract This paper investigates the gender agreement behavior of the cardinal numbers two and three in various German(ic) dialects in attributive function using a corpus of dialect grammars and linguistic atlases. In contrast to previous studies which have investigated certain regions, this paper focuses the entire German-speaking area. The results show diatopic differences in gender agreement depending on the numeral as well as certain tendencies in its development through a comparison of the two datasets. The paper closes with a discussion of the differences between the standard language and the dialects, and proposes that the loss of gender agreement was set in motion by dialect sound mergers.

Correspondence of Consonant Clustering with Particular Vowels in German Dialects

Recent work found a correspondence between consonant clustering probability in monosyllabic lexemes and the three vowel types, short and long monophthong and diphthong, in German dialects. Furthermore, that correspondence was found to be bound to a North–South divide. This paper explores the preferences in consonant clustering of particular vowels by analyzing the PhonD2-Corpus, a large database of phonotactic and morphological information. The clustering probability of the diphthongs is positively correlated with frequency while the other vowels showed particular preferences that are not positively correlated with frequency. However, all of them are determined by a threefold pattern: short monophthongs prefer coda clusters, diphthongs onset clusters and long monophthong are balanced. Furthermore, it was found that this threefold pattern seems to have evolved from an originally twofold pattern (short monophthong prefers coda clusters and long monophthong and diphthong prefer onset clusters) in Middle High and Low German. This result is then further considered under the aspect of the compensation of the syllable weight and moraicity. Furthermore, some interesting parallels with the syllable vs. word-language typology framework are noted.

Combining formal and functional approaches to variation in (morpho)syntax: Introduction to the special issue

Abstract This special issue examines the question of how both formal(ist) and functional(ist) accounts or elements of theorizing can contribute to the explanation of (morpho)syntactic variation. Are formal and functional approaches really irreconcilable with each other, as often seems to be taken for granted by their respective advocates? It will be argued instead that they are rather complementary and that both can make a valuable contribution to explaining linguistic variation, in synchronic as well as diachronic respects. The integration of ways of looking at a certain phenomenon or problem from the respective other camp is proven to provide a significant added value and should not be excluded. The volume focuses on several Germanic languages and dialects, more specifically on German, Dutch, and Swedish varieties. It unites different formal and functional perspectives and, not least, it considers also semantic and phonological factors. The models covered include different versions of generative grammar, information-based morphology, construction grammar/construction morphology, natural morphology, and sociolinguistics.

Лингвокультурные аспекты семантики диалектной лексики (на материале островных немецких говоров в Сибири)

Island German dialects that exist in certain regions of Russia and partially retain the status of the everyday family language in Russian German families are a unique linguistic phenomenon from the point of view of the history of the development of the German language and its regional variants and language contacts as factors of influence on the language system. Island German dialects develop in a foreign language environment, preserving many archaic language elements. The aim of the study is to present aspects of the study of dialectal vocabulary in a new perspective, from the standpoint of linguoculturology and historical semantics, based on the accumulated scientific experience in German studies and dialectology of various languages. As the linguocultural aspects based on the material of German dialects outside the main language area have been developed in German studies fragmentarily, the scientific novelty lies in the approaches to the consideration of the semantics of vocabulary of island German dialects in terms of its significance as a representative of the linguoculture of Russian Germans and substantiates the need to consider island variants of the German language in an interdisciplinary aspect. As a result of the analysis of theoretical aspects of cultural linguistics and dialectology, an attempt is made to show what ethnoculturally significant information is reflected in the semantics of dialect units, and to determine the perspective of further dialectological research in the field of island German dialectology.

The loss of synthetic past tense forms in Slovene in the context of the hypothesised Central European convergence area

Summary One of the salient morphosyntactic features of the hypothesised Central European convergence area is allegedly a simple three-tense verb system (i. e. past, present, and future) without any formal and semantic distinction between the different past tense forms. The simplification of the originally more complex past tense system has been claimed to be contact-induced, which is mirrored in the loss of synthetic past tense forms in the linguistic history of German and Slavic. The article verifies the hypothesis according to which the loss of the preterit (i. e. a synthetic past tense form) in Upper German caused the disappearance of synthetic past tense forms, i. e. the aorist and the imperfect, in Slavic, more specifically Slovene. First, the process of the loss of the aorist and the imperfect in three medieval Slovene texts is presented, viz. the Freising Fragments (c. 972–1039), the Klagenfurt/Celovec or Rateče Manuscript (2nd half of the 14th century), and the Castelmonte/Stara Gora Manuscript (end of the 15th century). Second, the use of the preterit and the perfect in the Early New High German text Ain newes lied von den kraynneriſchen bauren (c. 1515) from the South Bavarian-Austrian speech territory, more precisely Lower Styria, is analysed. The historical linguistic analysis of the cited Slovene and German linguistic material (the latter originating from the Slovene linguistic area as well) shows that in medieval Slovene the aorist (and most probably the imperfect, too) was lost no later than by the end of the 15th century, while the formal and semantic distinction between the preterit on one hand and the perfect on the other is still preserved in Early New High German documented in the “Slovene-speaking lands” in the second decade of the 16th century. From these facts one cannot but conclude that the loss of synthetic past tense forms in Slovene could not have been influenced by (the demonstrably later) loss of the preterit in South Bavarian-Austrian German dialects, which were historically (and in some regions still are) in geographical and, consequently, sociolinguistic contact with Slovene.

Effects of mobility on dialect change: Introducing the linguistic mobility index.

Increased geographical mobility prompts dialectologists to factor in survey participants' exposure to linguistic variation in their research. Changing mobility patterns (e.g. longer-distance commuting; easier relocation to distant places for work, study or marriage) have caused linguistic connections to become much more diverse, potentially contributing to the acceleration of dialect change. In this methodological work we propose the Linguistic Mobility Index (LMI) to estimate long-term exposure to dialectal variation and thereby to provide a reference of "localness" about survey participants. Based on data about a survey participant's linguistic biography, an LMI may comprise combinations of influential agents and environments, such as the dialects of parents and long-term partners, the places where participants have lived and worked, and the participants' level of education. We encapsulate the linguistic effects of these agents based on linguistic differences, the intensity and importance of the relationship. We quantify the linguistic effects in three steps. 1) The linguistic effect of an agent is represented by a linguistic distance, 2) This linguistic distance is weighted based on the intensity of the participant's exposure to the agent, and 3) Further weighted according to the relationship embodied by the agent. LMI is conceptualised and evaluated based on 500 speakers from 125 localities in the Swiss German Dialects Across Time and Space (SDATS) corpus, and guidance is provided for establishing LMI in other linguistic studies. For the assessment of LMI's applicability to other studies, four LMI prototypes are constructed based on the SDATS corpus, employing different theoretical considerations and combinations of influential agents and environments to simulate the availability of biographical data in other studies. Using mixed-effects modelling, we evaluate the utility of the LMI prototypes as predictors of dialect change between historic and contemporary linguistic data of Swiss German. The LMI prototypes successfully show that higher exposure to dialectal variation contributes to more dialect change and that its effect is stronger than some sociodemographic variables that are often tested for affecting dialect change (e.g. sex and educational background).

Factors of frequency and productivity of diminution in early German dialect surveys

This paper examines the productivity of diminution – mainly on the noun – in two large-scale surveys of German dialects of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The starting point is the basic question whether German dialects use differently dimintutive suffixes and which dialect uses diminutives more frequently than others. In addition to morphological and semantic aspects, this question is linked to numerous sociolinguistic, methodological, and phonotactic factors. This leads for example to the general problem, to what extent dialect stereotypes influence classical dialect surveys. The approach is strictly empirical: The data discussed first are translations of the „Parable of the Prodigal Son“ (Luke 15:11–32) into German dialects from the early 19th century are examined (Radlof 1817; Stalder 1819). Subsequently an abbreviated sample of dialect translations of the 40 Wenker sentences from the late 19th and early 20th century is analyzed. Based on these datasets, different influencing factors are discussed that guide the use (and non-use) of diminutives.

Does Diglossia Impact Brain Structure? Data from Swiss German Early Diglossic Speakers.

(1) Background: Bilingualism has been reported to shape the brain by inducing cortical changes in cortical and subcortical language and executive networks. Similar yet different to bilingualism, diglossia is common in Switzerland, where the German-speaking population switches between an everyday spoken Swiss German (CH-GER) dialect and the standard German (stGER) used for reading and writing. However, no data are available for diglossia, defined as the use of different varieties or dialects of the same language, regarding brain structure. The aim of our study is to investigate if the presence of this type of diglossia has an impact on the brain structure, similar to the effects seen in bilingualism. (2) Methods: T1-weighted anatomical MRI scans of participants were used to compare the grey matter density and grey matter volume of 22 early diglossic CH-GER-speaking and 20 non-diglossic French-speaking right-handed university students, matched for age, linguistics and academic background. The images were processed with Statistical Parametric Mapping SPM12 and analyzed via voxel- and surface-based morphometry. (3) Results: A Bayesian ANCOVA on the whole brain revealed no differences between the groups. Also, for the five regions of interest (i.e., planum temporale, caudate nucleus, ACC, DLPFC and left interior parietal lobule), no differences in the cortical volume or thickness were found using the same statistical approach. (4) Conclusion: The results of this study may suggest that early diglossia does not shape the brain structure in the same manner as bilingualism.

The velarized lateral [ɫ] in East Austrian base dialects

Abstract This paper is concerned with the velarized lateral [ɫ] as a possible realization of the lateral phoneme /l/ in the rural Central Bavarian base dialects of German in Austria. So far, velarized laterals in Austrian German have mainly been described as a socially marked realization of /l/ in Vienna. However, descriptions of Austrian dialects mostly lack detailed acoustic analyses. Therefore, we analyzed the first two formants of alveolar laterals from dialect speakers in seventeen locations around Vienna that fall into the Central and South Central Bavarian dialect areas. Recordings were taken from the ‘German in Austria’ Corpus, from four speakers per location (two old, two young, each one male, one female), with thirty-two items per speaker with laterals in word-initial and twenty-two in word-final position. We asked whether the degree of velarization as measured by the difference between F2 and F1 (the smaller the more velarized) depends on this linguistic factor of position in the word – as has been shown for other Germanic languages – or social factors including the recording location’s distance from Vienna, age and gender of the speakers. Results showed that velarization was most frequently but not exclusively found in the Eastern region closest to Vienna (Central Bavarian dialects). Non-velarized and velarized laterals tended towards a complementary distribution in initial versus final word position and male speakers showed more velarization overall. Specifically, old speakers in locations close to Vienna tended towards more velarization in word-initial position compared to other regions, matching descriptions of Viennese dialect.

Лингво- и социокультурное своеобразие диалектной фразеологии немецкого языка Швейцарии

The study aims to identify and typologize the distinctive features of the dialect phraseology of Swiss German in accordance with the factors of their linguistic and socio-cultural conditionality. The main factors considered are: the specificity of the socio-cultural “background” of a dialect; the identifying and connotative properties of a dialect; formation of special “phraseological symbols” in a dialect; concreteness of dialect images and a dialect’s “aversion” to abstraction; the desire to update figurative foundations; special phraseological creativity of dialect speakers. Scientific novelty of the study lies in the following: the paper is the first to show and substantiate that dialectal phraseology in Switzerland is a separate phraseological subsystem that has significant differences from the phraseology of the literary level due to the special nature of the socio-cultural context of Swiss German dialects. As a result of the study, it has been found that the formation and preservation of an original phraseological subsystem is ensured by the fact that dialectal phraseology draws its images and metaphors from a special conceptual sphere the basis of which is formed by the features of life and worldview that are relevant for speakers of the dialects.

Samuel Pellionis as a dialect poet

The aim of this paper is to explore the extent to which the work of the German dialect poet Samuel Pellionis (1870–1953) from the language enclave region Spiš (Ger. Zips) in Eastern Slovakia fits into or corrects the traditional view of dialect literature. In the first half of the 20th century, German dialect literature was dominated by an effort to depict the ideal rural homeland. However, it was mainly written by academically educated poets who often lived in cities. Samuel Pellionis was a shoemaker without a higher academic education who did not adhere to the standards of traditional dialect literature. Instead of only using the dialect to depict a stereotypical rural environment (parallelism), Pellionis wrote about topics such as the two world wars, politics, or a desire to flee his homeland, which is a deviation from the norm. The article furthermore questions the criteria that poets and literary scholars of the past used to determine whether someone could be considered a poet (instead of being regarded just as an uneducated “rhymer”).

ФОНЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ХАРАКТЕРИСТИКИ СМЕШАННОГО ЗАПАДНОСРЕДНЕНЕМЕЦКОГО ДИАЛЕКТА КРАСНОЯРСКОГО КРАЯ (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ ТЕКСТОВ КУЛИНАРНЫХ РЕЦЕПТОВ РОССИЙСКИХ НЕМЦЕВ)

The article aims to consider the phonetic features of island Russian-German dialects of the Krasnoyarsk region. The research material was the author's corpus of oral texts of culinary recipes recorded by digital audio recording during dialectological expeditions to the former German villages of the Krasnoyarsk region. General phonetic features of the studied High German dialects of the Germans of the Krasnoyarsk region (settlers from the Volga region and their descendants), reflected in the dialect texts of culinary recipes, transmit the features characteristic of the West Middle German dialect area with a Rhenish-Frankish basis. Consonantal changes illustrate the nature of the second (High German) movement of Germanic consonants of the specified dialect area. The phonetic features of the German dialects of the Krasnoyarsk region, described in the article on the material of the culinary recipe texts, clarify the existing views about the current state of the island dialect language system, the description of which is important for further study of German dialectology and the theory of languages interaction.

ДИАЛЕКТ В НЕМЕЦКОМ АНЕКДОТЕ

t. The aim of the research is the analysis of language variability in German jokes which contain dialect words. Every dialect has own phonetic features (which are rendered by graphical means in a written text), specific vocabulary and grammar. On the whole German dialects are highly researched. Against this background, works dwelling on the role of dialect in jokes are really very scarce. The research is based on written sources. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the description of the role of some means of dialect coloring in creating a comic effect in jokes about Berliners and Bavarians. The results obtained show that dialectcolored language means of different levels can be used separately or combine with one another. A representative of any dialect area can be described in a comic light. At the same time, any joke should always be viewed in a cultural context, without understanding which it is impossible to fully perceive it. In subsequent studies, attention can be focused on the dialect features of other regions of Germany.

Johann "Hanns" Wondratsch : ein nahezu vergessener Prager Germanist südmährischer Herkunft

The article introduces the nowadays almost forgotten personality of Germanic linguistics Johann "Hanns" Wondratsch. An initial biographical medallion is followed by an overview of his dissertation, focusing on the influence of the Anabaptist community on the former German dialect of South Moravia. Finally, the article concludes with remarks on Johann Wondratsch's other published work.

Normalizing Swiss German Dialects with the Power of Large Language Models

Swiss German dialects pose significant challenges for natural language processing (NLP) applications, due to their lack of standard orthography, linguistic diversity, and scarcity of annotated data. We introduce a novel method for normalizing Swiss German text to Standard German by employing the mT5 model, a cutting-edge large language model (LLM) that can perform various text-to-text transformations across multiple languages. Our approach not only aims to enhance the processing of Swiss German dialects but also seeks to broaden the understanding of the adaptability of pre-trained LLMs in the realm of dialect normalization. By fine-tuning the mT5 model across its small, base, and large variants with the SwissDial dataset under various hyperparameter settings, we evaluated the performance of these models using the character n-gram F-score (ChrF) and the COMET metrics. The results demonstrated that the mT5 model, particularly its smallest variant, can achieve high-quality normalization of Swiss German dialects with minimal performance differences between the model sizes. This indicates that the SwissDial dataset is sufficiently extensive for effective fine-tuning, suggesting that even less resource-intensive models are viable for this task. Our findings advocate for the potential of LLMs, like mT5, as powerful instruments for dialect normalization and other NLP challenges, offering a promising alternative to traditional methods.

COLOR PERCEPTION IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES AND CULTURES (BASED ON THE FRENCH AND GERMAN LANGIAGE MATERIALS)

Purpose. This paper is devoted to consideration of the color terms in French and German idioms and paremias and determining specifics of color perception in both languages. The authors made a comprehensive analysis of French and German idioms and paremias which contain color components. Color lexics containing such colors as blue/azure, red, green, yellow, white and black serves as the object of the analysis. Color palette clearly reflects cultural diversity, a worldview of French and German people.
 Method and methodology of the work. The study is based on comparative and descriptive method and method of thematical analysis of lexical units.
 Results. The results of the conducted research let us to conclude that color terms in both French and German languages are quite diverse from the national-cultural perspective and convey a high degree of intensity. Color perception is grounded on emotional impressions. All the color terms considered in the current article have positive as well as negative assessment, more rarely neutral.
 Practical implications. The outcomes of the study can be used in teaching lexicology, phraseology, stylistics, as well as within the field of linguistic and cultural studies of France and Germany.

Geolinguistic structures of dialect phonology in the German-speaking Alpine region: A dialectometric approach using crowdsourcing data

Abstract The Alpine region stands out in the German-speaking world for its well-preserved traditional dialects, which continue to play a significant role in daily life. However, the vast geographical range of the Alpine region and the limitations imposed by national and regional borders have hindered comprehensive investigations of the entire Alpine area. To overcome these obstacles, this study utilizes crowdsourcing data from the VerbaAlpina project to investigate phonological and morpho-phonological variation in the German-speaking Alpine region. Although the data were collected in a written form and with a focus on lexical variation, it is shown that the data contain detailed phonological information. By using multivariate dialectometric measurements (i.e. factor analysis [FA]) based on 19 (morpho-)phonological variables (comprising 8,582 tokens), the study explores the geolinguistic structures of the German dialects in the Alpine region. The results confirm, on a general level, the validity of the traditionally established dialect classification. However, the findings also reveal previously underrated border effects, in particular for Bavarian dialects along the German-Austrian border, which are argued to be the outcome of divergence processes. Hence, the study highlights the importance of cross-dialectal and cross-national perspectives in understanding dialect variation and emphasizes the value of crowdsourcing data for dialectological research.

German in East Lorraine? Reflections on the status of the autochthonous varieties in Northeast France based on the character of near-standard speech

Sometimes a change of a language border is linked to a change in language status of a group of diatopic varieties. The assessment of language status relates, among other things, to the existence of a common norm (standard variety) and the language community members’ adherence to it. For the germanophone varieties in East Lorraine (France), the status is unclear. Structurally, these varieties belong to the West Middle German dialect continuum. However, since the Second World War, the political and identificatory relations to the German language have been difficult. This article examines whether dialect proficient speakers from East Lorraine can (still) speak Standard German and, if so, how it can be characterised. The study is based on recorded interviews. Interviewees were asked to speak (Standard) German. The analysis of the speech data reveals demerging from the German language. Although being competent in the local dialect, only a minority belonging to the older generation can speak a variety that can be considered endoglossic and near-standard. One third speaks clearly regionally bound varieties, approximately 50% speak German just like a language learner (on various levels of proficiency). Interpreted within the framework of macrosynchronisation (Schmidt & Herrgen 2011), the classification of East Lorraine as belonging to the German-speaking area appears even more uncertain as the Lorrain people no longer align themselves with the common norm of the German-speaking area.