German Dialects Research Articles

Two structures of extraposition in central dialects of Early New High German

Extraposition in OV Germanic languages is a complicated phenomenon, which has been analyzed in different ways—as a result of rightward movement, as base generation of extraposing items to the right, and as a result of raising of predicative elements. The most common type of item in extraposition is CP, but also PPs and heavy adjuncts are attested in extraposition in Modern German. Early New High German (ENHG) material adds complexity to this topic, since it shows much more widespread extraposition, allowed for arguments as well. In this article, I propose a twofold analysis of extraposition in ENHG. Based on DP-extraposition to the predicate, I argue that in certain cases extraposition can result from rightward movement of an extraposing XP, while in other cases it is raising of the particle to position adjoined to vP, which leaves XP in overt extraposition to the predicate.

Volksdeutsche w Krakowie i dystrykcie krakowskim Generalnego Gubernatorstwa w latach 1939–1941

One of the first tasks of the German occupation authorities after taking over Poland was to identify and assign Polish citizens of German stock to a special ethnic category called Volksdeutsch. The aim of this article is to describe how this process played out in Cracow and its environs in the first years of the German occupation. There were some villages inhabited by people of German origin who used an archaic dialect of German, but nonetheless refused to register as Volksdeutsche. Others became a Volksdeutsch, because of the material and social advantages that designation brought with it, but whose German heritage was highly doubtful. The article also discusses the tensions and conflicts between the Reichsdeutsche, or the civilian Germans from the German Reich who settled in Cracow and were onsidered first-class citizens, and Volksdeutsche, who were treated as the second-class citizens.

Vowel and consonant quantity in two Swiss German dialects and their corresponding varieties of Standard German: effects of region, age, and tempo.

The diglossic situation in German-speaking Switzerland entails that both an Alemannic dialect and a Swiss standard variety of German are spoken. One phonological property of both Alemannic and Swiss Standard German (SSG) is contrastive quantity not only in vowels but also in consonants, namely lenis and fortis. This study aims to compare vowel and plosive closure durations as well as articulation rate (AR) between Alemannic and SSG in the varieties spoken in a rural area of the canton of Lucerne (LU) and an urban area of the canton of Zurich (ZH).In addition to the segment durations, an additional measure of vowel-to-vowel+consonant duration (V/(V+C)) ratios is calculated in order to account for possible compensation between vowel and closure durations. Stimuli consisted of words containing different vowel-consonant (VC) combinations. The main differences found are longer segment durations in Alemannic compared to SSG, three phonetic vowel categories in Alemannic that differ between LU and ZH, three stable V/(V+C) ratio categories, and three phonetic consonant categories lenis, fortis, and extrafortis in both Alemannic and SSG. Most importantly, younger ZH speakers produced overall shorter closure durations, calling into question a possible reduction of consonant categories due to a contact to German Standard German (GSG).

Preferencje Wielkiego Mistrza Winryka z Kniprody w obsadzaniu funkcji zakonnych na początku swego urzędowania

The Grand Master Winrich von Kniprode chosen on 6th of January 1352 came from the region of Colonia, so he spoke Ripuarian, one of the dialects from the Rhineland. Under this region, which can not be defined sharply till today, one understands especially the Middle and Lower Rhine, where the people speak four Middle German (Palatine, South Hessian, Moselle Franconian, Ripuarian) and one Lower German (Lower Franconian) dialect. As soon as Master Winrich was elected, he started favoring the brethen from the Rhineland, especially those from his Ripuarian home region. His new chaplain and his new doctor even spoke Colognian. Among six brethen who could newly obtain the dignity of a commander, there were three from the Rhineland. Kirsilie von Kindswulie and Werner von Rundorf also spoke Ripuarian, Dietrich von Brandenburg from the nowadays Luxemburg was a Rhinelander in a wider sense of this term.

Bairisch verstehen – auf Hochdeutsch reagieren. Strategien zum Aufbau einer rezeptiven Varietätenkompetenz für (tschechische) DaF-Lerner

Based on previous studies discussing the thematization of German dialects in lessons of German as a foreign language within and outside the German speaking countries, the article outlines a didactic concept for building receptive variety competence of Czech learners of German towards the diatopic varieties of German spoken in the Free State of Bavaria. Using the example of the North and Middle Bavarian dialects, it will be demonstrated how the Bavarian-Austrian loan vocabulary present in the Czech non-standard varieties can be used didactically to enable learners to overcome the phonetic distance between dialect and standard language, which is the main barrier to comprehension. In this respect, the learners’ inner multilingualism is used to differentiate their outer multilingualism. The current foreign German studies background to the concept is the establishment of interdisciplinary Bavarian Studies at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen (2019) whose curriculum provides a more profound receptive study of the dialects of Bavaria.

Лингвистическое наследие А. П. Дульзона как источник изучения немецкой топонимии Поволжья

The article deals with the detailed research of the German microtoponymy of the Volga region. The toponym source is the doctoral thesis of a famous Russian linguist A. P. Dulzon, with a special chapter, where a list of 1049 geographical names of the Volga Germans is presented. The linguistic heritage of A. P. Dulzon, which addressed the studying of the Volga region German dialects, is unjustly forgotten and partly lost due to his being exiled to Siberia in 1941, where he was the head of the scientific school of studying native peoples’ dialects and toponymy. The toponymic material collected by A. P. Dulzon has not been thoroughly studied either by the scientist himself or by the following generations of linguists. The main aim of our research, which is based on new factual material and carried out in the field of sociolinguistics, is to define some unique features common for German microtoponymy, resulting from living for many years in multi-lingual surrounding. In this article the primary attention is given not only to the semantics and structure of toponyms, but also to the influence of the cross-cultural and cross-linguistic contacts. The research is focused on contact onomastics, the dynamics of cross-cultural interference, the problem of borrowings on the toponymic level, their adaptation in the language depending on the peculiarities of the German dialects of the language islands of the Volga region. It has been proved that borrowed Russian river names, geographical names, microtoponyms, and lexical units denoting Russian realia from the cultural and general sphere, were influenced by German island toponymy and underwent major grammatical and phonetical changes, becoming part of productive word-building models: composites and analytical structures. The research shows that the phenomenon of microtoponymy is characteristic for the German microtoponymy of the Volga region, which proved, together with various extra-linguistic factors, that the Germans led a secluded life on their confined territories. A conclusion is drawn that studying the island toponymy of the Volga Germans in the sociolinguistic aspect, i.e. taking into account all the social environments in which the language of this allochtonous community functioned, can be the foundation for the interdisciplinary investigation of toponymy established by A. P. Dulzon.

C’est pas Auto mais e Wàge. Pratiques translangagières en maternelle dans le contexte de l’immersion en allemand et en dialecte alsacien

Le réseau d’écoles privées ABCM Zweisprachigkeit a sollicité un accompagnement scientifique pour l’introduction et l’évaluation de l’usage des parlers dialectaux alsaciens dans un dispositif d’immersion complète que les écoles expérimentent depuis septembre 2017 en Alsace dans trois écoles pilotes. Une équipe de chercheurs issue des sciences du langage et des sciences de l’éducation s’est donné comme objectif de comprendre comment les gestes pédagogiques participent à la construction de l’enseignement-apprentissage de l’alsacien, variété linguistique orale de l’allemand standard. L’analyse des interactions, dans cet article, montre la mobilisation des compétences multilingues des élèves de maternelle au sein de pratiques translangagières.

POETRY AS A SOCIO-CULTURAL COMPONENT IN TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES

This article examines the sociolinguistic and socio-cultural competence of the understudies in learning the German dialect, strategies of utilizing verse as a socio-cultural component in remote dialect lessons, and the utilize of outside verse.

Dialects of the Germans of Russia and Kazakhstan

The linguistic diversity of the Germans in Russia and Kazakhstan is due to the migration of ethnic groups to the territory of the Russian Empire from the lands of Germany and subsequent migrations within the country. Some ethnic Germans use the dialect in speech, for them it is their native language, the rest of the Germans speak literary German to varying degrees, and Russian is considered their native language. Today, it is impossible to uniquely identify one native language for an ethnic group, as Germans speak different dialects of German. The purpose of the study is to determine the states of the modern dialect language of the Germans of Russia and Kazakhstan, to consider how dialects were historically spread throughout the country, and how dialects are preserved now. The article considers the territorial distribution of dialects in Russia, primarily Siberia, where the majority of Germans live, as well as the circulation of German dialects in Kazakhstan after the deportation of Germans. The central part of the article is devoted to the modern state of dialects, which are preserved primarily in places of compact settlement of Germans. The article makes use of the results of ethno-sociological surveys of Germans in Russia and Kazakhstan on the issues of dialects, and analyzes contemporary methods of preserving and translating the language. Conclusions: dialects are preserved where Germans live compactly. The author notes that there are negative trends in the process of preserving dialects, but German public organizations today solve many problems concerning dialects.

EVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENT OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE AND ITS DIALECTS

The article is devoted to the evolutionary development of the German language and its dialects (Bavarian and Swabian — Alemannic). The relevance of the topic is determined by the fact that, despite the dominance of the Standardsprache on the territory of modern Germany, local dialects are also sufficiently widespread in it, which have recently gained more and more prestige, especially among young people. The purpose of this study is to analyze the linguistic features of southern German dialects (Bavarian and Swabian — Alemannic) and to identify their genetic links with the modern German language — Standarddeutsch / Standardsprache. Texts (artistic and newspaper) in the specified dialects and identical in Standarddeutsch, dialect maps (atlases) of the German language, ancient and modern dictionaries served as research material. The work uses descriptive and comparative-historical methods. The object of research is German southern dialects (Bavarian and Swabian — Alemannic). The subject of the study is the linguistic characteristics of southern German dialects and their connection with the modern German language. Using the example of the development of German dialects (Bavarian and Swabian-Alemannic) and their interaction with Standarddeutsch, it can be argued that the German language, based on the laws of linguistic synergy, is a complex open information system that is constantly developing, but at the same time preserves information about its former states, and the combination of past and present knowledge provides an opportunity to identify the future development prospects of the system. The results of the study make it possible to predict further changes in the modern German language at all its levels (phonetic, lexical, grammatical), taking into account various dialectological features that are introduced into the German language system. The obtained data on the evolutionary development of the German language and its dialects (Bavarian and Swabian — Alemannic) is of certain importance for the study and teaching of «History of the German Language», «Introduction to Germanic Philology», dialectology, as well as a practical course of the German language.

FEATURES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE OLD HIGH GERMAN CONSONANTISM

The article examines the main processes associated with the formation and development of writing in the Old High German period of the formation of the German language. The Old High German period is primarily the period of the formation of the German nation, first within the Frankish state, and later the East Frankish state, ending with the proclamation of the German Empire in 962. Actually, the written tradition of the German language is connected with church life. In the monastery cells, theological treatises, prayers, and psalms were translated into German, historical works were written, and biblical commentaries were compiled for the school and for the education of priests. Monasteries became the centers of education and spiritual life of the early feudal society. At this time, a new form of existence of the German language was formed in the form of a set of territorial dialects. The article notes that The Old High German dialects differ from each other in phonetic, morphological, lexical, and even syntactic aspects. In other words, almost every dialect had its own spelling and phonetic features. However, the unity of the German language was always ensured by the kinship of the dialects, the general trends in the development of their phonetic and grammatical structure, and interaction with a particularly strong influence of the Frankish dialect on others. The development of the graphic system in this period is complex due to the adaptation of the Latin alphabet to German pronunciation. At that time, there was not only a single orthographic norm for the German language in general, but also a single spelling of certain words or morphemes within the framework of a single written document. The main written works of that time are analysed, taking into account the dialectal features of each of them. It has been found that under the influence of Latin, the German script undergoes significant changes, but retains its linguistic independence, particularly in the consonant system.

“Since When Is Steve Urkel White?” – Vocal Blackface In The German Dubbing Landscape

Dubbed (i.e., lip-synchronized audiovisual translation of) movies and television are ubiquitous in German-speaking countries and often consumed without active reflection of their production. Due to this inattention, the domestication / replacement of cultural references in US media translated into German often goes unnoticed. Translational decision-making becomes highly problematic, however, when entire cultures are replaced or disregarded as a result. In 2004, applied linguist Robin Queen demonstrated that Black actors were dubbed by white voice actors with German dialects and sociolects traditionally read as “blue collar.” There has not been any follow-up research to her crucial contribution that remains topical: the (re-)presentation of Black Germans and other minoritized voices in German media is still based on colonial and other racist stereotypes, which are in turn reinforced through popular culture in dubbing. In the United States, pop-cultural monoliths such as "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy" reluctantly recast voice actors for characters of Color after having come under pressure by discussions surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement and documentaries such as Hari Kondabolu’s “The Problem with Apu.” Following up on Queen’s work, this article provides accessible, up-to-date data and a snapshot of the current practice of casting white voice actors for characters of Color in US popular culture dubbed into German for German-speaking markets, defined here as “vocal blackface.” This research shows that these casting choices have been and remain in place largely without criticism by means of a close reading of publicly available German voice actor casting online database. The article provides the foundation to identify structural and societal reasons why recastings are not (yet?) happening in Germany.

Some reasons behind the change of languages and dialects in a South Transdanubian area of Hungary, with special regard to Völgység

Various national minorities have lived in the South Transdanubian region of Hungary over the centuries. Within this area, the Völgység is a small part of Hungary, belonging partly to Tolna and partly to Baranya counties, a loessy hilly area bordered by rivers. The paper deals with the language and dialect of the ethnic groups still living here after 1945. After WW II, the Germans and Serbs who remained here were joined by Szeklers from Bukovina, Hungarians from Upper Hungary and from other Hungarian areas. To- day, most of the Germans and Serbs have merged with the majority Hungarians, and the (minority) language learnt by young Hungarians is mostly the standard version of the given language. The dialect of the resettled Szeklers from Bukovina, Hungarians from Upper Hungary and other Hungarian-speaking groups can be characterised as converg- ing with the Hungarian vernacular. All these communities are characterised by mixed marriages, which also influence language usage and, in the case of Germans and Serbs, may lead to language shift . The dialect of the above-mentioned Hungarian-speaking groups (as with other Hungarian dialects) is withdrawn from the public language area. The Hungarian dialects (and the German and Serbian dialects in Hungary) have a lower prestige than the vernacular, their use is limited to a more restricted environment, and they are nowadays the language of family use and the language of the more restricted community. The paper reviews the historical background and current status of these languages and language varieties and presents data on their speakers.

Phonological Weight, Foot Binarity, and Coronal Unmarkedness in the Swiss German Dialect of Visperterminen (as Described by Wipf 1910)

Phonological Weight, Foot Binarity, and Coronal Unmarkedness in the Swiss German Dialect of Visperterminen (as Described by Wipf 1910)

Charlemagne in Medieval German and Dutch Literature

Charlemagne in Medieval German and Dutch Literature

Gender asymmetry in German phraseology: Linguistic, cultural and psycholinguistic perspectives

The article is focused on identifying the specifics of gender asymmetry in German phraseology based on psycholinguistic analysis. The aim is to determine the essence of using the internal code of the speaker's intentions while verbalising gender in the target language culture. The study used the method of a controlled word association test. Google Forms were used to analyse the perception peculiarities of the German idioms components that directly or indirectly denote male and/or female gender. The typicality and individuality of responses to the 26 proposed phraseological units with masculine (Mann, Mensch, Drache, Luder) and feminine (Mädchen, Frau, Dame, Weib) components confirmed the asymmetry and unevenness of gender representation in German. The test involved 81 native speakers (56 women and 25 men) aged 14 to 71 residing in Germany and 82 non-native speakers (70 women and 12 men). None of the participants associated themselves with the third gender. Gender asymmetries characterise German phraseology due to the androcentricity of the German language. The associative representation of the male gender in phraseology due to the processes of metonymisation predicts its leading role in the target linguistic culture. Exclamatory and comparative phraseology registers traces of gender asymmetry neutralisation. However, researchers have discovered that phraseological units with a feminine component exclusively serve to denote feminine traits and homosexuality. The feminine component for a man mainly implicates negative connotations, while expressing neutral and positive ones indirectly. Pejorative idioms with a pronounced negative connotation, treating women as sexual objects or as an appendage of a man, deserve attention in the responses. The respondents' responses to phraseological units with neuter or masculine components predominantly denote the female gender through manifested negative connotations. The responses to the component Mädchen, the suffix -chen of which in German actualises the seme of the neuter category, were mainly negative due to the influence of the denotative and signifying meaning of the phraseological unit. The analysis of the zero associations of some phraseological units with women showed the dominant role of men in the target linguistic culture.

NAMES OF METAL-PROCESSING CRAFTSMEN IN GERMAN DIALECTS

The article studies the Silesian, Low Prussian, and East Pomeranian names of metal-processing craftsmen of the 14th–16th centuries. The article substantiates the topicality of studying the German dialects that disappeared due to the World War II, analyses specialized literature, characterizes the history of studying the German names of craftsmen in the former East-German dialects, determines the level of their coverage, formulates the objective and task of the publication and outlines the perspectives of further academic research. Besides, the article provides the insight into the word-formative peculiarities of the names of craftsmen, the form of their fixation within the Silesian, Low Prussian, and East Pomeranian dialects. Each form is accompanied by the data concerning the time and place of the fixation. The research established, 63 names of metal-processing craftsmen. They include: а) names of manufacturers of small items for household and clerical use; b) makers of arms and armor; c) moulders; d) jewelers and coiners; e) common names to designate smith; f) other names of craftsmen. The formative bases of metal-processing craftsmen were established: а) names of handicrafts; b) names of materials of which they were produced; c) names of craftsmen’s actions; d) names of the color of the processed material; e) according to the general characteristic of the items; f) according to the general characteristic of the materials. Besides, 1/3 of the names of craftsmen are formed with suffixes: -er, -ler, -ner, -ir, -orre, and 2/3 bi-root. The other word-formative bases in the names of the craftsmen with the different roots are as follows: -schmied, -gießer, -macher, -hauer, -feger, -böter, -gräber, -schläger, -schneider, -schlosser, -zieher. 16 synonymic rows can be identified within the established names of metal-processing craftsmen.

Article use in Upper German – a ‘radical’ stage of grammaticalization?

Abstract Despite an increasing interest in German dialect syntax, the study of article use in Upper German (Alemannic and Bavarian) remains a desideratum. This is true in particular for Austrian varieties. The present study focusses on article variation and change in Austrian Upper German and discusses the status of article grammaticalization. To that effect, ‘radical’ cases of article use in Upper German are analysed, i.e. cases considered incorrect in standard German: the use of indefinite articles before mass nouns, of definite articles before proper nouns, and of indefinite articles in the plural. These phenomena are investigated by means of a comprehensive dialect survey (3,599 dialect translations by 163 dialect speakers from 40 research locations). The analysis examines inner-linguistic factors (lexis, semantics, syntax) as well as extra-linguistic factors (dialect areas, age group). The findings reveal a surprisingly high variability and a relatively advanced stage of grammaticalization in some areas, especially Central Bavarian dialects.

Semantics of Phraseological Units with a Borrowed Component in the Speech of Russian Germans

This article reflects the results of a study on identifying the semantic features of phraseological units containing borrowings from the Russian language in the dialects of Russian Germans. The scientific novelty of the study includes the description of the specifics of the meaning of phraseological units of insular Russian-German dialects containing borrowed elements in their composition, tracing phraseological units created by German dialect means to convey the semantics of Russian set expressions, as well as semi-calques containing direct borrowings from the Russian language. The phraseological fund, presented in the text corpus of the Russian-German dialects existing in the Altai Territory, is characterized by significant originality, as it contains many phraseological units that differ from the standard and the original dialect variants. These features are reflected in the analysis of the studied fragment of the phraseological system of Russian-German dialects, phraseological units with components borrowed from the Russian language. As a result of the study, it was proved that borrowed words, penetrating into German phraseological units from the main lexical fund, acquire an expressive coloring, giving the phraseological unit additional evaluative meanings. Traced phraseological units of the Russian language serve to expand the phraseological fund of insular German dialects.

Direct and Indirect Communication Styles in Turkish and German Idioms: A Cultural Linguistic Analysis

Her toplumun kendine özgü kültürel özellikleri vardır ve her insan bu kültürel birikimin içine doğar. Sahip olunan bu kültürel özellikler insanların davranışlarını etkilediği gibi iletişim şeklini de etkiler. Bu konu hakkında yapılan kültürlerarası araştırmalar Türk kültüründe olduğu gibi akraba, arkadaş ve aile bağlarını korumanın ve çatışmalardan kaçınmanın önemli olduğu yüksek bağlamlı kültürlerde, grup ahengini korumak için iletişim esnasında geniş kapsamlı mesajların kullanıldığı, daha karmaşık, dolaylı bir iletişim şeklinin tercih edildiğini göstermiştir. Alman kültürü gibi iletişim esnasında beklenmeyen durumlarla karşılaşma endişesinin çok az olduğu düşük bağlamlı kültürlerde ise bireyler, duygu, düşünce ya da isteklerini doğrudan, açıkça ve anlaşılır kelimelerle bildirirler. Bu tür bir kültüre mensup toplumlarda iletişim esnasında yalnızca gerekli bilgiler verilir, gereğinden fazla bilgi verilmekten kaçınılır. Bu durumdan yola çıkarak bu çalışmada, kültürlerin özlü anlamlar içeren ürünleri olan ve anlatılması zor durumları kısa ve etkili bir şekilde ifade etmek için sıkça kullandığımız Türkçe ve Almanca deyimlerdeki dolayı ve doğrudan iletişim biçemleri, kültürdilbilimsel açıdan incelenip kültürlerarası iletişim kuramları çerçevesinde analiz edilmiştir. Çalışmanın sonunda yukarıda bahsedilen iletişim şekli olgularının Türkçe ve Almanca deyimlere yansıdığı tespit edilmiş ve Almancada doğrudan iletişim şeklini içeren deyim sayısının, aynı konuyu içeren Türkçe deyim sayısından fazla olduğu, dolaylı iletişim olgusunu içeren Türkçe deyimlerde ise tam tersi bir durumun söz konusu olduğu ortaya çıkmıştır.