Talk:Swiss German

message: What are the criteria being used in this article to classify this linguistic variety as a mere dialect of "German"? The description given sounds pretty much like a situation of diglossia and clearly complies with the fundamental requirement to consider two linguistic varieties as different languages: Swiss German and Standard German are not mutually intelligible, therefore they can hardly be mere dialects of the same language. Otherwise, what would stop me from claiming that Spanish and Portuguese are merely dialects of the same language? They are closely related linguistic varieties not mutually intelligible... in the Spaniard-undertanding-Portuguese direction mainly, because a Portuguese usually has little problem understanding Spanish; but even given that half degree of mutual intelligibility, nobody claims Portuguese is a fringe dialect of Spanish not intelligible for speakers of Standard Spanish (this aspect doesn't seem to matter to those who claim that Swiss German is a dialect of German, so... why not just say that Portuguese is a dialect of Spanish and, voila, we have one language less to translate all the European Union stuff into, wouldn't this be nice for the economy of European taxpayers who are paying for all that stupid translation work into a fringe dialect? — ok, so much of irony for today; you got my point). So I see even less reason to accept the claim that Swiss German is a mere dialect of a language whose speakers cannot understand that dialect. The Ethnologue clearly lists Swiss German (Alemannisch) as a language on its own, not even within the same subgroup as Standard German:
* IE > Germanic > West > High German > German > East German > East Middle German > Standard German (GER)
* IE > Germanic > West > High German > German > Upper German > Alemannic > Alemannisch (GSW)
Uaxuctum 17:03, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The distinctions of languages is not a question of intelligibility, but a cultural question. In this respect, Swiss German belongs clearly to the German language. All newspapers use standard German, for instance, and by far most books are written in standard German, and except for very rare cases everybody speaks (the Swiss variety of) standard German. -- j. 'mach' wust ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x 12:27, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Criteria?

message: I'd like to move back Swiss German language to Swiss German. Swiss German is a variety of the German language. Of course there are those who prefer to consider it a language, but it is more often considered a dialect by its speakers and almost exclusively so in German language linguistics.
Talking about "Swiss German language" seems as inappropiate to me as talking about, for instance "Australian English language". Varieties of English are called XXX English. Why should this be any different with varieties of German. Of course, the different varieties of English are usually more intelligible with each other than the different varieties of German, but that's a characteristic of the German language, and mutual intelligibility is only one factor among others that are used to define language.
See also at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages#Swiss German "language". -- j. 'mach' wust ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x 12:27, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Move back to [[Swiss German]]

message: If I read right there is no mentioning of the tenses Swiss German lacks. There is no imperfect tense (e.g. the equivalent of 'waren') which creates a lot of complexity when there's a need for a clear time definition ('i be grad xi go poschte'). As a non-native German/Swiss German speaker, this is the most striking difference for me between Germand and Swiss German.
:This is mentioned, and so is the phenomenon that really distinguishes your example from the German sentence ich bin gerade einkaufen gewesen. -- j. 'mach' wust ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x 22:50, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Grammar Differences

message: "Most Swiss German dialects have rounded front vowels, unlike many German dialects."
Wait, what? What would you call the vowels of "kühl", "Rücken", "hören" and "köstlich"? I would call them front rounded vowels. Can someone clarify why this sentence is in the article?
:That's what I call them, too. Could you please clarify your Wait, what? :-) -- j. 'mach' wust ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x 19:17, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If ever you make it to the year 2008, you might learn that this has been resolved for more than a decade. 😉 --mach 🙈🙉🙊 22:20, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rounded Front Vowels. 

message: I was thinking of adding a sound file that shows how to pronounce the word "Chuchichäschtli". Sound like a good idea? ~~Mithcoriel, September 18 2005
:In which Swiss dialect? ;-) Another nice sound file would be "Morn rägnet's z Züri" - Tomorrow it will rain in Zurich. (correct pronunciation three times ts ts ts with no vowel in between). Or Bernese-Chinese: "Schang chum hei, d'ching wei hung" (John (Jean), come home, the kids want honeybread) --Irmgard 21:00, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Blitzt's z'Züri?"   [tstststs] :)
Well, my accent is Baselland. :) Does anyone else have something Bern-ish etc. to offer? We could also make a list of sounds, would be much more fitting to have different swiss accents anyway. For example, you could have the sentence "the fly flies" in all sorts of dialects. In some, this is "d'Fliege fliegt", or "d'Flüge flügt" or "d'Fleuge flügt". etc. But for that we'd need enough people (among the editors here?) who come from different parts of Switzerland.
"D'ching wei hung" means "the kids want honeybread?" Ok, I guess I don't know Bernese so well. I though the phrase went "d'ching hei hung" = "the kids are hungry". --Mithcoriel 22:16, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I suggest an expression from our rural Bernese dialect: Quöuwüuchli. These are small swelling clouds. I have never met a non native speaker who could pronounce that properly. :-) 176.127.161.55 (talk) 13:17, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add a sound? 

message: I've removed the following:
Some dialects in central Switzerland (e.g. in Uri or Obwalden keep the old form of the Middle High German diphtong u-i which became long u or ü in other dialects, e.g. Huis 'house'  compared to Hus , in the diminutive Huisli  compared to Hüsli .
Middle High German did not have any ui dipthong. There was an iu digraph, but it was pronounced [y:]. 'The house' was daȥ hûs (I couldn't figure out the plural, but I guess it would have been diu hiuser).
That is to say, the Central Swiss diphthongs are most likely innovations. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 08:00, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Old ui diphthong

message: One of the most obvious differences between Swiss German and Standard German is the loss of the n on verb infinitives.
Another phenomenon is the addition of n between a word that ends in a vowel and the next word that starts with a vowel. E.g., i(ch) haa dich gärn ("I like you") but i(ch) haan es Buech (I have a book.) This occurs not only with verbs, but also with other words. E.g., Das isch es Buech, won ich gärn haa ("This is a book, that I like.") This is done to avoid the glottal stop on the leading vowel of the second word. This lack of glottal stops in Swiss German is a major difference in pronunciation with Standard German. Notice the similarity to the addition of n to the indefinite article a in English, giving an apple.--Thielke 05:47, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The apocope of n is not only found in Swiss dialects, but I'm not sure whether it's found all over the upper German dialects or only in the Alemannic German ones. I suspect that many of the characteristics given in this article are not only found in Swiss dialects. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 10:11, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  N usage 

message: Hi. Under "Variation and Distribution" there's a map with the legend "Distribution of Swiss German dialects". Actually, that map only represents the distribution of the different languages in Switzerland (yellow = German, purple = french, red = romansh and green = italian). So maybe we should just take it out? On way or the other, the different dialects are almost only canton-specific, so we could just put a map that show the swiss cantons. Greets from Zug =)
:Sorted, hopefully... it seems that somebody replaced the map at some stage... Kokiri 14:49, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map 

message: Can you explain what this sentence means:
Like in Swiss standard German, there is no final devoicing.
What does the "like in swiss standard german" refer to?  Not standard german presumably, which is not swiss, and does have devoicing.  Is there a Swiss version of standard german?  The article standard german makes no mention of different languages referred to as "standard german", though it does say that standard german is used as the written language in Switzerland, and that standard german has influenced modern spoken swiss german.  In short, can you answer me two questions: what does the term "swiss standard german" refer to?  Is there or isn't there final devoicing in Swiss German? -lethe talk [ +] 06:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why, yes, the article standard German mentions different varieties, see Standard German#Variants. Swiss standard German (from German Schweizer Hochdeutsch) refers to the variety of standard German as spoken in Switzerland. There is no final devoicing in the Swiss German dialects; there is mostly no final devoicing in Swiss standard German. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 08:22, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see.  So there is actually a swiss version of standard german, in addition to a swiss dialect of german.  Would you object to changing the sentence to make this clearer?  I was thinking something like Swiss German along with the Swiss variant of Standard German has no final devoicing, unlike Standard German.-lethe talk [ +] 09:18, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd rather not oppose Swiss standard German to standard German, since Swiss standard German is standard German (just another variety of it). So I'd prefer: Swiss German has no final devoicing, along with Swiss standard German, but unlike German standard German. I know that German standard German is clumsy, but it seemed less clumsy to me than saying: along with the Swiss variety of standard German, but unlike the German variety of standard German. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 09:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe for the clumsiness, we could say "the German national variety of" and "Swiss national variety of standard German". -lethe talk [ +] 09:59, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  final devoicing 

message: I have nominated Phonetic orthography of Zurich language for proposed deletion. It seems to be an uncontrovercial candidate for deletion, once the topic is researched. Where could it have been copied from, and what orthography is it referring to? The original version contained many misspellings. Graham talk 11:14, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I get the feeling I've seen that strange, French-like transcription before. But where? I severely doubt that it is really used in Zürich, since the usual transcriptions are based only on German spelling conventions, not on French ones. Maybe a similar article was deleted once before? Ah, now I've found it: The original version of the Zürich German started with a table of the same content. That table was subsequently moved to the article Orthography of the Zurich dialect. I requested to delete that article, and so it was, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Orthography of the Zurich dialect. I guess it might have been written by the same person, since the IP addresses are similar and since both IP addresses have very few contributions (one and two respectively), which might be a clue for a dynamic IP address. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 12:07, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phonetic orthography of Zurich language 

message: "However, almost any Swiss German speaker will be able to speak standard German or even some English when necessary." is a statement completely unrelated to the actual language; if there are sources, add them and mention why it is important; if not, it should be removed. --Kiwibird (talk) 16:03, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "even some English"... 

message: Someone moved this article to "Swiss German (linguistics)" without discussion. Swiss is not a linguistic concept, as we even state in the article ("Linguistically, Swiss German forms no unity"), so the new title, besides being awkward, was factually incorrect. kwami (talk) 23:51, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  move 

message: This bit of gibberish has been in the article at least since 2005, when s.o. above complained about it, but nothing was done:
:Most Swiss German dialects have rounded front vowels, unlike many German dialects. Only in the Low Alemannic dialects of northwest Switzerland (mainly Basel) and in the Walliser dialects, these have been unrounded. Under the influence of other Swiss German dialects, the rounding is spreading.
The first sentence is nonsense. The second sentence I can't evaluate, but it requires that these dialects once did have rounded front vowels (perhaps true). The third sentence is almost gibberish: I can't be sure what it is trying to say. (It seems to be saying that rounded front vowels are returning to the dialects which currently lack them.) kwami (talk) 10:01, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, that's what it says. Not written by me, but I think it makes sense, as much as I adore the word "gibberish" (it's lovely and should be used more often). What the nice contributor who wrote this stuff probably wanted to say can be exemplified a little:</br>Vowels such as y and œ have been unrounded (to i and e mostly) in some Swiss and some German dialects (for example behüt dich → pfiati ["<may God> protect you"] in Bavarian; hüüser → hiiser ["houses"]in trad. Basel dialect). This was indeed a case of unrounding; the rounded forms are the older ones. In Switzerland, dominant dialects such as Züritüütsch have retained the rounded vowels, which influences the "unrounded" dialects. My linguistics professor, who happens to be from Basel, even presented the reintroduction of hüüser into his dialect as a new variant triggered by the influx of other, more dominant dialectal forms. Trigaranus (talk) 10:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Before getting to smug here, there's a point where I think you might be right: I don't suppose the unrounding is a universal feature of those dialects. Perhaps there are certain words that have traditionally retained rounded front vowels, even in Baselditsch. Not entirely sure. All the examples I can think of at the moment are unrounded. Can people from Basel comment? Trigaranus (talk) 10:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That clears up most of the problem, but the first sentence still doesn't make any sense. Are "most Swiss dialects" like Züritüütsch, or like Baselditsch? Do most have FRVs, like German, or do most not have FRVs, unlike German? kwami (talk) 10:53, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the first sentence was written by me. I don't see why you suppose it doesn't make any sense. The problem may be in the distinction between standard German which obviously has front rounded vowels and German dialects which usually don't have them. I've tried to fix this issue. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 11:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Perfectly clear now with "unlike other High German dialects". I had been thinking of German dialects in general, which I think of as mostly having FRVs, so that was confusing to me. kwami (talk) 11:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the dtv-Atlas, rounded front vowels only appear in Low German dialects, in some Middle German dialects, and in most Swiss German dialects. It also says that the restitution of rounded front vowels in modern standard German was probably a Low German substratum effect, while until the 19th century, "standard" German was usually spoken without rounded front vowels (when the Saxon variety of standard German was deemed to be the best one). -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 12:41, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

text: In the dtv-Atlas (for those of you who have it) there's even a good map illustrating an example ("müde" - tired) of unrounding on page 148 top. Seems to totally agree with mach. Trigaranus (talk) 13:02, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vowel gibberish 

message: Yes, there is an example: Scotland. The Scots have Scottish English and a very distinguish accent called "Scots". It's the same in Switzerland. We got Swiss Standard German and Swiss German, which is as different from High German as Scots is from Standard British English. We also got many words which are completely different from High German. These words are probably of Celtic-Helvetic or old Alemannic origin.
Fyi: The official name of the German part in Switzerland is "German Switzerland" ("Deutschschweiz" or "deutsche Schweiz" in German). 92.105.88.38 (talk) 14:27, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, good point. Actually, the dialectal situation Scots/English is strikingly parallel in some parts (Scots: moose vs. Eng. "mouse"; SG: mūs vs. HG "Maus"). I suggest we re-word that paragraph. Trigaranus (talk) 22:23, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

text: Another Scottish parallel is that people in Scotland write almost exclusively in Standard English when many speak various dialects of Scots. Whether Scots is a dialect or a relative of Standard English has been much debated, but as a native speaker of Standard English, I find Scots very difficult to understand, even though I have had some exposure to it. 121.44.174.189 (talk) 10:49, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "There is hardly any example of dialects in the English language that might illustrate the situation. 

message: In standard German, (e)r in the syllable coda is pronounced as the vowel [ɐ] or the semivowel [ɐ̯] (e.g. Butter, Saar) - does the same happen in Swiss German?  I guess not, since the pronunciation of Schwyzerdütsch is given here as [ʃvitsəɾd̥ytʃ] - but this would be useful information for the article (whichever the answer is). Lfh (talk) 16:08, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Depends on the dialect. Some dialects realise r as an alveolar, coronal trill / flap in every position; others, especially from Basel, Thurgau, Schaffhausen and other parts of mostly eastern Switzerland have a guttural r not unlike French or German. In these, r in the syllable coda is vocalised as well. Trigaranus (talk) 16:15, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That's interesting.  I assumed it would be more uniform, but that shows you what I know.  Any specific information on this would be good for the article. Lfh (talk) 16:50, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, this is no different in standard German: It depends on the variety. There are varieties of standard German where /r/ in the syllable coda is vocalised, and there are others where it is not. In some varieties of standard German, Butter and Saar are pronouned as [ˈb̥ʊtɐ] and [ˈz̥aː(ɐ̯)], while in other varieties of standard German, it is pronounced as [ˈb̥ʊtər] or [b̥ʊtr̩] and [z̥aːr]. Incidently – and not very surprisingly –, this coincides with the dialects. In the very regions where standard German syllable coda /r/ is pronounced as [r], the dialects have [r] as well. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 18:12, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: So vocalisation occurs when /r/ is uvular (trill or fricative) and not when it is alveolar (trill or tap)?  OK.  So far all I could find was this, from German phonology: "In the syllable coda, the allophone [ɐ] is used in many varieties, except in the South-West." Lfh (talk) 20:20, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The prescriptive tradition of the standardized German pronunciation is far from taking the uvular side – to the contrary, Siebs' Deutsche Bühnenaussprache only accepts the alveolar pronunciation. However, I was not referring to the prescriptive tradition but to Hochdeutsch/Schriftdeutsch/Standarddeutsch in a more descriptive sense, the language that is farthest from the local dialect and that would be used for instance by newsspeakers or gymnasium German teachers. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 23:27, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

text: I think the sign [r] would be more appropiate, from the rational that whenever there are several possible pronunciations, the transcription should represent the least marked sign. My impression is that [r] and [ɾ] are likely to be allophones in all languages that don't oppose them as phonemes. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 11:21, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.  Actually I phrased that badly - what I meant to ask was whether there are any dialects which only use [ɾ], but I assume not. Lfh (talk) 16:19, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  r in syllable coda 

message: Would the linguistic experts here please take a look at the recent change in that article.  Thank you.   7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:47, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Bernese Mountain Dog]]

message: Under Grammar, there is the following point:
The order within verb groups may vary, e.g. wil du bisch cho/wil du cho bisch vs. standard German weil du gekommen bist "because you have come/came".
No further explanation is given. It seems to me that the first ("wil du bisch cho") is more prevalent in Western Swissgerman dialects like Bern. You won't hear this word order from a Zurich native.
I propose that this is due to proximity to the French speaking regions. The word sequence is actually French, not German ("parce-que tu es venu" vs. "weil du gekommen bist"). The Western Swissgerman dialects' vocabularies borrow much more from French than the Eastern ones, so why not also borrow grammar? I am no linguist, so could an expert confirm/refute this? Thanks.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Turicus2 (talk • contribs) 03:25, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It is very unlikely that this is borrowed from French, especially since it only apparently reflects the French order. When you add an element to the sentence, the difference becomes visible: parce-que tu es venu chez moi — wil du zu mir bisch cho. Therefore, I think that this is a mere coincidence. However, there is evidence that German constituent order used to be more flexible than it is today. Your observation that the prevalent constituent order differs between Western and Eastern Switzerland is correct, as is certainly documented somewhere in the Sprachatlas der deutschen Schweiz. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 19:52, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I've now had the time to look into it (it's in the article now). The SDS II 261 information makes a French influence even more unlikely. In gsi bi vs. bi gsi, the former order is found in the cantons of Berne (except the northernmost parts) and Valais, while the latter order (which is the same as in standard German) is found in the rest of German speaking Switzerland, including in the German speaking part of Fribourg, a region that lies even closer to the French speaking part than the canton of Berne. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 11:09, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Word/verb order in subordinate clauses 

message: I think since the age of the SMS's writing Swiss German became very popular. Earlier postcards and personal letters were written in High German, Today they're written in Swiss German. So Swiss German displaced Upper German and nowadays it's only used in formal letters and official things anymore. Is it possible to include it in the Article? --Sevku (talk) 10:59, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Written Swiss German 

message: Like all Southern German dialects, Swiss German dialects have no voiced obstruents. ... Neither Swiss German nor the Swiss national variety of standard German exhibits final devoicing, unlike the German national variety of standard German (for example, "Zug" is pronounced [tsuːɡ] and not [tsuːk]).
If Swiss German has no voiced obstruents (which I can confirm), how can final obstruents be voiced? --SelfishSeahorse (talk) 16:35, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: See Final-obstruent devoicing#German – I hope that explains things. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 17:21, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it does! Thank you very much! (Sorry for not reading the correspondent article before.) May I add a voicelessness-ring to [tsuːg̥]? --SelfishSeahorse (talk) 18:05, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voiced voiceless obstruents? 

message: "Although Swiss German is the native language, from age 6 people additionally learn Swiss Standard German at school and are thus fully able to understand, write and to speak Standard German with varying abilities mainly based on the level of education."
The are "fully able" yet with "varying abilities." That doesn't make any sense. 66.234.219.175 (talk) 04:51, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oxymoronic sentence? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20130101035257/http://www.iwaynet.net:80/~watts/deutsch/dstimm.html to http://www.iwaynet.net/~watts/deutsch/dstimm.html
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Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 14:30, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: There is no explanation why "Kasten" is pronounced with a [x], while Karribik is [k͡x].--2001:16B8:3176:1E00:ECA2:6A6E:936A:F603 (talk) 18:24, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  x and k͡x 

message: Languages of the Vatican City says:
:In the Swiss Guard, Swiss German is the language used for giving commands
However I could not find a reference in English.
--Error (talk) 19:37, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swiss Guard 

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Argentinien-schwyzertütsch dialect which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 00:02, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move discussion in progress 

message: The language about fortis and lenis stops is very confusing - it uses devoicing diacritics on the “voiced” stops, and notes that they’re voiceless but that the “voiceless” stops are unaspirated. Taken at face value, those are the same thing (tenuis voiceless stops). Since it’s clear there’s a distinction, can someone elaborate on what phonetic quality makes that distinction? Are the lenis stops only partially devoiced, is it a length contrast (there’s some noncommittal language to that effect in the article), etc?  2603:7080:1B05:9F27:8565:32F3:E202:1548 (talk) 04:53, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: True. I have attempted to make the relevant passage clearer. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 05:56, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fortis/lenis stops