Cannstatter Volksfest Verein

www.cvvphilly.com
Swabian/Schwäbisch
By David Roscoe
Many of our members are several generations
removed from their immigrant ancestors and in a
desire to reconnect with their roots have signed up for
a German language course, a decision which I
applaud. In their course they study standard German
or High German - Hoch Deutsch - but High German is
something of an artificial
language first developed by
Martin Luther in his
translation of the Bible. He
attempted to develop a
language which combined
features of the dialects
spoken in the mountainous
regions of central and
Southern Germany, hence
the term High German as
opposed to Low German or
the dialects spoken in the
low areas of Northern
Germany.
Despite Luther’s effort the
local dialects persisted
although High German was
taught in the schools.
Someone once described a
language as a dialect with
an army and navy so the
Low German dialects spoken
in the Netherlands and
England became Dutch and
English instead of just being local dialects.
In the area of Southwestern Germany from where the
founders of the Cannstatter came, the local dialect
was Swabian or Schwäbisch and variants are spoken
in Switzerland as well as Alsace. Many of the socalled
Pennsylvania Dutch came from this region and
they speak a form of German very close to Swabian.
There are several aspects of Swabian which
differentiate it from formal standard German. Perhaps
Map of the Swabian Circle 1572
the most obvious is a vowel switch where for example
the round “a” becomes a long “o” and as a result a
Schwab is called a Schwob. The umlauted “o” as in
schön where it is pronounced like “er” but in Swabian
it becomes pronounced like English long “a”, as in
hay. Diminutives are not formed by the suffix “es,”
“chen” or “lein” as in
Hänschen and Gretchen but
with “el” so we have Hänsel
and Gretel.
Another characteristic of
Swabian is the dropping of
the “ch” is words such as
ich, auch and nicht which
then become “i” -
pronounced as English long
“e” as in see - au -
pronounced owl - and nit.
The “ch” is not the only
thing dropped. Adjective
endings and verb endings
are too, as well as interior
consonants and vowels, so
you can hear such phrases
as Mir han instead of wir
haben - oops I neglected to
point out that the labials
“w” and “m” are sometimes
interchanged.
These are but a few of the characteristics which
distinguish Swabian from standard German and which
make the local dialect interesting and individualistic.
Field Marshall Erwin Rommel - no relation to our past
president - according to his biographer, enjoyed
speaking in the dialect to people from Swabia. If you
are - as I have often advised - taking a course in
German, ask your instructor about some of these
differences and set the class in a fun direction.
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