WALSERSPRACHE - The four main objectives of the Alpine Space ...

WALSER WÖRTERBÜCHER – LUXUS ODER NOTWENDIGKEIT?
Verständigung. Die Mundart kann nicht künstlich erhalten werden, auch
nicht durch das Sammeln des Wortstandes. Mundart überlebt, wenn sie
gelebt und erlebt wird.»
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Walser dictionaries: a luxury or a need? Some ten years ago, in Italy, Austria and in
Switzerland there appeared three dictionaries: 1) «Ts Remmaljertittschu» under the auspices
of the Walser Study Centre of Rimella, 2) the «Kleinwalsertaler Mundartwörterbuch» by
Tiburt Fritz, Werner Drechsel and Karl Kessler and 3) the «Inschi Sprààch – ds Obarsàxar
Titsch» by Maria Ettlin-Janka, published by the Pro Supersaxa Association. That put the number
of dictionaries, or word lists, to ten, and all of that in just fifteen years. Since then we have
seen no new entries, except for specialised dictionaries, like the one devoted to buildings, by
Volmar Schmid. One can well ask oneself, if it makes any longer any sense, at the onset of the
21 st century, when everyone is bent on learning one international language or another, to
justify the appearance of such dictionaries. Is it not the language they preserve a museum
piece? Is it not some lonesome language-lover’s play toy since, in the end, it contributes very
little to our modern-day society? And when it comes to Walser, is it not more a dialect than a
language we deal with? Here is a remark by Iso Camartin, a scholar and specialist in
Romanic languages: «The Walsers are as much entitled to continue existing as their language
is». This statement alone could justify a motion by the Walser Union to petition the UNESCO to
recognise their language as a world heritage, something which would have an immense bearing
on the three-language speaking Grey Canton region. These are questions which nowadays,
in this context and as Walser associations, we must ask ourselves, since the preservation
of a language, and of a mother tongue in particular, is like a highly sensitive seismograph,
which better than anything else keeps track of the social and cultural conditions of a given
population. Do we have today a boring universal language? The Swiss dialectologist Simon
Gfeller has defined dialects in his diary in such a strikingly appropriate way that his definition
held the ground for over seventy years: «Our mother tongue is the magic mirror with
which we may light our children’s way in life and in the world. If we keep this mirror crystalclear,
it will afford them well-contoured, powerful projections. If it is sombre and askant, it
will evoke distorted thoughts, which will neither be powerful nor lasting. Children must be
shown that a dialect is not sheer babble and chatter, but a true language whose qualities outstrip
those of a literary tongue.» This stands to prove what an enormously important task dictionaries
can and must take on. Independently of their number of speakers, they show what
a language is capable of and what an array of linguistic shadings a dialect can afford. More
than just language snap-shots. The all-in-all ten dictionaries or word lists, which have thus
far appeared, have taken on a mighty challenge. In them dialects which were just spoken over
a 700-year span, must be codified all of a sudden. It is new and it is a mighty undertaking.
In them languages, as far as can be, must be led back to their origins, inasmuch as one must
record not only the words themselves, but also their development, influences and changes
along the way. So these dictionaries are far more than mere snap-shots insofar as they include
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