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

DAS „WALSERDEUTSCHE“ IM OBERWALLIS
would like to briefly outline the main phonetic and grammatical differences of Swiss
German, fully aware that the only permanent milestone holding firm for all Walsers is the
shift from Germanic “s” to “sch”. All Walsers are aware of the fact that it is by virtue of
“iisch, insch, üüsch, ünsch” that they will set themselves apart from their not-Walser
neighbours. The remaining main differences surface in each of the Walser areas in different
and unconfined ways. Let us now come to common traits of Walser dialects. Beside
phonetic and grammatical common traits we have additional and interesting links. There
are names designating things, objects, common situations which are universally widespread
and common throughout the Walser world. Needless to say their pronunciation may
somewhat differ from place to place, but on the whole these differences stem from the start
language itself. What is then the problem with Walliserdeutsch? Well, the problem with
Walliserdeutsch is that there is no Walliserdeutsch! The Higher Wallis region was settled
from the East and from the West in the 7 th century, which led to a pronunciation rift on the
territory settled by the Walsers, a sort of “ee”-“ää” — “du”-“düü” borderline. This split can
be still traced nowadays, it is a commonly known phenomenon, while other discrepancies
may be less well recognised, like the difference between “känne” (“kennen” in Alagna) and
“bkenne” (“kennen” in Pomatt). So it is mandatory to go back to Walliserdeutsch when one
deals with Walser dialects. A mighty good tool to that end is the Language Atlas of Germanspeaking
Switzerland, which includes the Walser areas in Northern Italy as well. Besides
clear-cut boundaries, there are many other local peculiarities which mark out the origin of
speakers in Higher Wallis and the Walsers took these peculiarities with them as they settled
elsewhere. The fact that there is no Wallis dictionary can be presumably ascribed to the fact
that there is no unified Walliserdeutsch language. There is a rich literature in this language
or in the dialects from various territories. There are isolated attempts to create dictionaries
and there is a word choice by Vogel which was published as a comparative dictionary
by Dr. Alois Grichting. In addition to that, under the topic “buildings” I have attempted to
illustrate the word gamut available in this field by means of a small dictionary. The bibliography
in this work offers cross-references to a lot of publications on the theme of
Walliserdeutsch. In the following list I would like to point out a small choice or particularly
meaningful works (see first list in the report). Ever since its inception the International
Union for Walser Affairs and Language has been taking care of Walser culture and, above
all, Walser language. It has steadily tried to foster language and culture above all in
Northern Italy. To pursue this goal its deploys the following tools (see second list in report).
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