Albert Weber (dialectologist)

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Albert Weber (born July 16, 1883 in Tann , Dürnten municipality ; † May 17, 1957 in Mexico City ) was a Swiss teacher and dialectologist . His Zurich German grammar from 1948 is the first comprehensive grammar of a Swiss German dialect, and his Zurich German dictionary from 1961 or its third edition from 1983 triggered a boom in Swiss German dialect dictionaries that has continued to this day.

Life

Weber, a citizen of Winterthur , grew up as the son of a locksmith and a teacher's daughter in the Zurich Oberland . In 1903 he received the teacher training college Küsnacht the primary school teacher patent in 1908 (1904?) Closed it at the University of Zurich , the secondary school teacher study from. He wrote his thesis on Rudolf Hildebrand , a public educator and collaborator on the German dictionary . In 1906 he got a job at the secondary school in Zurich - Wiedikon , but went to London in 1910 to perfect his English.

Returning to Switzerland, Weber resumed the teaching profession and began studying German and English at the University of Zurich. He passed his doctorate in 1918 with Albert Bachmann . His - extended - dissertation on the sounds and forms of the Zurich German dialect of the Zurich Oberland was published in 1923 as the 15th volume in the series Contributions to Swiss German Grammar . In 1919 he was elected professor for German and English at the Cantonal Commercial School in Zurich.

In 1955 Weber emigrated to Mexico City , where he died two years later as a result of a stroke . He is buried in Zurich.

Create

Weber wrote two groundbreaking basic works with the Zurich German grammar and the Zurich German dictionary . A third script, namely a dictionary of synonyms for Swiss German dialects, remained unfinished.

«Zurich German grammar»

The impetus for the grammar came from the working group (now the foundation) Pro Helvetia , which was established at the time of the spiritual national defense . There were hardly any templates for a synchronic dialect grammar; Weber's first foundations were his own, diachronic dissertation as well as the textbook Schweizerdeutsch published by Karl Stucki in 1921 , which had gone largely unnoticed, but formed the first synchronized representation of Swiss German and was a great help to Weber. In addition, the phonologist and dialectologist Eugen Dieth was at his side with help and advice.

The grammar, published in 1948, turned out to be groundbreaking, as it dealt extensively with the sounds ( phonology ) and word inflection ( declination and conjugation ), as one was used to with conventional grammars, as well as comprehensively dealing with syntax , morphosyntax and word formation . Weber's Zurich German grammar became the direct model for Ludwig Fischer's Lucerne German grammar (1960), Hans Bossard's and Peter Dalcher's short grammar in the Zug dialect book (1962) and Rudolf Suter's Basel German grammar (1976). The two new editions from 1964 (apart from their rewritten introduction) and from 1987 are only reprints, as nobody dared to revise Weber's work.

«Zurich German Dictionary»

Weber, however, could no longer complete his dictionary himself; when he died, it was the letter S . Jacques M. Bächtold , a friend of Weber, then brought it to a close, whereby he not only had to work out the missing phrase, but also had to shorten the preceding part considerably. A committee of the Bund Schwyzertütsch, consisting of Bruno Boesch , Ernst Buss and Adolf Guggenbühl , stood by Bächtold; The work was financially supported by Weber's daughter.

This dictionary, published in 1961, overcame a phase that lasted around eighty years, in which, following the early works of Titus Tobler (1837, Appenzell German), Valentin Bühler (1870–1886, Davoser German), Jakob Hunziker (1877, southwestern Aargau German), Gustav Adolf Seiler (1879, Basel German) and Martin Tschumpert (1880 ff., Unfinished; Bündner and Walser German) not a single dictionary of a regional Swiss German dialect was published in view of the lexicographical focus on the Swiss Idioticon .

After the first edition of Weber and Bächtold's Zurich German dictionary, the Zug dialect book developed by Hans Bossard and Peter Dalcher and in 1976 the Bern German dictionary by Ruth Bietenhard based on the work of Otto von Greyerz came out, but it was the third, by Jacques M. Bächtold, Johannes Jakob Sturzenegger and Rudolf Trüb greatly expanded and modernized edition of Weber's dictionary, which in 1983 triggered the development of several dozen new regional and local dialect dictionaries, which have since appeared in quick succession.

characterization

The dialect that Weber observed is that of the villages on Lake Zurich , in the Limmat Valley and in the city ​​of Zurich , but primarily that of his closer home around Rüti and Hinwil . Because Zurich German is generally quite homogeneous, the grammar and dictionary apply mutatis mutandis to almost the entire canton of Zurich , apart from the wine country north of the Thur and the Rafzerfeld north of the Rhine, where Schaffhausen-Thurgau Eastern Swiss German is already spoken.

Both the grammar and the dictionary are descriptive and normative at the same time - descriptive in that they describe the dialect, normative in that they also say what is correct and what is not. They are designed to contrast with the standard language and pay special attention to the differences between written language and dialect. Both works are aligned synchronously, but describe a Zurich German that Weber had heard in his childhood and youth, and diachronic notes can be found in numerous places in the grammar. The grammar (less the dictionary) is scientifically based, but remains generally understandable. The ultimate goal was for the two books to come "into the hands of the Zurich teaching staff" and serve as "a defense and weapon against the incursions of written language into dialect" - this of course remained wishful thinking.

Publications

  • The dialect of the Zurich Oberland. Huber, Frauenfeld 1923 (Contributions to Swiss German Grammar XV).
  • (with the assistance of Eugen Dieth :) Zurich German grammar. A guide to good dialect. Schweizer Spiegel, Zurich 1948 (reprints ibid. 1964 and Hans Rohr, Zurich 1987) ( grammars and dictionaries of Swiss German in a generally understandable representation  I), ISBN 3-85865-083-8 .
  • (completed by Jacques M. Bächtold :) Zurich German dictionary. Schweizer Spiegel, Zurich 1961, 3rd, revised and greatly expanded edition Hans Rohr, Zurich 1983 ( grammars and dictionaries of Swiss German in a generally understandable representation  III), ISBN 3-85865-054-4 .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1904 according to the obituary published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , 1908 according to the Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz .
  2. ↑ Cause of death and place of last rest according to the obituary published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung .
  3. ↑ Mentioned in the obituary in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung .
  4. ↑ Franz Joseph Stalder's dialectology from 1819 was also synchronized, but it dates back to before modern linguistics.
  5. ↑ Weber writes in the foreword to the first edition of his grammar (p. 7): «Although it [namely Stucki's grammar] was not very effective as a learning book due to its intended purpose and because of the confusing abundance of sounds and forms, for me it is methodical Pattern of commonly understood ways of looking at things and expressing them, and as the first attempt to present the dialect for practical purposes, it was of great use. "
  6. ↑ Rudolf Trüb writes in the foreword to the third edition of the grammar (p. 8): “The Bund Schwyzertütsch would have gladly presented a third edition in a revised form. However, this task turned out to be so demanding and time-consuming that the board decided to make the text of the second edition from 1964 available again for the time being. "
  7. ^ Robert Hinderling : [Review.] In: Journal for German Philology 84 (1965), pp. 444 f.
  8. ↑ Compare this with Thomas Arnold Hammer: Continuity and Change in the Swiss German Dictionary, in: Swiss German Dictionary. Swiss Idioticon. Report on the year 2008, pp. 19–31, esp. 20–22.
  9. ↑ Compare the compilation on the homepage of the Swiss Idiotikon in the submenu dialect dictionaries .
  10. ^ Foreword by Albert Weber in the first edition of the grammar, p. 8.
  11. ^ Foreword by Kurt Meyer and Rudolf Trüb to the second edition of the grammar, p. 8.
personal data
SURNAME Weber, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss teacher and dialectologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Tann , municipality of Dürnten
DATE OF DEATH May 17, 1957
Place of death Mexico city