Barossa German

Barossa German is a dialect of the German language that was spoken in the Barossa Valley near Adelaide in the Australian state of South Australia .

Since 1842 there has been the immigration of Germans who had emigrated from Silesia, Prussia and Posen in search of (religious) freedom and who are now making a fresh start in Bethanien (today: Bethany).

The dialect combined the German language with the use of English terms. However, it was more closely based on the standard German language than, for example, the similarly developed Pennsylvania Deitsch in the USA . An example sentence is: The rabbit jumped over the fence and nibbled off the carrots ( the rabbit jumped over the fence and gnawed off the carrots).

During the First World War , the use of the German language in Australia was actively suppressed. So German place names were renamed. Immigration from Germany also broke off due to the war. As a result, Barossa German increasingly disappeared and is rarely spoken today.

See also

• German settlements in Australia
• German Australian

Web links

• German speaking Australia
• Welt Online: German Australia
• Luther's Children: the Barossa Deutsch (Podcast, English / partly German, about Barossa German from about 30 minutes)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Vera Sprothen: The German Australia. In: Welt N24 of November 24, 2007. Retrieved on August 16, 2017 (English).