Chur German
| Chur German | ||
|---|---|---|
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Spoken in |
Chur | |
| speaker | approx. 30,000 | |
| Linguistic classification |
Indo-European language family Germanic languages
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| Official status | ||
| Official language in |
de jure nowhere de facto in verbal official dealings: Chur 
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Under Chur German is dialect of the city of Chur (Switzerland) understood. It is a highly Alemannic dialect. Chur spoke Romansh until the middle of the 15th century and was then gradually Germanised. The linguists assume that the Romance substrate has influenced the Alemannic superstrat, especially in pronunciation and intonation. The Churer dialect, as a relatively young dialect, also has standard language features.
Typical characteristics
The initial Germanic k- is realized in the Churer dialect as an aspirated kh- (as in the standard language), for example in Khuchi for 'kitchen'. Up until about 20 years ago, you could still clearly hear forms like mahha for 'make'. Germ. -nk- appears in the Churer dialect as tengga for 'think'. - In this way, Chur distinguishes itself from most Swiss-German dialects, which in the examples mentioned would realize shifted forms such as Chuchi, mache, dänkche . In Churer German , endings containing a often appear in the adjacent syllable vowelism , whereby the a can be more or less pronounced depending on the emphasis and the speaker. Examples: suacha for 'search'; hemmar for 'we have'. Similarly, the second Diphthongelement can a be -containing: viar for 'four'; Diar gibi khai Piar! for 'I won't give you a beer, check' for 'check . The final standard-language diphthong -ei [-ai] appears in older Chur German as -ei and not as -ai : police, butchery, three, lead.
Verbs
The special position of the Churer dialect is also evident in the verb forms. In Chur were up to two-syllable while ago verbs usual for the usually more common in Switzerland monosyllabic forms, so zücha for zie (drag), schlaaga for Schloo (beat) etc. Remarkable are also the most bright a-staining in the word inside against the otherwise often evaporated (closed) As and the ending of the infinitive forms in -a instead of -ä or Schwa, which is common in the other Swiss dialects.
Examples
Extract from Oscar Eckhardt's dictionary with some terms that are hardly used today:
- räägga - cry
- rätscha - tell
- Rätschbääsa, dr - Petzer, Petzerin
- Riissplei, ds - pencil
- Ritscha, d - a series, e.g. B. a row of beans
- rooba - move, move
- Roobi, d - moving; the goods (loan word from Romansh: la roba = the thing, the thing)
Chur German as a central dialect
As Oscar Eckhardt was able to demonstrate in his study "Alemannisch im Churer Rheintal", a new regional dialect has emerged in the Chur Rhine Valley over the last 70 years, which was influenced by the Chur German, but differs greatly from the Chur German of 1950. The new dialect (called "Churerrheintalisch" by Eckhardt) shows many features of the old Churian German, but the Graubünden Romance language relics, which are particularly typical, have disappeared. Walser influences have diminished. Standard language borrowings have been phonetically adapted to the new regional dialect.
bibliography
- Oscar Eckhardt: The dialect of the city of Chur. Edited by the phonogram archive of the University of Zurich . Text (dissertation) and audio cassette. Zurich 1991.
- Oscar Eckhardt: Tschent - Chur German. Desertina, Chur 2007 (also includes an audio CD).
- Oscar Eckhardt: Alemannic in the Chur Rhine Valley. From the local variant to the regional dialect (= magazine for dialectology and linguistics. Supplement 162). Steiner, Stuttgart 2016.
- Oscar Eckhardt: Alemannic in the Chur Rhine Valley. From the local variant to the regional dialect. In: Swiss Idioticon / Swiss German Dictionary. Annual report 2017, pp. 21–32 (abridged version of the previous one).