Hamburg dialect

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The term Hamburg dialect can designate three major dialects in two different languages, whereby Low German is an independent language, not a dialect.

Low German

The original language of Hamburg was not High German , but Hamburger Platt , a variant of Low German (Plattdeutschen). During the Hanseatic period , the closely related Low German dialects of Hamburg and Lübeck were the lingua franca of Northern and Central Europe and were used from England to Russia. The Scandinavian languages ​​in particular still retain loanwords from Low German today . In the Middle Ages and up to modern times, Low German was the written language in Hamburg alongside Latin and was also used for official documents, including the earliest written constitutional documents in Hamburg. It lost this status to High German in the 16th century. Even today, Low German is spoken in several different local dialects in Hamburg, e.g. B. Finkwarder Platt or Veerlanner Platt (with several sub-dialects).

The vocabulary of the Hamburger Platt is described in the Hamburg dictionary .

Missingsch

The High German influenced Hamburg Regiolekt is Missingsch - not to be confused with Low German. Missingsch is - as the name apparently (in folk etymology ) suggests - a mixture of standard German and Low German. In reality, it is predominantly assumed that Missingsch was the Hamburg term for Meißnerisch , that is, the Meißner office language from which Standard German emerged; However, according to another theory, the name is derived from brass . The grammar is predominantly Low German, the vocabulary a mixture of High German with Low German expressions.

There are several books by Dirks Paulun (with short stories in Missingsch, but also an authentic description of the pronunciation / usage), which are probably only available in antiquarian versions or in libraries.

Standard German

Today standard German is spoken almost exclusively in Hamburg. The typical "Hamburg German", however, has regional peculiarities in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation that are widespread in a similar form in almost all of northern Germany. B. also in the modern Bremen dialect .

pronunciation

• In Hamburg, [l] before [ç] is implemented as [j]. So “milk” becomes “Mijch / Miich”, “dagger” becomes “Dojch”; “Epidemic” and “such” are homophones in Hamburg.

• [g] at the end of the syllable is often realized as [ç] - as is common in central and northern Germany. This can also take place in front of voiceless consonants, but this tends to be less common (e.g. “silent” → “softens”, “lies” → “lies”); see below “lenization”.

• A long [a] in High German is often short and wide in Hamburg: “Rad”, “Glas”, “Tag”, “Jagd” become “Ratt”, “Glass”, “Tach”, “Jacht”.

• The Hamburg language not only knows the short, broad [a], but also a long, dark [a], z. B. “Kahn” becomes “Kåhn”.

• The High German diphthong [aɪ] is often started with a dark a [ɑɪ].

• A specialty of Hamburg is the "Hamburger Schleifton". The extra-long vowels that make up the distinctive “stretching” and “stretching” of original hamburgers are called the grinding tone. So z. B. [ɔɪ] to [ɔːɪ] and [uː] to [uuː] ("Courage" vs. "Muut"). The grinding tone is particularly clear with words that otherwise end in [ə], such as “people”. Here, “people” [ˈlɔɪtə] becomes “Loidee” [ˈlɔːɪdeː]. The grinding tone is audible on the “eu” and “e”, the lenization also on the “t”.

• A [ʃ] before a [p] or [t] is often spoken as [s] in Hamburg. There is also the saying "stumble over sharp stones [ˈybɛrn ˈspɪtsn staen ˈstɔɫpɛɺn]".

• More rarely, long vowels are not only excessively long, but also (as in Low German) pronounced slightly diphthong, so that “Beet” sounds like “Beeyt” and “experienced” sounds like “experienced”.

Lenization

The internal German consonant weakening of the plosive sounds or forts g and t to ch and d is also very common , if these are voiceless (recognizable by words such as HamburgHamburch , KriegKriech , MenschenLeude , pleasebidde for t → d) , whereby a more precise pronunciation is generally adhered to with foreign words, as well as the merging ( contraction ) of st or sd between two vowels to a sharp ss ( if you havehassu , you have tomust , isissas ) where, for example, that Berlinerische turns the second vowel into a short e ( did youhaste , you have tohad to ), which is related to the general omission of t in words like notnich , isis . Similarly , I havehabbich and we havehamma (see example above).

Influence of Low German

The Hamburg High German shows the influence of Low German in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. Low German word forms and vocabulary are usually colloquial in High German. These include, for example:

  • dat, wat
  • Büx, Buxe ("pants")
  • Deern ("girl")
  • klönen ("chat")
  • lütt ("small")
  • man ("once", "only")
  • Schiet ("shit")
  • chatter ("talk", "talk nonsense")
  • tüdern ("tie up")
  • dröge ("dry", "boring")
  • plietsch ("smart", "alert")

In colloquial language, adverbs can be transformed into adjectives: For example, "zue (closed) doors", "auffe (opened) windows" or "appe (severed) legs" can be found.

Specific Low German syntax can be found in:

  • preferring that instead of it , for example: "What time is that?" .
  • the tearing apart ( tmesis ) of adverbs such as forda ... for ( "I can't do anything for that." or "because not for" ), onda ... on it ( "I don't get it." ). In the standard German there is something similar only with separable verbs ( go → "I 'll go there back ").

The original Low German in Hamburg had no initial sch before consonants and instead had a sharp s . However, only very sporadically and as a remnant from the earlier often spoken Missingsch artefacts such as a sharp s in st or sp can be observed, which are also perceived by Hamburgers as a Low German dialect and are no longer pronounced in this way by the younger generations; only very rarely does someone in Hamburg stumble across the proverbial s-pointed stone .

Bibliography

The 38th Asterix dialect volume Hammonia City (corresponds to the 17th Asterix volume Die Trabantenstadt ) was published in "Hamburgisch" in the sense of the pronunciation of Standard German discussed here .

Individual evidence

  1. Kluge. Etymological dictionary of the German language . Edited by Elmar Seebold. 24th, revised and expanded edition. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2002, keywords: "messing (i) sch, missingsch". ISBN 3-11-017472-3 .