Sound monument of Reich German dialects

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The phonetic monument of German dialects is a collection of a little more than 300 records that were recorded in the years 1936 and 1937 as part of a linguistic field research in the entire area of ​​the then German Reich . They document a large number of local languages from all dialect areas of the empire, including dialects that have now become extinct, most of them as a result of the Second World War .

Client and planning

The formal client for the work was the Reich Association of German Civil Servants in Brünnhausen in Bavaria, with Julius Vogel (Berlin's main department head) responsible . The planning and various accompanying work were carried out by the German Language Atlas in Marburg . From there came the scientific processing and the determination of the recording locations. It took place in cooperation with the Marburg professors Bernhard Martin and Walther Mitzka .

Procedure and technology and whereabouts of the recordings

The special recordings department at Telefunkenplatte GmbH in Berlin, the successor to Ultraphon , was commissioned with the technical implementation of the recordings . She sent her "large recording vehicle" overland to the individual recording locations for about eight months in order to carry out outdoor recordings without the studio technique that was common at the time , which occasionally had to struggle with technical inadequacies in remote locations.

One wanted to leave the speakers as unaffected as possible in their normal environment in order to get the most unadulterated voice samples possible. They were captured with the most modern technology of the time. Those responsible claim in the accompanying materials and publications that they have not given the speakers any content or text specifications.

Wax matrices were cut from these recordings, from which copper matrices were created, which remained with the executing company as pressing tools. With its current successor, the TELDEC , nothing is known about their whereabouts, while it is known for sure that the accompanying documents and files were destroyed as a result of the war. However, there is still evidence of a newspaper report that ten sets of records had been pressed, three of which went to Marburg for the “Sprachatlas”, two of which still exist. The whereabouts of the rest is unclear.

Political ingratiation

On April 29, 1937, Adolf Hitler's 48th birthday, the “Führer and Reich Chancellor ” was given a special edition of the work with a player in a specially designed wooden cupboard in the presence of representatives of the Reichsbund in his official residence. However, it is likely that Hitler could not do anything with it. There is no evidence that he ever listened to a record. The Kiel Latest news but reports in its issue of 1 July 1937 that Hitler had listened to some of the plates According monument. Afterwards "[he, Hitler] expressed his appreciation for the value of this work with warm words of thanks". One of the project employees, Reichsbeamtenführer Hermann Neef , had contributed a recording of a special adulation about Hitler and is said to have encouraged speakers to make corresponding statements.

Supplement 1938

After the Sudetenland and Austria were annexed to the German Reich in 1938, 100 additional sound recordings were made in these areas to supplement the more than 300 already existing.

Speaker and content

With one exception (safe, see above ) the speakers are probably just normal people, mostly villagers. They are influenced by National Socialist political propaganda, exposed to the zeitgeist, but otherwise unambitious. They also have no scientific background or reference to the linguistic issues and interests of the makers of the phonetic monuments of Imperial German dialects. They mostly talk about the immediate living environment or events of the time in which they are. Examples are: village festivals , agriculture , beekeeping and beekeeping , home slaughtering , gliding , knitting , labor service , pottery , card game , Nazi Party , Walpurgisnacht , Bergmann life , Easter water , storm surge , rain , food , chamois , violin , Thanksgiving , war experiences , village community work , hotel industry , Mayor's office , unemployment , grain cultivation , old legends , viticulture , maypole , traditional costumes , cooper's trade , and so on. The individual sound recordings are usually between three and four minutes long, so not particularly detailed.

Processing and digitization

The Marburg linguist Wolfgang Näser has edited and abbreviated several dozen of the sound recordings from the “Lautdenkmal” analogue and digital since about 1995 and published the results on various media and on the Internet.

Web links

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  1. ↑ Kiel Latest News, July 1, 1937, p. 18.
  2. ↑ as recording number 278, see https://wolfgang-naeser-marburg.lima-city.de/htm/ld03.htm last accessed on January 16, 2019.
  3. ↑ https://wolfgang-naeser-marburg.lima-city.de/htm/ld01.htm last accessed on January 16, 2019.