Lower Lusatian dialect

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Lower Lusatian

Spoken in

Brandenburg , Saxony
Linguistic
classification

The Niederlausitzer dialect is a German dialect from Lausitz and is spoken in Brandenburg around Cottbus and in Saxony around Hoyerswerda . It was also spoken around today's Żary (Sorau) until the Second World War . Lower Lusatian has a noticeable difference to the northern Brandenburg dialects and is in clear contrast to the western dialects of Upper Saxony and Anhalt, while towards the south it gradually changes into the Upper Lusatian dialects (e.g. West or East Lusatian dialect ).

General

Due to the geographical displacement of the Lower Sorbian language as well as linguistic mixing with the onset of industrialization up to the end of the Second World War, the Lower Lusatian dialect is characterized by the lack of local words. Almost standard German is spoken with a few syncopations and apocopes , but these are the same in most German dialects. Most likely there is still a relationship to Berlin and therefore to Low German . Special mention should be made of the “wa”, which means something like “isn't it?”. However, this word loses its meaning in the direction of the Upper Lusatian highlands , but the Upper Lusatian “noh” for “now, now”, starting from the places Görlitz and Bautzen . The only typical thing about the pronunciation is the throaty "r". As a result, the "-er" at the end of the word almost always becomes an "-a", e.g. E.g. “Wassa” instead of “Water”. The “r” is always spoken at the beginning of the word, but never hard. In the middle of a word you can hardly hear it with many words, e.g. B: work instead of work. In addition, certain letter and word combinations are often pulled together in Niederlausitz, e.g. B. "Geh'mamal" for "Let's go" or "Hammada" for "Have we there". One of the few words that has been adopted from Saxon is “gorni”, a contraction of “not at all”. In the pronunciation of the southern regions, however, mostly as "garni" or better with the letter " å " as "gårni". In the direction of Cottbus , Spremberg and Finsterwalde , “gorni, garni, gårni” gives way to “garnich, garnech, gornich”. The reason for this development is the special history of this region.

history

The region in which the Niederlausitz dialect is spoken includes the former districts of Lübben , Luckau , Calau , Senftenberg , Finsterwalde , Cottbus , Spremberg , Hoyerswerda , Guben , Forst and Weißwasser . This region was populated by German-speaking settlers very late, namely in 1220. On the one hand, this was mainly due to the many swamps that made it difficult to gain arable land. On the other hand, the cultivation was not very promising, since it was mostly sandy soil that was poor in minerals ( Podzol ). As a result, it remained very thin and mostly populated by Sorbs into the 19th century . With the industrial revolution and the discovery of lignite (between Senftenberg and Hoyerswerda), many newcomers came to the region, mainly from Silesia and the Ruhr area, but also from many other parts of Germany. This process intensified after World War II. In addition to many refugees, people from Thuringia, Mecklenburg and Saxony came to the state of Brandenburg. Of the many dialects, none could ultimately prevail, which u. A. was due to the fact that it would have been difficult for a Märker to speak Saxon, and vice versa, and thus an almost High German language area developed here. In today's linguistic usage, the Niederlausitzer dialect is used in everyday life and can be found in all social classes. Due to the almost high German pronunciation and the lack of special regional words and idioms, the Niederlausitzer dialect is quickly acquired by newcomers and is fluent in everyday language. Some newspaper articles are published in Niederlausitzer dialect. The writer Erwin Strittmatter often uses this dialect in his works.

particularities

  • The throaty "rolling" of the R sound, which is very common in the Upper Lusatian dialect , similar to the American-English accent, disappears in Lower Lusatia . Instead, letters are increasingly "swallowed"; this includes B. the already mentioned "r" in the middle and end of the word.
  • Shortly spoken “i” [ɪ] often becomes a short “ü” [ʏ], e.g. E.g .: Tüsch (table), Hürsch (deer), Kürche (church), Kürsche (cherry), Mülch (milk), etc.
  • The perfect is sometimes formed differently than in Standard German, e.g. For example: "it was folded" instead of: "it was folded".

Example sentence: I turned on the television. - I turned on the television.

  • It sounds like a bit sloppy standard German, but not exactly Berlinish, as there are some regionally based words that arose from the bilingual nature of this area.

Examples: Hupatz (Sub, m .: hupac, hoopoe), Mauke (adv .: małko, too little, ball), Plins / Plinse (spoken: Plinz / Plinze, Sub.m .: blińc / blińcy, pancake)

  • “Me” and “me” are often confused; Likewise, in the dative case, instead of "at the ...", "at the ..." is often said.
  • Instead of the dative plural, the nominative plural is often used. Examples: "with the arms" (instead of "with the arms"), "with the beene" (instead of "with the legs"), "with the plauze" (instead of "with the plauze", Plauze is a borrowing from Slavic płuca (plt.))

Language examples

Differences to the standard wording:

  • een - instead of: a (twilight [aɪ̯] becomes a long [e:] at the beginning of the word)
  • keen - instead of: none (Zwielaut [aɪ̯] becomes a long [e:])
  • go - instead of: go (syncope)
  • ooch or oh - instead of: also (Zwielaut [aʊ̯] becomes a long [o:] at the beginning of the word)
  • kohf'n - instead of: buy (Zwielaut [aʊ̯] becomes a long [o:])
  • off / uff - instead of: on (twilight [aʊ̯] becomes a short [ʊ] at the beginning of the word)

The hamma is off the tüsch. - The hammer is on the table.
I know that do'h ooch nii (regionally different, also "nich") - I don't know that either.
Are you going to roochen? - Let's go smoke a cigarette?
I have two legs and no idea. - I have two legs and I have no idea.

literature

Fiction and entertaining
  • Erwin Strittmatter : The shop . Three-part novel (made into a film in 1998), nightingale stories.
  • Reinhold Broske : A packet of linden blossom tea. Lusatian poems and stories. Self-published
  • Otto Lukas : Dear Lusatia. No different. Otto Lukas, Berlin-Lichtenberg 1930
  • Johannes Vogel : Stale bread rolls . Holzner Verlag, Riga 1943.
  • Hans-Joachim Jänsch: Lower Lusatian dialect . Regia Verlag, Cottbus o. J. [2002]
  • Christa and Siegfried Janzen: Spreewald dialect . 4 volumes, Regia Verlag, Cottbus o. J. [2003, 2006, 2010, 2010]
Scientific literature
  • Christian Gottlob Schmidt : Collection Niederlausitzer Provinzialismen . In: Christian Gottlob Schmidt: Letters about Niederlausitz. Kühne, Wittenberg 1789, pp. 206-208.
  • Christian Wilhelm Bronisch : Basic features of the German dialect, which is spoken in the midst of the Sorbian population and language in Lower Lusatia and in the northern parts of Upper Lusatia . In: New Lusatian Magazine . Volume XXXIX, 1862, pp. 108-195 ( digitized version ).
  • Felix Franke (communicated by Otto Jespersen ): The colloquial language of Niederlausitz in its sounds . In: Phonetic Studies. Volume 2, 1889, pp. 21-60 (describes the Sorau dialect).
  • Waldemar Gössgen : The Dubraucke dialect. A contribution to the folklore of Lausitz . Maretzke & Märtin, Trebnitz in Silesia in 1902 (since 1937 Eichwege , today part of Doebern ).
  • Helmut Protze : The West Lusatian and East Meiss niche. Dialect geographic studies on the history of the Lusatian-Upper Saxon language and settlement. Hall 1957.
  • Wilfried Seibicke : Middle German and Low German in western Lower Lusatia . In: Contributions to the history of the German language and literature. Volume 79 (special volume), Halle 1957, pp. 220–231.
  • Markus Bayer : Language contact German-Slavic. A contrastive interference study using the example of Upper and Lower Sorbian, Carinthian-Slovenian and Burgenland-Croatian . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main etc. 2006.
  • Joachim Wiese : Influences of Lower Sorbian on the German dialects of Niederlausitz . In: The Lower Sorbian Wendisch. A language-time journey. Domowina-Verlag, Bautzen 2003, pp. 59-64.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Cf. Joachim Gessinger: 182. Aspects of the Brandenburgischen Sprachgeschichte . In: HSK Language History. 2nd volume / 3rd volume Partial volume, deGruyter Verlag, Berlin and New York 2003, p. 2678.