THOUET Dialect Prize of the City of Aachen
The City of Aachen's THOUET Dialect Prize is an award that honors people or institutions that have made a contribution to promoting, maintaining or maintaining the Aachen dialect - the Öcher Platt .
prehistory
In order to ensure that the Öcher Platt does not fall into oblivion or even die out, several Aachen associations and institutions have dedicated themselves to maintaining Aachen dialect outside of the carnival session for several decades . In addition to the “Öcher Platt e. V. ”it is primarily the dialect theaters“ Alt-Aachener Bühne 1919 eV ”,“ Öcher Schängche ”,“ Aachener Heimattheater Bühnenfreunde 1947 eV ”and, since 1990, the“ Öcher Verzäll eV ”, which offer the Aachen dialect all year round. At some Aachen schools, too, young people are introduced to this dialect in the form of working groups or project weeks. Finally, church masses are celebrated in Öcher Platt on various occasions throughout the year.
After the Öcher Platt got acceptance problems in society in the 1970s and 1980s, the Aachen fashion designer and former Carnival Prince Christophe I. Thouet (1960–2014) initiated the so-called "THOUET Dialect Prize of the City of Aachen". The city of Aachen joined in with this idea in 2001 and for this purpose founded the association “THOUET Mundartpreis der Stadt Aachen eV” to promote and support the processing of the Aachen linguistic collection, its publication and dissemination. The association, founded in 2011, wants to strengthen the Aachen dialect with the award ceremony and promote the documentation of the Aachen linguistic treasure as well as its mother tongue use by the citizens.
The price
The prize is endowed with 1,000 euros and is traditionally awarded on Epiphany , January 6th, in the coronation hall of Aachen city hall . This honor is given to associations, institutions or individuals who have made a significant contribution to promoting, maintaining or maintaining the Aachen dialect. In addition, a special form of the award has been created since 1993 with the “three-king chain”, with which personalities are honored for outstanding achievements in promoting dialect. This special form has only been awarded five times, including to Ulla Schmidt . In 2017 this chain went to the entrepreneur Caroline Reinartz, while the dialect price was awarded to Gerhard Dünnwald.
Previous winners
The first prizewinner was the Alt-Aachener Bühne. The aim was to create a new awareness of the use of the Öcher Platt and its language culture.
- 1985 - Old Aachen stage
- 1986 - Öcher Schängche
- 1987 - Öcher Platt Association
- 1988 - Teacher AG Öcher Platt
- 1989 - This Kluck and Hildegard Barner
- 1990 - Franz Baumann
- 1991 - Hans Alt
- 1992 - Jürgen Linden
- 1993 - Gottfried Creutz
- 1994 - Herbert Havertz
- 1995 - Willi Becker family
- 1996 - Hubert Crott
- 1997 - Hein Engelhardt
- 1998 - Manfred Birmans
- 1999 - Richard and Ulrich Wollgarten
- 2000 - Günther Kerkhoffs and the students at the Brand Market School
- 2001 - Leo Lamm
- 2002 - Gitta Haller
- 2003 - Capella a Capella
- 2004 - Uwe Brandt
- 2005 - Karl Allgaier
- 2006 - Gerd and Christel Leuchtenberg
- 2007 - Aegid Lennartz
- 2008 - Father Georg Mießen OSB and Deacon Manfred Oslender
- 2009 - Manfred Savelsberg
- 2010 - Bernd Büttgens
- 2011 - René Brandt
- 2012 - Herbert K. Oprei
- 2013 - Ina Gröbner
- 2014 - Dieter Kaspari
- 2015 - Leo Bardenheuer
- 2016 - Markus Krings
- 2017 - Gerhard Dünnwald
- 2018 - Dieter Böse
- 2019 - Elfriede Schultz
- 2020 - Markus Dederichs (designated)
Previous winners of the "3-Kings-Chain" (special price)
- 1993 - Hans Hahn
- 1995 - Heini Mercks
- 1998 - Matthias Stevens
- 2002 - Ulla Schmidt
- 2015 - Hubert Herpers
- 2017 - Caroline Reinartz († 2017)
Web links
- Website of the THOUET dialect price of the city of Aachen
- The THOUET dialect price on the website of the city of Aachen