Swabian German

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Swabian (Schwäbisch) is one of the Alemannic dialects of High German, spoken in the region of Swabia. Swabia covers much of Germany's southwestern Land (state) of Baden-Württemberg (including the capital Stuttgart and the rural area known as the Swabian Alb) and the southwest of the Land Bavaria.

The dialect ranges from a 'standard' Swabian, spoken in Stuttgart, to slightly differing and 'thicker' forms found in smaller towns in the countryside. Older people can often tell the exact village a person comes from merely by hearing his or her accent.

Swabian is difficult to understand for speakers of Standard German. It contains vocabulary that differs altogether from Standard German (eg. 'jam' in Standard German is Marmelade while in Swabian it becomes Gsälz, or small towns such as Gengenbach, "schlecksle").

1 Variation
2 Characteristics
3 Swabian dialect writers
4 External links

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Variation

The Swabian dialect is composed of numerous sub-dialects, each of which has its own variations. These sub-dialects can be categorized by the difference in the formation of the past participle of 'sein' (to be) into gwä and gsi. The Gsi groupe is nearer to other Alemannic dialects, such as Swiss German.

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Characteristics

Characteristics (in comparison to Standard German) include:

The Middle High German monophthongs î and û have become [[[Template:IPA]]] and [[[Template:IPA]]], not [[[Template:IPA]]] and [[[Template:IPA]]].
the ending "-et" for verbs in the 3rd person plural
as in other Alemannic dialects, the pronunciation of "s" before consonants as [[[Template:IPA]]] (e.g. Fest 'party' is pronounced as Fescht)
the diminutive ending "-le" (spoken very quickly, e.g. Haus may become Häusle, Bisschen may become Bissle) and "-la" for plurals (e.g. Spätzel becomes Spätzla)