Low Alemannic German
Spoken in
- Indo-European Germanic West Germanic high German upper German Alemannisch Niederalemannisch
The Low Alemannic dialect is a group of Alemannic and thus belongs to the Upper German.
Definition
Niederalemannisch in the traditional sense distinguishes itself from the Swabian from the fact that the Middle High German / u ː / preserved and not became / ou / (or / au / ) ( for example, / hu ː s /, house ' ), and from the high- Alemannic it differs themselves by anlautendes Germanic / k / as [k ʰ ] or [ kx ] and not as a fricative [ x] is realized ( for example, / k ʰ ind /, / kxind / 'child' ).
Term review
Western and Eastern Niederalemannisch have except those referred to in the definition hardly more common: the language of the Upper Rhine is characterized by Frankish influences, that of Lake Constance and the Alps Rhine by Swabian. Steger / Jacob have therefore divided the traditional low- Alemannic in the above two groups Oberrheinalemannisch and Bodenseealemannisch. With Oberrheinalemannisch they attack mason Oberrheinisch on again, the tripartite division of Alemannic in Swabian, Upper Rhine and Südalemannisch knew no Niederalemannisch. Also Wiesinger is a traditional Niederalemannisch; he calls alone its western part Niederalemannisch ( = Steger / Jacob Oberrheinalemannisch ) and the eastern part Mittelalemannisch ( = Steger / Jacob Bodenseealemannisch ), where he sketched broad transition areas with neighboring dialects, particularly for high- Alemannic. Wiesingers terminology has over that of Steger / Jacob the advantage to have created with " lower" and " Mittelalemannisch " a conceptual counterpart to " high" and " Höchstalemannisch ".
Classification
The low- Alemannic ( in the traditional sense ) is divided into two subgroups Bodensee- Alemannic or Mittelalemannisch and Upper Rhine Alemannic or Niederalemannisch in the narrow sense:
Bodenseealemannisch
- Allgäuerisch ( south )
- Baar- Alemannisch
- South Württembergisch
- Vorarlbergisch (especially north )
- Individual lakeside communities on the Swiss side
Oberrheinalemannisch
- Basel German (as ' dialect island ' within the high- Alemannic )
- Alsatian German ( Mittelelsässisch )
- Baden region (north of the Markgräferland )
- From the area around the emperor chair: Alemán Coloniero (Venezuela )
Support among the population
Since around the end of the 19th century, but especially since 1945, the low- Alemannic especially in Germany is varied in an increasing degree by the surrounding dialects Swabian and Bavarian and gradually replaced by this, or by the high German. In Alsace, the low- Alemannic is disproportionately influenced by the French. For example, while the Swiss high and high Alemanni use with non- Swiss in addition to their own dialect, the high parallel German as a second language for the exchange vanishes in the low- Alemannic of linguistic support in the population, it is increasingly being displaced by the high German. In Upper Swabia, the Swabian has spread during the 20th century to Lake Constance after the dialect boundary that once was between Bad Waldsee and Ravensburg. Exceptions to this decline are the low- Alemannic Basel German, which benefits from the identity of the Swiss German, but is also increasingly reshaped High Alemannic, as well as of Vorarlberg.
In addition, the regional Alemannic self suffers from the view of the Low Alemannic as a kind of minority or even outsider language, which is inferior to the High German language and the surrounding dialects. However, contradicted by the socially established position of Swiss German in Switzerland. Recently, however, there are few teachers and other voices calling for a preservation of the local dialect even in the low- Alemannic and thus additionally be used for a multilingual culture.