LL-L 'Language varieties' 2006.07.26 (04) [A/E]

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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L O W L A N D S - L * 28 July 2006 * Volume 04
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From: 'Karl-Heinz Lorenz' <Karl-Heinz.Lorenz at gmx.net>
Subject: LL-L 'Resources' 2006.07.25 (11) [E]

Hi Dan, you wrote

> I do see the Arlberg in the West as a rather sharp linguistic boarder
> between
> South-Bavarian and Low Alemannic in Vorarberg.

It's a border, but not as sharp as it's always said. I'm referring to Eugen
Gabriel, who published the "Vorarlberger Sprachatlas mit Einschluß des
Fürstentums Liechtenstein, Westtirols und des Allgäus."

In the foreword he wrote, that this is not an atlas OF but FOR Vorarlberg also
considering it's related neighbouring dialects. He doesn't mention Switzerland
and the Bodenseeregion in the title, because for these regions he just overtook
the word-geography from other atlases.

There was especially the influence of the Swabian Allgäu but also
Bodenseealemanic and historically the Alemannic spoken in so called
"Vorderösterreich" which reached till Alsace in France and was governed from
Innsbruck/Tirol.

> There are a number of
> villages
> that were at one point more Alemannic than South Bavarian in character.
> These
> villages only switched to South Bavarian in the course of the past three
> centuries and incorporated as a substrate various typically Alemannic
> features.
> So there is transition to a certain extent.
> There is more transition to the north-west of the Reutte area, where
> speech
> character shifts to Swabian.

Some of these villages were entirely Alemannic as for example Galtür. They spoke
Swiss-German till the end of the 19. century. Today they speak a Tyrolean with a
bit more Alemannic features as the rest of the Tyrol.

The Walser comunities on this "sharp" edge as they are the mentioned Galtür,
parts of bordering Ischgl, Lech, Warth and parts of bordering Steeg in the
uppermost Tyrolean Lechtal, Stuben and parts of bordering St. Anton/Tirol (btw
most of them great ski-resorts today) were to a great extent the reason of
"Germanisierung" of the Rhaetoromans in South-Vorarlberg and Western Tyrol.

The theory of linguists like Gabriel is that the Western Tyrol was
Swabian-Bavarian in the middle ages with a certain influence by these
High-Alemannic villages and the Southern Vorarlberg High-Walser-Alemannic. And
also Rhaetoroman, which was spoken in all these places, left its marks.

The Swabian influence which worked from todays Germany and via Western Tyrol on
Vorarlberg made its dialect more Low- than High-Alemannic today. Alemannic in
Austria and Switzerland are noticeably different.

So there was a reciprocation of High-, Low- and Swabian-Alemannic in these
regions with a Rhaetoroman substratum.

Since about the 19th century the influence of Innsbruck was pretty strong in
Western Tyrol, but the Suabian and Alemannic features are still obvious.

The Reutte district / Außerfern is in literature often referred to as Swabian.

> Many of the “Alemannic” features you might be referring to, like
> pronunciation of
> [S] before [t] and [p] word-internally, as well as the affricate [kx] word
> initially are actually preservations of older speech patters that were
> common to
> Old Alemannic and Old Bavarian.

The Tyrolean k and the Swiss k are not the same, the Tyrolean k is an affricate,
the Swiss one mostly a fricative [x]. In Vorarlberg its an aspired [kh]. There is
no difference in respect ot the pronunciation of [S] in all these regions.

Given that old Alemannic and Old Bavarian had these in common, the fact of
preservation of it in both Tyrolean and Alemannic is for me more an argument that
they belong together, as Alemannic is often classified as pretty close to
Middle-High-German.

Confer also the "Beispielsätze" on
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alemannischer_Beispielsatz
which also includes Reutte/Tirol.

Schruns (South-Vorarlberg): Bischt ofam Markt ga iikofa gsi?
Egg/Bregenzerwald (North-East-Vorarlberg), close to Allgäu and Reutte:
Bischt ufm Maart ga inkoufo gsin?
Reutte: Bisch aufm Markt inkoufa gwest?

The last one is also typical of the dialects in the districts of Landeck and
Imst. I'm pretty sure that a lot of Western Tyrolean would even say: "ga inkoufa
gwest" with this funny little word "ga", in Switzerland mostly "go", which is
interpreted as "gehen". I doubt this a little, as it doesn't function as a verb,
but something like "zum" or "am". Maybe it is from Rhaetoroman or a
misinterpreted ge- prefix. On the other side in many Swiss variants its syntax
is: Bisch ... gsi go inchoufe

This Beispielsatz is really good, its Innsbruck version would be:

"Bisch aufm Markt einkchaufn gwesn?"

I can't help, but for me this is more Alemannic than Bayuvarian, as in
Austrian-Bavarian it would be something like:

"Bist am Moakt einkafn gwen?"

Every single word of the Innsbruck-dialect is more Alemannic:

Bisch with [S]
"aufm" instead "am" (but "am" maybe also used)
Markt or better Marrkt instead of vocalised r (also "l" is never vokalised in
Tyrolean in and West of Innsbruck and surrounding)
the famous kch
gwesn with a "s" in it instead of common Bayuvarian "gwen"

At least are people from the Tyrol the only Austrians who are able to acquire an
Alemmanic without accent when going West of the Arlberg. Although many remain
Tyrolean speaking acquiring only a passive knowledge of Alemannic.

Regards,
Karl-Heinz

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