Talk:Swiss German

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This is an incredible and very beautiful (sehr schoen!) article -- a big thanks to all of those who contributed the time and effort writing this article for the English Wikipedia! -- Cazimi

1 criteria?
2 High German
3 Move back to Swiss German
4 Grammar Differences
5 Rounded Front Vowels.
6 Add a sound?
7 Old ui diphthong
8 N usage
9 Map
10 final devoicing
11 Phonetic orthography of Zurich language
12 Use of ß
13 Use of Ä, Ö and Ü in Swiss German
14 nieseln

[edit] criteria?

What are the criteria being used in this article to classify this linguistic variety as a mere dialect of "German"? The description given sounds pretty much like a situation of diglossia and clearly complies with the fundamental requirement to consider two linguistic varieties as different languages: Swiss German and Standard German are not mutually intelligible, therefore they can hardly be mere dialects of the same language. Otherwise, what would stop me from claiming that Spanish and Portuguese are merely dialects of the same language? They are closely related linguistic varieties not mutually intelligible... in the Spaniard-undertanding-Portuguese direction mainly, because a Portuguese usually has little problem understanding Spanish; but even given that half degree of mutual intelligibility, nobody claims Portuguese is a fringe dialect of Spanish not intelligible for speakers of Standard Spanish (this aspect doesn't seem to matter to those who claim that Swiss German is a dialect of German, so... why not just say that Portuguese is a dialect of Spanish and, voila, we have one language less to translate all the European Union stuff into, wouldn't this be nice for the economy of European taxpayers who are paying for all that stupid translation work into a fringe dialect? — ok, so much of irony for today; you got my point). So I see even less reason to accept the claim that Swiss German is a mere dialect of a language whose speakers cannot understand that dialect. The Ethnologue clearly lists Swiss German (Alemannisch) as a language on its own, not even within the same subgroup as Standard German:

IE > Germanic > West > High German > German > East German > East Middle German > Standard German (GER)
IE > Germanic > West > High German > German > Upper German > Alemannic > Alemannisch (GSW)

Uaxuctum 17:03, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The distinctions of languages is not a question of intelligibility, but a cultural question. In this respect, Swiss German belongs clearly to the German language. All newspapers use standard German, for instance, and by far most books are written in standard German, and except for very rare cases everybody speaks (the Swiss variety of) standard German. -- j. 'mach' wust ^{ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x} 12:27, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, the distinction between Languages and Dialects is an academical (and rather political) one. To take your argument a bit further: Dutch and Flemish are considered separate languages, although they are so similar to be mutually understandable (The major difference being that Dutch is spoken in the Nederlands and Flemish in Belgium). Mandarin and Pekingese on the other hand are considered dialects of Chinese, although they are not mutually understandable at all (the only thing they have in common is the writing system, they are mutually understandable when written).

Please note that I'm writing this off the top of my head, I don't have any sources at the moment... adebaumann 2004-07-02 17:11

Very exact information, in my opinion. Just a small remark on the example: the word coffee is a loan word, so some developments may be different from Germanic words. For example, the dialect spoken around Bern pronounces this as [kAffe:]. -- dnjansen 18:57 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Should we include the Swiss German word for Swiss German in every single dialect? Also, can anyone add a list with the different dialects there are and maybe some more on the differences between the dialects (anyone with access to the Idiotikon?)? Kokiri

[edit] High German

Currently it says: Unlike most German dialects, most Swiss dialects did not participate in the second German vowel shift during medieval times - they use mostly the same vowels as Middle High German. As such, it is in places closer to Low German or Dutch than High German. If I'm not mistaken the Swiss German dialects are linguistically High German. The confusion is of course that in Switzerland the standard language is referred to as Hochdeutsch... Does anyone know more? Kokiri 14:05, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Actually, the Swiss usually refer to Standard German as Schriftdeutsch, meaning "written German", which emphasizes the fact that the written language is generally Standard German, whereas the spoken is the dialect. I find this an interesting insight into how Swiss German speakers think of their language, but it doesn't help answer the "High German" question. I suspect that any similarities to Dutch or other low German varieties may be coincidental. In fact, there are some rather large differences among the dialects that make up the "Swiss German" group, and this is reflected in vowel usage, too.--Thielke 03:18, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't know whether Hochdeutsch or Schriftdeutsch are more common. I'd perceive Hochdeutsch as more common, but that's just my impression. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 10:11, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm in the process of adding articles on German dialects. Swiss belongs to the Alemannic dialect family of the Upper Germanic language family — Upper Germanic is one of the High German families. Hochdeutsch refers properly only to standard German, which is a form of Middle German. Confusingly enough German speakers (and others) tend to refer to standard German as High German, and call all dialects and other German languages Low German or Plattdeutsch. Since this is standard usage, there is no way to avoid confusion. Linguistically speaking, Swiss is a High German dialect, but the pronunciation of Swiss is in some places Low German, the group where Plattdüütsch and Dutch properly belong to. If you know a way out of this confusion, it's up to you: I'm rather lost in the maze of Germanics. — Jor 14:18, Jan 7, 2004 (UTC)

Changed it to Unlike most German dialects, most Swiss dialects did not participate in the second German vowel shift during medieval times - they use mostly the same vowels as Middle High German. As such, even though Swiss German linguistically is a High German language, its pronunciation is in places closer to Low German or Dutch than other High German dialects or standard German.. — Jor 14:23, Jan 7, 2004 (UTC)

That's what I thought... seems clearer now. Kokiri 17:12, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I deleted the following sentence:

In Bern, even the word Tabu ('taboo') has stress on the first syllable.

This is simply not true. Maybe someone finds a better example? --Zumbo 21:33, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I was pretty sure about that example, but of course I don't actually speak Berne German, so it's probably wrong. Another example would be Kasärne, which some people stress on the first syllable, whereas it may also be stressed on the penultimate. Wathiik 11:53, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Can anyone confirm that ['fu:d@] is really derived from the English "food"? What about the German words "Futter" (animal food, col.: food) and "futtern" (col.: to eat)? I'm no expert on Swiss German, but the latter seems more probable to me...

"fuude" is definitly of english origin (english is cool, you know), but it was easily adopted because of the resemblance to "fuetere"

Linguistic analysis: Futter has [u@] in Swiss German, whereas foode has /u:/, hence, it cannot be derives from Swiss German Fuetter. The verb derives from Fuetter is fuettere. Wathiik 11:47, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The word "futtere" ['fut:@r@] does exist, however, its meaning is totaly unrelated to food. It is a Bernese word meaning "complaining about something, usually at great length". adebaumann 7:57, 1 June 2005 (UTC)

Where does the assertion that the [huis], [bruin] pronunciation is older come from? The vowel in such words was [u:] in Middle High German - and in Old High German and reconstructed Proto-Germanic. Hedgehog 14:58, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

older than what? Wathiik 11:50, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure that putsch (for coup d'etat) is of swiss german origin

The Oxford Dictionary states so: putsch /pt/ → n. a violent attempt to overthrow a government. - ORIGIN 1920s: from Swiss Ger., lit. ‘thrust, blow’. Kokiri

Saying that Standard German was actually IMPORTED from Germany seems to be a political statement rather than a linguistic one. After all, Alemannic dialects and Standard German aren't unrelated languages, and while Standard German is mainly based on Middle German dialects, it is not a Middle German dialect itself. Wathiik 11:45, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

____

I think it's wrong to include neighbouring Alemannic dialects as Swiss German dialects, because Swiss German is not a LINGUISTIC concept per se, but a concept based on political boundaries. Thus, by definition, Germans or Austrians can't speak Swiss German, even though the Alemannic dialects from Germany and Austria are just as Alemannic as the ones spoken in Switzerland or France (Alsatian)...

Wathiik 19:40, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Some of the vowels are basically the same as in Low German (e.g. /y/ in 'deutsch'), i.e. they didn't change since medieval times. However, in Dutch those vowels did change, hence I deleted the 'Dutch' bit. Wathiik 12:58, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Move back to Swiss German

I'd like to move back Swiss German language to Swiss German. Swiss German is a variety of the German language. Of course there are those who prefer to consider it a language, but it is more often considered a dialect by its speakers and almost exclusively so in German language linguistics.

Talking about "Swiss German language" seems as inappropiate to me as talking about, for instance "Australian English language". Varieties of English are called XXX English. Why should this be any different with varieties of German. Of course, the different varieties of English are usually more intelligible with each other than the different varieties of German, but that's a characteristic of the German language, and mutual intelligibility is only one factor among others that are used to define language.

See also at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages#Swiss German "language". -- j. 'mach' wust ^{ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x} 12:27, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The differences between Standard German and Swiss German are far greater than the differences between, let's say, Australian and American English. If we were to consider Swiss German a mere dialect of German, then, by the same token, Afrikaans e.g. should be considered simply a dialect of Dutch. I guess the main difference between the two examples is that Afrikaans was standardized in the late 19th century and became an official written language in South Africa in the 1920s, whereas, in Switzerland, a political decision was made to retain Standard German as the official language of culture to be used in schools, books, government, and the media.

- Exactly.

[edit] Grammar Differences

If I read right there is no mentioning of the tenses Swiss German lacks. There is no imperfect tense (e.g. the equivalent of 'waren') which creates a lot of complexity when there's a need for a clear time definition ('i be grad xi go poschte'). As a non-native German/Swiss German speaker, this is the most striking difference for me between Germand and Swiss German.

This is mentioned, and so is the phenomenon that really distinguishes your example from the German sentence ich bin gerade einkaufen gewesen. -- j. 'mach' wust ^{ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x} 22:50, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rounded Front Vowels.

"Most Swiss German dialects have rounded front vowels, unlike many German dialects."

Wait, what? What would you call the vowels of "kühl", "Rücken", "hören" and "köstlich"? I would call them front rounded vowels. Can someone clarify why this sentence is in the article?

That's what I call them, too. Could you please clarify your Wait, what? :-) -- j. 'mach' wust ^{ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x} 19:17, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Add a sound?

I was thinking of adding a sound file that shows how to pronounce the word "Chuchichäschtli". Sound like a good idea? ~~Mithcoriel, September 18 2005

In which Swiss dialect? ;-) Another nice sound file would be "Morn rägnet's z Züri" - Tomorrow it will rain in Zurich. (correct pronunciation three times ts ts ts with no vowel in between). Or Bernese-Chinese: "Schang chum hei, d'ching wei hung" (John (Jean), come home, the kids want honeybread) --Irmgard 21:00, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

"Blitzt's z'Züri?" [tstststs] :)

Well, my accent is Baselland. :) Does anyone else have something Bern-ish etc. to offer? We could also make a list of sounds, would be much more fitting to have different swiss accents anyway. For example, you could have the sentence "the fly flies" in all sorts of dialects. In some, this is "d'Fliege fliegt", or "d'Flüge flügt" or "d'Fleuge flügt". etc. But for that we'd need enough people (among the editors here?) who come from different parts of Switzerland. "D'ching wei hung" means "the kids want honeybread?" Ok, I guess I don't know Bernese so well. I though the phrase went "d'ching hei hung" = "the kids are hungry". --Mithcoriel 22:16, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Old ui diphthong

I've removed the following:

Some dialects in central Switzerland (e.g. in Uri or Obwalden keep the old form of the Middle High German diphtong u-i which became long u or ü in other dialects, e.g. Huis 'house' /huɪ̯s/ compared to Hus /huːs/, in the diminutive Huisli /huɪ̯sli/ compared to Hüsli /hyːsli/.

Middle High German did not have any ui dipthong. There was an iu digraph, but it was pronounced [y:]. 'The house' was daȥ hûs (I couldn't figure out the plural, but I guess it would have been diu hiuser).

That is to say, the Central Swiss diphthongs are most likely innovations. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 08:00, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] N usage

One of the most obvious differences between Swiss German and Standard German is the loss of the n on verb infinitives.

Another phenomenon is the addition of n between a word that ends in a vowel and the next word that starts with a vowel. E.g., i(ch) haa dich gärn ("I like you") but i(ch) haan es Buech (I have a book.) This occurs not only with verbs, but also with other words. E.g., Das isch es Buech, won ich gärn haa ("This is a book, that I like.") This is done to avoid the glottal stop on the leading vowel of the second word. This lack of glottal stops in Swiss German is a major difference in pronunciation with Standard German. Notice the similarity to the addition of n to the indefinite article a in English, giving an apple.--Thielke 05:47, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

The apocope of n is not only found in Swiss dialects, but I'm not sure whether it's found all over the upper German dialects or only in the Alemannic German ones. I suspect that many of the characteristics given in this article are not only found in Swiss dialects. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 10:11, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Map

Hi. Under "Variation and Distribution" there's a map with the legend "Distribution of Swiss German dialects". Actually, that map only represents the distribution of the different languages in Switzerland (yellow = German, purple = french, red = romansh and green = italian). So maybe we should just take it out? On way or the other, the different dialects are almost only canton-specific, so we could just put a map that show the swiss cantons. Greets from Zug =)

Sorted, hopefully... it seems that somebody replaced the map at some stage... Kokiri 14:49, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] final devoicing

Can you explain what this sentence means:

Like in Swiss standard German, there is no final devoicing.

What does the "like in swiss standard german" refer to? Not standard german presumably, which is not swiss, and does have devoicing. Is there a Swiss version of standard german? The article standard german makes no mention of different languages referred to as "standard german", though it does say that standard german is used as the written language in Switzerland, and that standard german has influenced modern spoken swiss german. In short, can you answer me two questions: what does the term "swiss standard german" refer to? Is there or isn't there final devoicing in Swiss German? -lethe ^{talk +} 06:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Why, yes, the article standard German mentions different varieties, see Standard German#Variants. Swiss standard German (from German Schweizer Hochdeutsch) refers to the variety of standard German as spoken in Switzerland. There is no final devoicing in the Swiss German dialects; there is mostly no final devoicing in Swiss standard German. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 08:22, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I see. So there is actually a swiss version of standard german, in addition to a swiss dialect of german. Would you object to changing the sentence to make this clearer? I was thinking something like

Swiss German along with the Swiss variant of Standard German has no final devoicing, unlike Standard German.

-lethe ^{talk +} 09:18, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd rather not oppose Swiss standard German to standard German, since Swiss standard German is standard German (just another variety of it). So I'd prefer: Swiss German has no final devoicing, along with Swiss standard German, but unlike German standard German. I know that German standard German is clumsy, but it seemed less clumsy to me than saying: along with the Swiss variety of standard German, but unlike the German variety of standard German. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 09:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Maybe for the clumsiness, we could say "the German national variety of" and "Swiss national variety of standard German". -lethe ^{talk +} 09:59, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phonetic orthography of Zurich language

I have nominated Phonetic orthography of Zurich language for proposed deletion. It seems to be an uncontrovercial candidate for deletion, once the topic is researched. Where could it have been copied from, and what orthography is it referring to? The original version contained many misspellings. Graham talk 11:14, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I get the feeling I've seen that strange, French-like transcription before. But where? I severely doubt that it is really used in Zürich, since the usual transcriptions are based only on German spelling conventions, not on French ones. Maybe a similar article was deleted once before? Ah, now I've found it: The original version of the Zürich German started with a table of the same content. That table was subsequently moved to the article Orthography of the Zurich dialect. I requested to delete that article, and so it was, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Orthography of the Zurich dialect. I guess it might have been written by the same person, since the IP addresses are similar and since both IP addresses have very few contributions (one and two respectively), which might be a clue for a dynamic IP address. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 12:07, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of ß

I was surprised to notice that this article didn't mention anything about the use of ß in Swiss German - I was under the impression that this letter wasn't used in Switzerland. After looking around Wikipedia I found a section in the article on ß confirming what I believed, but as I know very little about the subject I'm reluctant to add it to the article myself. Would it be possible for someone who knows more about the subject to confirm the information at ß#Switzerland_and_Liechtenstein and add it to this article if correct? Ironfrost 14:53, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand why you consider that the letter ß should be mentioned. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 17:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Half of the section labeled Swiss German#Writing discusses differences between the orthography of Swiss German and Standard German. I think a sentence about ß would fit very naturally in that discussion. It is after all a notable difference in orthography, right? -lethe ^{talk +} 17:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC).

No, there is no difference at all: ß is usually not used. Half of the section you've mentioned discusses the letters (c)k, gg, y that are used in a different way in Swiss German than in standard German. In this case, however, there is no difference. Those who don't use ß in standard German don't use it in Swiss German either. If I remember correctly, the few guidelines for writing Swiss German say that the letter ß may be used for writing Swiss German. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 19:29, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "no difference". How do they write "foot" in Germany and how do they write it in Switzerland? As far as I know, the usual spelling of that word in Switzerland is different from the usual spelling of that word in Germany. Surely the difference should be noted. OK, maybe some Germans don't use the ß and some Swiss do, so the comparison isn't perfect. That should also be noted in the article. -lethe ^{talk +} 19:49, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

The word is usually written Fuss in standard German of Switzerland and Liechtenstein, but always Fuß in standard German of Germany and Austria. It's not a difference between Swiss German and standard German, but two different uses within standard German. Maybe you are confusing Swiss German (de:Schweizerdeutsch) with Swiss standard German (de:Schweizer Hochdeutsch – I note there's still no article about it in the English wikipedia; I'm going to fix this once I find the time), in a similar way like Scots is very distinct from Scottish English (also called Scottish standard English). ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 17:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I am. But how do they say "foot" in Swiss German? -lethe ^{talk +} 17:16, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

In most dialects, it's [fuə̯sː], I think. It might be written Fuess or Fueß. That depends on how you spell standard German. Most will use no ß in standard German, so they won't use any in Swiss German either – because it's the same in their standard German, and not because it's a difference between standard German and Swiss German. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 22:03, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I think I understand now. Thank you for explaining. Nevertheless, I still thought it wouldn't hurt to mention eszett in the article, and added something. Is the addition OK with you? -lethe ^{talk +} 22:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

If you want a reference for the non-use of ß in Swiss German, look at street name signs. In Germany they end xxxstraße, in Switzerland always xxxstrasse. Also a Swiss computer keyboard does not have a ß key. TiffaF 05:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Signs are not written in Swiss German, but in (Swiss) standard German. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 10:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I haven't seen a lot of German keyboards, but the ones I have seen look identical to any other keyboard. The ß is typed using AltGr-S, just like I did just now on my own normal, ordinary keyboard. I wouldn't be surprised if Swiss keyboards allow for entry of ß the same way, if only because when writing official correspondence, you'll probably need it. Shinobu 01:23, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

On Germany and Austrian keyboards, the ß is typed with the key just in the right of the 0 key, but on the Swiss keyboard layout, that key types an apostroph, cf. keyboard layout (on the English keyboard layout, it types a hyphen -). I don't know whether Microsoft's Swiss German keyboard layout allows AltGr + s. The German article de:Tastaturlayout#Schweiz does not mention it, even though it discusses AltGr combinations, and neither do the articles ß or de:ß. On a Mac, for sure, it can be typed as Option + s on the Swiss just as on the English keyboard layout. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 07:41, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

It does not seem to be present in the Microsoft Swiss German layout, hardly unsuprising as it is not needed for official correspondence (unless, maybe, it is German offical correspondance :)).

[edit] Use of Ä, Ö and Ü in Swiss German

I was taught that in Switzerland, Umlauts are only used on small letters, capitals are always written as Ae, Oe or Ue. You occasionally see Ä, Ö or Ü; but usually not. A Swiss map (e.g. TV weather map) always shows Oesterreich (not Österreich), but at the same time shows Umlauts in München and Köln. Does this deserve a mention? TiffaF 05:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Never heard of that. Ä Ö Ü are indeed unusual at the beginning of Swiss municipal names, but for all other purposes, they are used (except by some who don't know how to use the umlaut deadkey on the Swiss keyboard layout). The meteoswiss site certainly uses the correct spelling Österreich, (cf. [1] [2] [3]).

And if there were such a phenomenon, it would be a phenomenon of Swiss standard German, not of Swiss German, since Swiss German has no standardized orthography at all. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 10:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] nieseln

quote from the vocabulary section:

However, many Standard German words are never used
in Swiss German because they feel "wrong", e.g. 
nieseln 'mizzle/drizzle'.

i asked a guy from schaffhausen and he didn't understand this statement. he said he has always said/heard "nieslä" or "niesel regä" without any wrong feeling. can someoneone explain the example or find another one to support the statement? thanks! --ArinArin 09:33, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Being a native Zürcher, I cannot speak for Schaffhausen's dialect, but it seems plausible that the person you asked is correct. Interestingly the word nisle (or niesle) sounds less Swiss German to my ears than the compound word 'Nieselräge' does. Similarly, most Swiss Dialects use the word 'Schtäge' for 'stairs', the German word 'Treppe' sounding very artificial if not downright incorrect when used in Swiss German speech. However, the Swiss German compound word for 'escalator', is 'Rollträppe'; I have only very rarely heard anyone use the word 'Rollschtäge'.

Other examples of words that are not directly translatable from Standard German to Swiss German include 'Frühstück' ('breakfast') and 'Fahrstuhl' ('elevator'), the correct Swiss German translations of which are 'Zmorge' and 'Lift' respectively.

Sluzzelin 22:06, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I think we agree that there are usual standard German words that don't feel 'right' in Swiss German, but the sample word nieseln (which I originally chose) may not be a good sample. In Bernese German, the original word seems to be fiserle, but I haven't met anybody who'd know that word, I just have it from the dictionary. I'd prefer the samples Treppe vs. Stäge and Frühstück vs. Zmorge would be good samples, since Treppe and Frühstück are common in Swiss standard German, but not in the dialects. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 19:16, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Or what about the word niedlech. I for one would even hesitate whether to pronounce it with the diphthong ie [niədləx] or with long i [niːdləx], though both sound alien to Swiss German. The reason why this word is not used seems to be similar to the reason why the words Frühstück or Treppe (except in combinations like Wendeltreppe) are not used: There is already another equivalent, the word herzig. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 07:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

1) "herzig" works for me (or maybe even "schnusig").

2) I'm not a linguist, so I don't know how to address this: but isn't a possible problem of this article that most of its info should refer to Swiss German in its entirety? In other words to make sure all these examples apply, they might need to be cross-referenced in a dictionary of collected swiss german or alemannic dialects. We have to make sure that people in Basel or Schaffhausen (e.g.) don't use the words "Frühstück", "niedlich" etc either.

3) On that note, I'm not sure i agree 100% with the statement "Swiss German is intelligible to speakers of other Alemannic dialects". I have had to translate the Obwaldner dialect for a person from St. Gallen. Moreover, it took me some practice to learn to understand an Oberwalliser (even now I don't find it easy). Again, I'm no linguist and don't know the linguistic definition of 'intelligible'. (A couple of British people may have trouble understanding some Texans and vice versa, but their dialects aren't necessarily mutually unintelligible either). Perhaps the quoted sentence could be qualified somewhat, or perhaps I'm wrong.

4)Finally: since there's an article on Alemannic German too, shouldn't the scope of this article be specified and distinguished from that page? Three variants of Alemannic seem to exist in Switzerland (low, high, highest), two of these variants also exist in other countries. In other words: Why is the Swissness of Alemannic of interest? (this is not a rhetorical question) And which parts dont belong in the Swiss German article at all but should be moved to the Alemannic German page? ---Sluzzelin 10:05, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure, the skope of this article is somewhat problematic with respects to subordinated and superordinated dialects. I think this is partly a common problem of any speech variety group (except maybe a prescriptive standard language).

The reason why the Swissness of Alemannic is of interest, indeed an important question, is in my opinion fairly addressed in the second paragraph. Do you think it needs further elaboration?

You're certainly right about the intelligibility. And as a sidenote: All three major subdivisions of Alemannic are also spoken outside of Switzerland. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 12:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for replying. Yes, the justification of this article is fairly addressed in the 2nd paragraph. I guess my point was, we have to make sure that Swiss German speakers, from Riehen to Bosco Gurin can agree with this article. As for the sidenote, thanks for that bit of info. I have now read more on Highest Alemannic and Walser German after being somewhat misled by the Alemannic German page which only lists Swiss examples for Highest Alemannic. Sluzzelin 18:36, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

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