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Alsatian
Elsässerdeutsch, Alsacien
Spoken in: France
Total speakers: more than 700,000
Language family: Indo-European
 Germanic
  West Germanic
   High German
    Upper German
     Alemannic German
      Alsatian
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2:
ISO 639-3: gsw
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Alsace (Alsace alzas Alsatian and Elsass pre-1996 German: Elsaß; Alsatia is one of the 26 Regions of France, located on the eastern List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of Languages and include languages such as English The High German languages (in German, Hochdeutsch) are any of the varieties of standard German, Luxembourgish and Upper German Oberdeutsch is a family of High German Dialects spoken primarily in southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Northern Alemannic German ( Alemannisch) is a group of Dialects of the Upper German branch of the Germanic language family. ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Alsatian (Elsässerditsch; French: Alsacien; German: Elsässisch or Elsässerdeutsch) is a Low Alemannic German dialect spoken in most of Alsace, a region in eastern France which has passed between French and German control many times. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Low Alemannic is a branch of Alemannic dialects and belongs to the German language, even though they are only partly intelligible to German speakers Alsace (Alsace alzas Alsatian and Elsass pre-1996 German: Elsaß; Alsatia is one of the 26 Regions of France, located on the eastern This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe.

Not readily intelligible to speakers of standard German, it is closely related to other nearby Alemannic dialects, such as Swiss German, Swabian, and Badisch. Alemannic German ( Alemannisch) is a group of Dialects of the Upper German branch of the Germanic language family. Swiss German ( Schweizerdeutsch, Schwyzerdütsch, Schwiizertüütsch, Schwizertitsch) is any of the Alemannic dialects spoken Swabian ( Schwäbisch) is one of the Alemannic dialects of High German, spoken in the region of Swabia. Baden is a historical state in the southwest of Germany, on the right bank of the Rhine. It is often confused with Lorraine Franconian, a more distantly related Franconian dialect spoken in the far north-east of Alsace and in neighboring Lorraine. Lorraine Franconian (francique mosellan platt lorrain platt mosellan is a designation in practice ambiguous for Dialects of German spoken in the north-eastern 300px|right|thumb|The Franconian languages in Europe|'''Legend'''{{legend|#a0f288|Low Franconian dialects in [[the Netherlands]] Lorraine (Lothringen is one of the 26 régions of France. It is the only administrative region with two cities of equal importance Metz and Nancy

Many speakers of Alsatian write in standard German. Standard German ( German: Hochdeutsch) is the standard varieties of the German language used as a Written language, in formal contexts Street names in the Alsace may use Alsatian spellings (they were formerly displayed only in French but are now bilingual in some places, especially Strasbourg)

A bilingual (French and Alsatian) sign in Alsace.
A bilingual (French and Alsatian) sign in Alsace. Strasbourg (Strasbourg stʁazbuʁ Alsatian: Strossburi,; Straßburg) is the capital and principal City of the Alsace région French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people Alsace (Alsace alzas Alsatian and Elsass pre-1996 German: Elsaß; Alsatia is one of the 26 Regions of France, located on the eastern

Contents

Phonology

Consonants

Alsatian has a rather simple set of 14 consonants:

Labial Alveolar Postalveolar Palatal Velar
Nasal m n ŋ
Stop b̥ d̥ ɡ̊, kʰ
Affricate pf ts
Fricative f s ʃ ç
Sonorant ʋ l, ɾ

Two consonants are restricted in their distribution: /kʰ/ only occurs at the beginning of a word or morpheme, and then only if followed immediately by a vowel; /ŋ/ never occurs at the beginning of a word or morpheme.

Alsatian, like many German dialects, has lenitioned all obstruents but [k]. Lenition is a kind of Consonant mutation that appears in many Languages Along with assimilation, it is one of the primary sources of historical change In Phonetics, articulation may be divided into two large classes obstruents and Sonorants An obstruent is a Consonant sound formed by Its lenes are, however, voiceless as in all Southern German varieties. Fortis ( Latin "strong" and lenis ("weak" are linguistic terms Voice or voicing is a term used in Phonetics and Phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless Therefore, they are here transcribed /b̥/, /d̥/, /ɡ̊/.

As in German, the phoneme /ç/ has a velar allophone [x] after back vowels (/u/, /o/, /ɔ/, and /a/ in those speakers who do not pronounce this as [æ]), and palatal [ç] elsewhere. In southern dialects, there is a tendency to pronounce it /x/ in all positions, and in Strasbourg the palatal allophone tends to become [ʃ], and conflate with the phoneme /ʃ/.

Vowels

Short vowels: /ʊ/, /o/, /ɒ/, /a/ ([æ] in Strasbourg), /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /i/, /y/.

Long vowels: /ʊː/, /oː/, /ɒː/, /aː/, /ɛː/, /eː/, /iː/, /yː/

Diphthongs

Comparative vocabulary list

English Alsatian High Alemannic Standard German Standard French Swabian German dialect
house Hüüs [hyˑs] Huus Haus maison Hous
loud lüüt [lyˑd̥] luut laut bruyant lout
people Lit [lɪd̥] Lüt Leute gens Leid
today hit [hɪd̥] Hüt heute aujourd'hui heid
beautiful schen [ʃeːn] schö schön beau sche
Earth Ard [aˑɾd̥] Ärd Erde terre Erd
Fog Nabel [naːb̥l̩] Näbel Nebel brouillard Nebl
water Wàsser [ʋɑsəɾ] Wasser Wasser eau Wasser
man Mànn [mɑˑn] Maa Mann homme Mà
eat assa [asə] ässe essen manger essa
to drink trenka [d̥ɾənɡ̊ə] trinkche trinken boire trenka
little klai [ɡ̊laɪ̯] chlei klein petit, petite kloi
child Kind [kɪnd̥] Chind Kind enfant Kind
day Däi [] Dag Tag jour Dàg
woman Frài [] Frou Frau femme Frau

Status of Alsatian in France

The constitution of the Fifth Republic states that French alone is the official language of the Republic. See also Government of France The Fifth Republic is the fifth and current republican constitution of France, which was introduced on French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people However Alsatian, along with other regional languages, are recognized by the French government in the official list of languages of France. A regional language is a Language spoken in an area of a Nation state, whether it be a small area a federal State or Province, or The government of France is a Semi-presidential system determined by the French Constitution of the fifth Republic, in which the nation declares There are a number of languages of France. The French language is by far the most widely spoken and the only Official language of France, but several A 1999 INSEE survey counted 548,000 adult speakers of Alsatian in France, making it the second most-spoken regional language in the country (after Occitan). INSEE ( French: I nstitut N ational de la S tatistique et des É tudes É conomiques; inse (not) in French is the This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Occitan ( IPA BrE: /ˈɒksɪtn/ AmE: /ˈɑksəˌtɑn/ known also as Lenga d'òc or Langue d'oc (native name occitan Like all regional languages in France, however, the transmission of Alsatian is on the decline. While 39% of the adult population of Alsace speaks Alsatian, only one in four children speaks it, and only one in ten children uses it regularly.

References

External links

Wikipedia
Articles in Alsatian on the Alemannic/Swiss German edition of Wikipedia
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