The terms Rhinelandic, Rhenish, and Rhinelandic regiolect are used to name the colloquial language spoken in the so-called Rhineland of West Germany. This linguistic region is approximately formed of the West of North-Rhine Westphalia, the North of Rhineland-Palatinate and several smaller adjacent areas, including some areas in neighbouring countries.
Contents
- Scientific recognition and documentation
- Grammatical and syntactical deviations from Standard German
- Intermediate position between Standard German and broad dialect
- Regional differences
- Rhinelandic influences on Standard German
- Literature
- References
Although there is such a thing as a Rhinelandic accent, and the regiolect uses it, the Rhinelandic regiolect is not simply German spoken with an accent. Indeed, it deviates from Standard German with several thousand commonly used additional words, phrases, and idioms, and some grammatical constructions. Like other German regiolects, there is not a strict definition of what constitutues Rhinelandic; it can be spoken in a way very close to the standard language, but if locals talk to each other, it is mostly unintelligible to inhabitants of other German speaking regions.
Linguists classify the Rhinelandic Regiolect as a dialect of Standard German having a strong substratum of the many diverse local community languages of the Rhineland. As such, it has a middle position between the group of older West Central German languages, Franconian languages, and Low Franconian languages spoken in the Rhineland, and the newer Standard German. The latter has only been brought into the area recently, under the Prussian reign, when local speakers merged many common properties and words of their local languages into the standard language. Thus a new regiolect formed, which in many respects follows the conventions of Standard German, but at the same time continues local linguistic traditions, making it comprehensible in a much wider area than the original local languages. Nevertheless, it still reflects differences inside the dialect continuum of the Rhineland, since speakers often prefer distinct words, styles or linguistic forms depending on the subregion they come from.
Scientific recognition and documentation
Differing across subregions of the Rhineland, and continually evolving, the Rhinelandic regiolect is not easily formalized. Though spoken by millions, it is rarely written down, which hampers scientific treatment. It has long been regarded as 'sheer colloquial speech' by the scientific community, valued too low to be subject of serious recognition and research. Only recently has it shifted into the focus of empirical research of some linguists. Most notably, the linguistics department of the Institut für Landeskunde und Regionalgeschichte (Institute for Regional Studies and History, former: Amt für Rheinische Landeskunde (ARL) – Office of Rhinelandic Regional Knowledge and Documentation) of the Landschaftsverband Rheinland (LVR) has contributed to that work.
Scientists of today's Landschaftsverband have observed, documented, and researched lingual development in the Rhine Province, and lately the Rhineland, for about two hundred years. During the past decades, they have published several studies of the current regiolect, as well as scientific books and papers, popular science books, articles and essays. Some of their findings are available in the world wide web. They regularly make surveys based on printed questionnaires which more recently can also be obtained and submitted via e-mail. These surveys are supplemented, extended, and updated by use of their interactive website Mitmachwörterbuch der rheinischen Umgangssprache (Cooperative Dictionary of the Rhinelandic Colloquial Language) since 2007.
Literature on collquialisms and colloquial German generally lists words and phrases coming from the Rhineland, marking their regional provenience appropriately.
Despite obviously not having heen created for this purpose and not including regiolect references at all, the well-known extensive multi-volume compendium Rheinisches Wörterbuch is nevertheless usually very helpful for finding hints to the probable meanings of words of the Rhinelandic regiolect that cannot be determined from other sources. Many regiolectal words come from, or are identical to, local language words which are documented in the Rheinisches Wörterbuch. They usually bear identical, related, or quite similar meanings.
Grammatical and syntactical deviations from Standard German
Intermediate position between Standard German and broad dialect
The following exemplary sentences may show how the regiolect is related to both Standard German and the actual dialect (Kölsch in this case), and found to be in the middle between the two.
The example shows that the regiolect is based on Standard German. Thus, it uses ers'ma ("first") from the standard "erst mal" (vs. dialect: eesch ens), and schonn ("already") from the standard "schon" (vs. dialect: att or allt). With words common to both languages, vowel and consonant qualities are usually those of the standard (trinken instead of drinke; immer instead of emmer), as are the rules of morphology.
However, the strong dialectal influence is also evident: Word final t/d is often deleted after another consonant (jetz, un); there is a tendency towards vowel shortening (schonn, widder); some structure words come in the dialectal form (mer = "wir"; et = "es, das"); and words with an initial vowel are not separated from the preceding word by a glottal stop, but rather linked to it, like in English. (This is marked in the example by an underscore.) The regiolect also uses diminutives more often (Käffchen instead of "Kaffee"), and has borrowed from the dialect many syntactical constructions unknown in the standard, e.g. mer trinken uns (en Käffchen), literally "we drink (a coffee) to ourselves", meaning: "to drink something with ease and pleasure."
Another good example is the word "afternoon", for which the regiolect uses a form similar to the dialect, but has adapted a vowel and a consonant to the standard.
The continuum Rhenish dialects – Rhenish regiolect – Standard German is comparable (however not wholly equal) to the continuum Scots – (colloquial) Scottish English – British Standard English in Lowland Scotland. The first end of the continuum is made up by the traditional regional language, which is closely related to the standard, but has had its independent development for several centuries; in both cases, it is alive, but losing ground in everyday communication, especially among younger people. The other end of the continuum is the supra-regional standard language used for example on national television. In between the two, we find the new common speech, which is based on the standard, but has a strong substratum from the traditional language.
Regional differences
The Rhinelandic regiolect has several regional and subregional features. Very many approximately coincide with the general dialect groups found in the local languages. For example:
As usual, the Low Franconian area in the North uses their own way to build the diminutive. The Central Rhineland between the Benrath line and the Sankt Goar line usually has an intermediate position. In this instance, the South uses their own vocalism that already incorporates parts of the Palatinate German one, found even further South.
Rhinelandic influences on Standard German
Like other jargons and regional varieties, also the Rhinelandic is influencing the Vocabulary of the German Standard. Instances of more recent additions are:
A grammatical deviation too, the am-Progressive mentioned above, has invaded the colloquial speech of other parts of the German-speaking areas. Experts state that it can be seen as "almost standard language use in wide parts."