Tag Archives: Swiss German
Austrian and Swiss-German Words of the Year 2019 Posted by Constanze on Jan 27, 2020
Guten Tag! We have previously looked at Germany’s Wort des Jahres (Word of the Year) and its Unwort des Jahres (Non-word of the Year) 2019 in this post, this one (runners up) and this one. But what about other, German-speaking countries? Do they also have ‘words of the year’ in Austria and German-speaking Switzerland? The…
The German Diminutive Posted by Constanze on Dec 12, 2018
Guten Tag! Today I’m going to tell you about diminutives in German. Diminutives are words that are altered to express a smaller, younger or ‘cuter’ version of themselves. An example of an English diminutive is the word droplet, from the word drop, and the word booklet, from the word book. In English, words often become…
German Companions of Saint Nicholas Posted by Constanze on Dec 5, 2018
Guten Tag! As you may know, tomorrow (December 6th) is Nikolaustag (Saint Nicholas Day) in Germany. This is a German Christmas celebration separate to that of December 24/25. If you are not yet familiar with Nikolaustag, I recommend reading this post and this post first, to get a good introduction to it. If you are…
The Swiss Silvesterklaus Posted by Constanze on Jan 3, 2018
Guten Tag und Prosit Neujahr! Hope you’ve all had a good rest and had a fantastic start to 2018! In my last post I talked about the origins of the German word for New Year’s Eve: Silvester. I also mentioned the Swiss character known as Silvesterklaus. Today I’d like to tell you a little more…
4 terms in different Swiss German dialects Posted by Sandra Rösner on Jan 25, 2013
Recently, I met a woman from Switzerland. We talked about the different regional dialects of German and Swiss German. Among other things, she gave me some examples in order to realize how differently Swiss people talk. Of course, I do not want to withhold my newly acquired knowledge about Swiss German. Cake – der…
Schwyzerdütsch – Schweizerdeutsch – Swiss German Posted by Sandra Rösner on Apr 1, 2011
In connection with my previous post about Low German I would like to continue with another dialect of German: Schwyzerdütsch or Schweizerdeutsch (Swiss German). Once more I copied and pasted some passages of a Wikipedia site. Below you can find one and the same text in Swiss German, High German, and English. In case, that…