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Erzgebirgisch
Arzgebirgsch
Pronunciation	[ˈaːɰtsɡ̊əˌb̥ɛːɰjɡ̊ʃ]
Native to	Germany
Region	Saxony,Lower Saxony
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic High German Central German East Central German Erzgebirgisch
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Germanic Old Thuringian
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	oste1245  Osterzgebirgisch west2915  Westerzgebirgisch
Central German dialects after 1945 and theexpulsions of the Germans   Erzgebirgisch (9)
This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA.

Erzgebirgisch (StandardGerman pronunciation:[ˈeːɐ̯tsɡəˌbɪʁɡɪʃ]; Erzgebirgisch:Arzgebirgsch^[1]) is a (East)Central Germandialect, spoken mainly in the centralOre Mountains inSaxony. It has received relatively little academic attention. Due to the high mobility of the population and the resulting contact withUpper Saxon, the high emigration rate and its lowmutual intelligibility with other dialects, the number of speakers is decreasing.^{[not verified in body]}

As the following sections will show, Erzgebirgisch is very close toUpper Saxon but also has commonalities withUpper German dialects.

As of today, the Erzgebirgisch area comprises roughly the districts ofMittweida (southern area),Stollberg,Central Ore Mountain District,Annaberg-Buchholz,Freiberg (South) andAue-Schwarzenberg. Some more speakers live in the town ofLichtenstein, in theChemnitzer Land district.

Another community live in the UpperHarz Mountains in theClausthal-Zellerfeld region (Lower Saxony). Their ancestors wereminers andemigrated in the 16th century. Here it is referred to as theUpper Harz dialect.

Up to 1929, Erzgebirgisch was also spoken in other parts of Mittweida and Freiberg, inChemnitz,Zwickau and in the extreme West of theWeißeritzkreis, but these areas are now dominated byThuringian–Upper Saxondialects.

Until 1945, the borderingSudetenland also harbored some Erzgebirgisch speakers, namely in theKaaden-Duppau area, in whose dialect ananthology of words,proverbs andanecdotes was published (see references). After World War II these speakers had to leaveCzechoslovakia and settled down all over theFRG and theGDR. This meant that dialect usage was reduced to thefamily homes, entailing ashift to the local varieties of their new home towns.

No official attempts to create anorthography have been made, nevertheless there are countless short stories, poems and songs written in Erzgebirgisch. The Sächsischer Heimatverein guidelines to writing in Erzgebirgisch were established in 1937, but are by and largenot respected by the majority of authors. This means that linguistic analysis of this dialect has to be done in afield work setting withnative speakers. An additional threat to Erzgebirgisch is the popular misconception that Erzgebirgisch was ahillbilly variety ofSaxonian, which is an issue for conservation efforts.

Erzgebirgisch is classified as aCentral German dialect in linguistics, but also includesUpper German features.

Many of these languages show a tendency to substitute the Germanverbal prefixer- byder- (Erzg. and Bair.) orver- (Bair. andSwabian). (e.g. westerzgeb.derschloong[tɔɰˈʃloːŋ]Germanerschlagen 'to slaughter';derzeeln[tɔɰˈtseːln] Germanerzählen 'to tell, to narrate').

Extended use of theparticlefei is typical for Upper German and popular in Erzgebirgisch.

Furthermore, German[o/ɔ] corresponds to[u/ʊ] in the mentioned varieties (e.g. westerzgeb.huus[huːs]Hose), and German[a] corresponds to[A].^{[clarification needed]}

An[n] in thecoda, following along vowel, is regularly deleted in Erzgebirgisch (e.g. Lichtenst.Huuschdee[huːʂʈeː]Hohenstein. Rarely, this is also found withmonosyllabic words with ashort vowel, which undergo compensatory vowel lengthening in the process (e.g. Lichtenst.màà[mʌː]Mann 'man').

Another typical feature of Upper German is theapocope ofschwa and/ɪ/ (e.g. Lichtenst.Reedlz[ɣeːtˡl̩ts]Rödlitz)

The following table illustrates the similarities between Erzgebirgisch and Upper German dialects.Thuringian/Upper Saxon is listed as a control parameter. Areas marked with a tick means that the feature is present in most subdialects, whereas areas marked as 'partial' are only found in border areas.

Feature	Erzgebirgisch	East Franconian	Bavarian-Austrian	Alemannic	Thuringian
Rendering ofer- asder-/ver-
Use offei
Pronunciation of[o/ɔ] as[u/ʊ]				Partial
N-apocope
Schwa-apocope					Partial
Convergence ofch andsch	Partial

Eastern Erzgebirgisch dialects indicate negation withni(ch)[nɪ(ç)] whereasnèt[nɛt] is used in the West. However, thissubdialectal boundary is not clearly demarcated. Thus, both forms are found in the town ofLichtenstein, which lies on the northwestern dialect boundary (althoughni is perhaps more common).

In both Eastern Erzgebirgisch and in the Lichtenstein dialect, word-initial clusters⟨kl/gl⟩ and⟨kn/gn⟩ in Standard German as realized as⟨tl⟩ and⟨tn⟩ respectively (e.g.dlee[tˡleː]klein 'small';dnuchng[ˈtⁿnʊxŋ̍]Knochen 'bone').

It is not possible to include theUpper Harz varieties in either of these groups. Furthermore, there is a strong influence from the neighbouring non-Erzgebirgisch dialects in the region borderingMeißenisch, which makes subclassification cumbersome.

Through the summarizing of these findings, four dialects can be listed:

As mentioned above, there is no unified orthography. In order to render the language data close to their actualpronunciation, the following conventions have been established:

The rendering of the consonants follows the notation commonly used forBavarian. The following table lists thephonemes of the most important Erzgebirgisch dialects, with theIPA value and the corresponding character used in this article.

• No subdialect shows phonemic contrast betweenpostalveolar[tʃ,ʃ]) andretroflex[tʂ,ʂ]; they have one or the other.
• An importantsound change in Erzgebirgisch is found with respect to/r/. When/r/ precedes avelar consonant, a[j] is inserted in between, as an example,Baarg (GermanBerg 'mountain') is pronounced[paːɰjk]. Since this phonological process is completely regular, it is not reflected in orthography.
• [ɰ] is normally realized as avelarization of the preceding vowel. However, for the sake of clarity, this article will use[ɰ] throughout.

The writing of the vowels presented here follows in part the officialSchwyzertütsch orthography. The orthographic representation of a vowel follows after the IPA characters, if different.

• No subdialect has both[a] or[æ].
• /ə/ followed by⟨r⟩ is pronounced as[ɔ], but still written as⟨e⟩.
• The close back vowels[u,ʊ] are often rather unrounded.
• Vowel length is indicated by doubling the vowel sign in writing:⟨aa⟩,⟨àà⟩,⟨ee⟩,⟨èè⟩,⟨ii⟩,⟨oo⟩,⟨uu⟩.
• All vowels (with the exception of⟨a⟩ and/ə/) areangbr, i.e. that the back vowels⟨à⟩,⟨o⟩,⟨u⟩ are more front, and the front vowels⟨ee⟩,⟨è⟩ und⟨i⟩ more back than in Standard German.
• Short vowels preceding a stressed syllable are reduced to aschwa (e.g.gremàdig[kxəˈmʌtɪk]Grammatik 'grammar').
• A short vowel preceding ar is lengthened (e.g.Aarzgebèèrgsch).
• In dialects spoken at higher altitudes,⟨àà⟩ is often realized like⟨oo⟩.
  • The pronunciation as⟨àà⟩ is the default case forclosed syllables. This might be due toovergeneralization of a pattern found in adjacentSaxonian dialects.

Erzgebirgisch haslexical stress. There is a tendency to stress the first syllable even inFrenchloanwords, where Standard German stresses the final syllable (e.g.biro[ˈpiːɣo]⟨Büro⟩ 'office'), but loan words which follow the Standard German pattern are more numerous (e.g.dridewààr[txɪtəˈvʌːɰ]Gehsteig 'sidewalk' (from Frenchtrottoir)).

Erzgebirgisch numbers threegenders, masculine, feminine and neuter. Most Erzgebirgischlexemes have the same gender as their Standard German equivalents.

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In distinction to Standard German, the Erzgebirgischgenitive is no longer productive. Otherconstructions have to be used to indicatepossession. Foranimate possessors, a construction involving the possessor in the dative and an agreeingpossessive pronoun is used (dem Bsein A). Forinanimate possessors, a construction involvingf(u)n (Germanvon) is used. A third possibility iscompounding.

examples (North Western dialect):

The only case marking available for nouns isdative plural, which is marked by-n, but can oftenassimilate to other consonants.Nominative andaccusative are not marked in thesingular on nouns, butarticles,adjectives and possessive pronouns help todisambiguate in these cases. Personal pronouns also have some special forms for nominative, accusative and dative.

The following table shows some Erzgebirgisch nominaldeclension paradigms.

For more information on articles, see below.

There are different ways to form theplural in Erzgebirgisch, a feature shared with Standard German. Next to thesuffixes-e,-er,-n and-s,ablaut can also be used. Some suffixes triggerumlaut.

There are some nouns which differ in their plural marking between Erzgebirgisch and Standard German. E.g. Erzgebirgisch has-n for nouns ending in-(e)l in thesingular, where Standard German most often has umlaut.

Examples (North Western dialect):

Erzgebirgisch distinguishes three kinds ofarticles: emphatic definite article, atonal definite article, indefinite article. The emphatic definite articles are used where Standard German would usedeictics likedieser andjener. The other two types closely resemble their Standard German counterparts.

All articlesagree in gender, number and case with their head noun. The emphatic articles may also occur without a head noun and often replace the rarely used third person personal pronouns.

Erzgebirgisch has anegative indefinite article just like German, but the similarity to the positive indefinite article is less obvious.

The North-Western dialect has the following forms:

The articlen assimilates inplace of articulation to the preceding consonant. It ism beforep,pf,f,w andm andng beforek,g,ch ([x] or[χ]) andng.

Examples:

Personal pronouns distinguish emphatic and atonal forms, just like articles. The emphatic forms are used to highlight a participant. They are free words, whereas the atonal forms are phonologically reduced clitics.

There is no emphatic form for third person personal pronouns. The emphatic forms of the definite article have to be used instead. To outsiders this may often come across as impolite.

Unlike nouns, personal pronouns distinguish both number and case.

Pronouns withch havesch in the Northwestern dialect.The atonal second person singular pronoun isde when it precedes a verb, anddu when following. There are extra pronouns to express politeness, unlike German, which uses third person plural for this function.

Examples:

Possessive pronouns agree in case, number and gender with their head noun.

singular pronouns lose then before anothern or a-Ø-suffix.

First person plural loses thes everywhere but in the North Western dialect. First and second person plural lose thee before a suffix starting with a vowel.

This paradigm makes use of only three letterse,n andr.

examples:

Third person pronouns make heavy use of the dative construction (see above), just like nouns.

vgl.:

The following construction is found mainly in Western dialects, but also in Lichtenstein:

The canonic prepositionn (in) is never deleted in Lichtenstein, but almost always in the western dialects due to the more widespread dropping ofn. This leads to the impression thatnei is the preposition. One should also notice thatgoal of motion is encoded by the dative, and not by the accusative as in Standard German. The motion component is expressed bynei. This construction is also found with many other prepositions:dràà der kèrch ("an der Kirche", "bei der Kirche" at the church).

Adjectives agree with their head word in case, number, gender anddefiniteness.A difference to Standard German is the non-distinction of forms with indefinite article and forms without any article.

The following table lists all agreement suffixes for adjectives:

More examples

Thecomparative is formed with the suffix-er.The standard of comparison is marked with theprepositionwii (wie).
Thesuperlative is obtained by adding-(e)sd. Agreement suffixes come after these suffixes.

examples:

The verb agrees in person and number with the subject of the sentence. This is true of bothfull verbs andauxiliaries.

Twotense/aspects are morphologically distinguished,present tense andpreterite. Use of the preterite is found almost exclusively withstrong verbs, i.e. verbs involving ablaut.

The other tenses are formed with auxiliaries:Perfect,Pluperfect,Futur I andFutur II. Perfect and preterite are used interchangeably.Pluperfect expressesanteriority in the past. Futur II is mainly used forepistemic statements about past events (cf. German:Erwird wohl wieder nicht dagewesen sein. He has probably not attended again.)

Theinfinitive and thepresent participle and thepast participle are formed with the following affixes:

Erzgebirgisch distinguishesstrong verbs, involving ablaut, andweak verbs, without ablaut. Both classes take the same suffixes. The present tense can be used to refer to events in the present or future.

The suffixes are sometimes assimilated to the stem, as can be seen fromhàm, `to have'.

As mentioned above, the preterite form is only used withstrong verbs.Weak verbs use the perfect instead. This is also gaining ground withstrong verbs. Formation of the preterite does not always follow the same pattern as in Standard German e.g.schmecken `to taste' is aweak verb in Standard German (preteritschmeckte), but astrong verb is Erzgebirgisch (present tense:schmègng preterite:schmoog with ablaut. Another verb which is weak in Standard German but strong in Erzgebirgisch isfrààn (Standard Germanfragen to ask), preteritefruuch (Standard Germanfragte, asked).

Agreement with the subject is indicated as follows:

Perfect andpluperfect are construed with a finite form of the auxiliariessei- andhàb- and the past participle of the full verb.

Examples:

Two future tenses are distinguished. Future I is used for any reference time in the future, Future II has the meaning of future anterior.Future is formed with the auxiliarywèèr- (Standard German werden). Future I adds the infinitive of the full verb, future II the auxiliarysei orhab in the infinitive and the past participle of the full verb.

Examples:

Erzgebirgisch has a productivesubjunctive for most of the auxiliaries and some other frequently used verbs. The form is derived from the preterite by ablaut. Other verbs have to useduunsupport in order to appear in the subjunctive.

Theimperative is identical to first person present tenseindicative. In order to obtain the plural imperative,-d is suffixed to the singular form.

example:

The passive is formed with the auxiliarywèèr- (German werden) and the past participle of the full verb.

Example:

The following snippet contains the introduction and the first stanza of a wedding poem from Clausthal (1759) and is written in the Oberharz dialect:^[2]

Aſs t'r Niemeyer ſeine Schuſtern in de Kerch zur Trauer kefuͤhrt prengt aͤ Vugelſteller Vugel un hot Baͤden kratelirt iſs k'ſchaͤn d. 25. Oktober 1759. Clasthol kedruͤckt bey den Buchdrucker Wendeborn.

Translation

When Niemeyer lead his bride to the church to marry her, a bird trapper brought birds and congratulated them; This happened on October 25 in 1759. Clausthal, printed at the Wendeborn Printing House.

Like all dialects, Erzgebirgisch has some words which are difficult to grasp for outsiders. These includecontractions of long words, but also some words unknown to other dialects or even other subdialects of the same lineage.

Erzgebirgisch has manyonomatopoetic verbs (see also I. Susanka). Due to the high precipitation in theOre Mountains, many different verbs for different kinds of rain or drizzle exist.

Like many other German dialects, Erzgebirgisch is rich inadverbs, like the notoriousfei, whose use is extremely complex and needs further research. It appears incommands (Gii fei wag!, Go away!), but also in affirmations (S´reengd fei, It's raining, by the way.).

Theinterjections used in Erzgebirgisch differ considerably from the Standard German ones. The language area being dominated bymining, some linguistic patterns peculiar to this business have attained general usage, like the saluteGlig auf! (dt. "Glück auf").

English does not have a specialized form to affirm negative questions, unlike French (si), Dutch (jawel) or German (doch). Erzgebirgisch usesUjuu![ˈʊjuː], or sometimesAjuu![ˈajuː], (dt. "Doch!") in these contexts.For the negation of a question expecting a positive answerÈ(schà)![ˈɛ(ʂʌ)] (dt. "Nein!") is used. This interjection is also used to express surprise, albeit with a differentintonation.

• Oswin Böttger:Der Satzbau der erzgebirgischen Mundart. Leipzig 1904. – An analysis of the syntax.
• Erich Borchers:Sprach- und Gründungsgeschichte der erzgebirgischen Kolonie im Oberharz. Marburg 1929. – Grammar of the Upper Harz variety.

• Irmtraud Susanka:Wie mir drham geredt homm. Unsere Mundart im Bezirke Kaaden-Duppau. Verlag des Kaadener Heimatbriefs, Bayreuth (no year, no ISBN). – Collection of words, phrases, poems and short stories of the southern variety formerly spoken in theSudetenland.

• A western Erzg. wordlist and some further literature
• A wordlist of the variety in Thalheim
• Some poems in Erzg.
• Some short stories in Erzg.

Look uperzgebirgisch in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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