Alsatian dialect

Alsatian is the group of Alemannic German and Franconian dialects spoken in most of Alsace, a formerly disputed region in eastern France that has passed between French and German control five times since 1681.

Language family

Alsatian is closely related to other nearby Alemannic dialects, such as Swiss German, Swabian, Markgräflerisch, Kaiserstühlerisch and the other Alemannic dialects of Baden. It is often confused with Lorraine Franconian, a more distantly related Franconian dialect spoken in the northwest corner of Alsace and in neighbouring Lorraine. Like other dialects and languages, Alsatian has also been influenced by outside sources. Words of Yiddish origin can be found in Alsatian, and modern conversational Alsatian includes adaptations of French words and English words, especially concerning new technologies.

Status of Alsatian in France

Since 1992, the constitution of the Fifth Republic states that French is the official language of the Republic. However, Alsatian, along with other regional languages, is recognized by the French government in the official list of languages of France. France is a signatory to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages but has never ratified the law and has not given regional languages the support that would be required by the charter.
Alsatian has gone from being the prevalent language of the region to one in decline. A 1999 INSEE survey counted 548,000 adult speakers of Alsatian in France, making it the second-most-spoken regional language in the country. Like all regional languages in France, however, the transmission of Alsatian is declining. While 43% of the adult population of Alsace speaks Alsatian, its use has been largely declining amongst the youngest generations.
In 2023 local French public schools began offering Alsatian immersion for the first time. The programs have proven popular with students and parents but after years of official state suppression of the language, struggle to find enough teachers.
A dialect of Alsatian German is spoken in the United States by a group known as the Swiss Amish, whose ancestors emigrated there in the middle of the 19th century. The approximately 7,000 speakers are located mainly in Allen County, Indiana, with "daughter settlements" elsewhere.

Orthography

C, Q, and X are only used in loanwords. Y is also used in native words, but is more common in loanwords.

Orthal

Orthal is a revised orthography meant for use by all dialects of Alsatian promoted by the italic=unset.
The latest version of Orthal is described below. Not all dialects are expected to use all letters & diacritics. For example, Owerlandisch from Southern Alsace primarily uses the additional vowel letters, Ä À Ì Ü.
Dialects from the north make use of more letters including Ë, Ö, Ù and the diphthong ÈI.
In general the principles of Orthal are to:

Follow standard German orthography for the regular vowels A, E, I, O, U and their umlauted Standard German forms Ä, Ö, Ü
For diphthongs & triphthongs that do not exist in Standard German Orthal combines standard German letters to create anew – e.g., ia, üe, öi, àui, äi
For vowel sounds not represented in the Standard German orthography, it uses the French acute & grave accent marks to create new graphemes that can represent sounds unique to the Alsatian dialects
It also follows standard German orthography for consonants as well.

The vowels are pronounced short or long based on their position in the syllable besides the letter type.
A vowel at the end of a syllable, without a subsequent consonant, is a long vowel "V" = Long Vowel. e.g., hà, sì
A vowel followed by a single consonant in a syllable is pronounced as a long vowel "V + C" = Long Vowel. e.g., Ros
Note – A vowel followed by several consonants in a syllable is pronounced as a Short Vowel. e.g., Ross

Monophthong – short vowels

Majuscule forms

Minuscule forms

IPA

Monophthong – long vowels

Majuscule forms

A, AH, AA

À, ÀH, ÀÀ

Ä, ÄH

E, EH, EE

Ë, ËH

È, ÈÈ ÈH

I, II, IH

Ì, ÌH

O, OO, OH

Ö,

U, UU, UH

Ü,ÜÜ, ÜH

Ù, ÙÙ, ÙH

IPA

Phonology

Consonants

Alsatian has a set of 19 consonants:

	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal
Stop					,
Affricate
Fricative	,
Approximant

Three consonants are restricted in their distribution: and only occur at the beginning of a word or morpheme, and then only if followed immediately by a vowel; never occurs at the beginning of a word or morpheme.
Alsatian, like some German dialects, has lenited all obstruents but. Its lenes are, however, voiceless as in all Southern German varieties. Therefore, they are here transcribed,,. Speakers of French tend to hear them as their, which also are voiceless and unaspirated.
The phoneme has a velar allophone after back vowels, and palatal elsewhere. In southern dialects, there is a tendency to pronounce it in all positions, and in Strasbourg the palatal allophone tends to conflate with the phoneme. A labiodental voiced fricative sound is also present as well as an approximant sound. may have phonetic realizations as,, and.

Vowels

Short vowels:,,, ,,,,.
Long vowels:,,,,,,,

Diphthongs

Grammar

Alsatian nouns inflect by case, gender and number:

Three cases: nominative, accusative, dative. Unlike Standard German, Alsatian does not have a genitive case and instead utilises the dative or the preposition vu plus the dative to fulfill that role in certain cases.
Three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.
Two numbers: singular and plural.
Comparative vocabulary list

English	Southern Alsatian	Northern Alsatian	High Alemannic	Standard German	Swabian German	Luxembourgish	Pennsylvania German	Standard French
house	's Hüss	s' Hüs	Huus	Haus	Hous	Haus	Haus	maison
loud	lütt	lüt	luut	laut	lout	haart	laut	bruyant
people	d' Litt	d' Lit	Lüt	Leute	Leid	Leit	Leit	gens/peuple
today	hìtt	hit	hüt	heute	heid	haut	heit	aujourd'hui
beautiful	scheen	scheen	schö	schön	sche	schéin	schee	beau
Earth	d' Arda	d' Erd	Ärd	Erde	Erd	Äerd	Erd	terre
Fog	d'r Nawel	de Näwwel	Näbel	Nebel	Nebl	Niwwel	Newwel	brouillard
water	's Wàsser	's Wàsser	Wasser	Wasser	Wasser	Waasser	Wasser	eau
man	d'r Mànn	de Mànn	Maa	Mann	Mà	Mann	Mann	homme
to eat	assa	esse	ässe	essen	essa	iessen	esse	manger
to drink	trìnka	trinke	trinkche	trinken	trenka	drénken	drinke	boire
little	klei	klein/klaan/klëën	chli	klein	kloi	kleng	glee	petit, petite
child	's Kìnd	's Kind	Chind	Kind	Kind	Kand	Kind	enfant
day	d'r Tàg	de Dàà	Dag	Tag	Dàg	Dag	Daag	jour
woman	d' Fràui	d' Frau	Frou/Frau	Frau	Frau	Fra	Fraa	femme