Pfaelzisch
Facts
- Language: Pfaelzisch
- Alternate names: Pfälzisch, Pfälzische, Palatinate German
- Language code: pfl
- Language family: Indo-European, Classical Indo-European, Germanic, Northwest Germanic, West Germanic, High German, Middle German, West Middle German, Rhenish Franconian, Palatinate
- Number of speakers: ?
- Script: Latin
More information:
Introduction
Pfaelzisch (Palatinate German) is a West Franconian dialect of German which is spoken in the Rhine Valley roughly in an area between the cities of Zweibrücken, Kaiserslautern, Alzey, Worms, Mannheim, Heidelberg, Speyer, Wörth am Rhein and the border to the Alsace region in France but also beyond.
Pennsylvania German is descended primarily from the Palatine German dialects spoken by Germans who immigrated to North America from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.
The verb
Unlike standard German, Pfaelzisch does not have Past (imperfect) tense but past is always expressed with an auxiliary verb. Passive is constructed with the auxiliary 'werre' (c.f. German 'werden') Future is expressed with indicative present. Pfaelzisch future that used auxiliary 'werre' is used to express uncertainty in the future.
Sample verb wagen 'to dare'
| - | Present | Perfect |
|---|---|---|
| isch | wag' | hab gewagt |
| du | wagscht | hoscht gewagt |
| er/der | wagt | hot gewagt |
| mir | wagen | hen gewagt |
| ihr | wagt/wagen | habt/hawwen gewagt |
| die | wagen | hen gewagt |