The terms Rhinelandic, Rhenish, and Rhinelandic regiolect (, ) refer to the vernacular lect spoken in the so-called Rhineland of western Germany. This linguistic region roughly consists of the western portion of North Rhine-Westphalia, the northern areas of Rhineland-Palatinate and several smaller adjacent areas, including some in neighbouring countries.
Although there is such a thing as a Rhinelandic accent, and the regiolect uses it, the Rhinelandic variety is not simply German spoken with an accent. Indeed, it differs from Standard German in several thousandSee "" at http://www.mitmachwoerterbuch.lvr.de/lesen.php and following pages for an (incomplete) word list. commonly used additional words, phrases, and idioms, and some grammatical constructions. Like other German regiolects, there is not a strict definition of what constitutes Rhinelandic; it can be spoken in a way very close to the standard idiom, 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 dialectal variety of Standard German having a strong substratum of the many diverse local community languages of the Rhineland. As such, it occupies a middle position between the group of older West Central German 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 recentlybeginning approximately in the 1970s has it shifted into the focus of empirical research of some linguists. Most notably, the linguistics department of the (Institute for Regional Studies and History, former: (ARL) – Office of Rhinelandic Regional Knowledge and Documentation) of the (LVR) has contributed to that work.
Scientists of today's 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 on the internet.An introduction can be found at (last visited: June 1st, 2011) 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 (Cooperative Dictionary of the Rhinelandic Colloquial Language) since 2007.
Literature on colloquialisms and colloquial German generally lists words and phrases coming from the Rhineland, marking their regional provenience appropriately.For instance:
Despite obviously not having heen created for this purpose and not including regiolect references at all, the well-known extensive multi-volume compendium . . 9 volumes. Bonn/Berlin 1928-1971.Available online at http://www.woerterbuchnetz.de/woerterbuecher/rhwb/wbgui?lemid= 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 wordsAccording to an estimate of the linguistics department of the Institute for Regional Studies and History of the Landschaftsverband Rheinland, they have collected some 3000 to 6000 words of that kind. come from, or are identical to, local language words which are documented in the . They usually bear identical, related, or quite similar meanings.See also:
Grammatical and syntactical deviations from Standard German Two of the important and most eye-catching characteristics of Rhinelandic are the progressive tense and the so-called "possessive dative", both of which do not exist in the standard language. Rhinelandic constructs progressive forms with the verb "to be", the preposition "am" (= "at the", a Standard German contraction of an dem) and the infinitive, e.g. "Ich bin am Warten" (literally: I am at the waiting) is equivalent to English "I am waiting", cf. Dutch "Ik ben aan het wachten" (there is no corresponding contraction nor a German-like case system in Dutch). The possessive-dative construction replaces the standard genitive. The possessor is named in the dative case, followed by a possessive pronoun, e.g. "der alten Frau ihr Mann" (literally: to the old woman her husband), which is equivalent to English "the old woman's husband". The following exemplary sentence features both a progressive verb construction and a possessive dative. Sentences like this are common in the Rhinelandic parlance, but often not easy to understand for German speakers unfamiliar with it. {| class="wikitable" | colspan="2" | Rhinelandic || Dä || Peter || is || → || dem || Manfred || sein || Farrad || am || →Repariern |- | rowspan="2" | Dutch || Standard || rowspan="2" | [] || rowspan="2" | || rowspan="2" | || rowspan="2" | → || rowspan="2" | [] || 's || - || rowspan="2" | || rowspan="2" | || rowspan="2" | → |- | Colloquial || || |- | colspan="2" | Standard German || [] || || - || || [] || || - || || - || - |- | colspan="2" | English || [] || || || || [] || || - || || - || -
There is different use of some prepositions and declensions or grammatical cases: {| class="wikitable" | Rhinelandic || - ||colspan="2" align="center"| komma || bei || mich || |- | Standard German || || || || || || |- | English || || || - || || || |} The regiolect sometimes uses a different auxiliary verb to build the past tenses. Most commonly, "vergessen" ("to forget") and "anfangen" ("to begin") take the auxiliary "sein" ("to be") instead of "haben" ("to have"). This is the case especially in the Low Franconian area and makes sentences appear closer to Dutch than to German. {| class="wikitable" | Rhinelandic || ich || bin || dat || ganz || vergessen || - || |- | Dutch || || || || || || - || |- | Standard German || || || || || || - || |- | English || || || → || || || → || |} {| class="wikitable" | Rhinelandic || ich || bin || dat || ganz || vergessen || gewesen || - || |- | Dutch || || || || || || - || - || |- | Standard German || || || || || || - || - || |- | English || || || → || || || - || → |} Another phenomenon shared with Dutch is separation of "da + preposition" (dafür; damit = for that; with that). Standard German never splits this construction up, but in Rhinelandic and Dutch it is most common to do so. In this case, Rhinelandic "da" can be placed anywhere in the sentence, the preposition must follow at (or towards) the end of the sentence. {| class="wikitable" | Rhinelandic || Ich || hab || da || kein(e) || Zeit || für || - |- | Dutch || || || || || || || - |- | Standard German || || || || || || - || - |- | English || || || → || || || || → |} Individual expressions reflect dialectal usage, which also may lead to similarities with Dutch. {| class="wikitable" | Rhinelandic || du || has || den || colspan="2" align="center"| || - || |- | Dutch || || || ||colspan="2" align="center"| || - || |- | Standard German || || || ||colspan="2" align="center"| || - || |- | English || || || → ||colspan="2" align="center"| or || → || |} Names of persons, and denominators of roles and social positions are almost always preceded by grammatical articles. References to females, and especially to young females, may decline with the neuter grammatical gender (which is not at all pejorative). Using articles with personal names is wrong in Standard German, but is normal not only in Rhinelandic but also in most dialects and colloquial varieties of German in central and southern Germany, as well as in Austria and Switzerland. {| class="wikitable" | Rhinelandic || es/et/das/dat/de/die || Lisa || heirat || graad |- | Standard German || [] || Lisa || || |- | English || [] || Lisa || || |} {| class="wikitable" | Rhinelandic || es/et/das/dat/de/die || Lisa || is || am || heiratn |- | Standard German || [] || Lisa ||colspan="3" align="center"| |- | English || [] || Lisa || || - || |} {| class="wikitable" |colspan="2"| Rhinelandic || et || kütt || : || dä || Schmitz ||, || die || Schmitz ||, || un || - || et || Schmitz || |- |rowspan="2"| Standard German || (literally) || || || : || || ||, || || || || || - || || || |- | (better) || || || ||colspan="5" align="center"| || || || - ||colspan="2" align="center"| || |- |rowspan="2"| English || (literally) || || || : || || ||, || || ||, || || - || || || |- | (better) || - || || : ||colspan="2" align="center"| || ||colspan="2" align="center"| || || || ||colspan="2" align="center"| || |} People talk about themselves in the third person in specific contexts, also with articles. This can be done in English, too, but not in correct Standard German. For example, a mother addressing her child: {| class="wikitable" | Rhinelandic || - ||colspan="2" align="center"| hasse || - || schön || geputz ||, || da || muss || de || Mamma || - || nich || mehr || bei || [gehn] || - |- | Standard German || || || || [] || || ||, || - || → ||colspan="2" align="center"| || - || || [] ||colspan="2" align="center"| || → |- | English || || || || [] || || ||, || - || → ||colspan="2" align="center"| / || → || || ||colspan="2" align="center"| || -
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.
Kölsch DialectRhenish RegiolectStandard GermanEnglish Jetz setze mer uns_eesch_ens hen un drinke_uns_e Käffje. Jetz setz'mer uns_ers'ma hin un trinken_uns_en Käffchen. Jetzt setzen wir uns erst mal hin und trinken einen Kaffee.Now let's first sit down and have a cup of coffee. Dann sühd_et Levve att widder anders uß. Dann siehd_et Leben schonn wider anders_aus. Dann sieht das Leben schon wieder anders aus. After that, life will look much better. Ärbeide künne mer emmer noch! Aabeiten köm_mer immer noch! Arbeiten können wir noch immer! Work can wait a while!
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.