bavarian-german

On Dialect

The notes below are in the context of the Austrian dialect, in particular what is spoken in Upper Austria. Pronunciation, spelling, word choice, etc. will as such be slightly different than if you are coming from a more Munich/German focus or if you are in Vienna. Additionally, between ages, urban vs. rural, city vs. city, there will be variation, not just in dialect versions, but the use of dialect vs. standard German. Please let me know if your regional variation is missing and I will gladly add it.

Often the first way that I encountered it will be written as the "definitive" version. Variations, if known, will be indicated with "𝕯".

On Spelling

As an informally or colloquially written language, there are almost as many ways of writing as there are speakers. As many of the spellings for grammatical items I know of are listed as appropriate. These will often be indicated with "𝕯", unless originally taught to me as a free variation.

On the Name

Ideally, I would call this page "Austrian German" as it is the autochthonous German of most of Austria. However, "Austrian German" connotes the regional variation of Standard German, rather than a dialetical version of it, much like the difference between American and British English. As such, to avoid saying "Austrian Dialect", I've opted to call it "Bavarian German", as that is the term most often used in the literature in English (cf. Wikipedia).

Nouns

Gender

There are three genders: masculine, feminine, and neutral. These are represented as M, F, and N in the tables below. Outside of natural gender (e.g. that is a female chicken, that is a male scorpion), it is not always possible to identify the gender of a noun based on spelling.

There are a few rules to help, though:

• those ending in -ung are always female

Plural Pronouns

There a number of different ways the plural can be formed:

1. +a: kind:child -> kinda:children
2. +s: cousin:cousin -> cousins:cousins
3. +n: soch:thing -> sochn:things
4. umlaut (changing of the vowel): haus:house -> heisa:houses

Pronouns

Personal Pronouns

• some speakers will use wir/ihr as in standard German for 1PL and 2PL.
• 3SG.M is occasionally reduced to -a, as in hod-a (does he have...).

Posessive Pronouns

Possessive pronouns change based on the possessor, the gender of the thing being possessed, and the part of speech (NOM, ACC, or DAT). Each possessor has a base form and a standard suffix is appended based on the case.

Part of speech is on the left side and the gender of the possessed is along the top

The base forms are as follows:

• 1SG: mei
• 2SG: dei
• 3SG.M/3SG.N: sei
• 3SG.F: ia
• 1PL: unsa
• 2PL: eicha
• 3PL: eana

The DAT.F form is -ra for PL possesors, as well as 3SG.F and the formal you. For example iara (3SG.DAT.F).

Thus we get for 3SG.F:

Relative Pronouns

(This section needs more work.)

"who/which"

Reflexive Pronouns

Only 1SG and 2SG differ, 3SG and 3PL are the same, si, which is found in dictionaries to indicate that a verb is reflexive.

Articles

𝕯: Ending consonants may match the ending consonant in standard German. These matches are represented below. If they do not match, they will likely all be "n".

Definite Articles

This and That

This and that are the same as the definite article, meaning that there is some ambiguity by default (e.g. the car, this car, and that car would all be des Auto). However, there are three emphasizers that can be used to help disambiguate which one is meant: do (here), doat (there), ane (one).

Thus we get:

• de Frau do, the woman here (this woman)
• de Frau doat, the woman there (that woman)
• de ane Frau, the one woman (that woman)

Dea can also be used to emphasize between two different options, e.g. not that one, but this one. This here would be "dea".

Indefinite Articles

Positive forms

Negative forms

Similar to if one declined "no" in an English sentence such as "I have no money". That is, i hob ka göd, or another example i hob kan Cent / I have not a cent.

Adjectives

Adjectives decline based on the gender and case of the described word. Each adjective has a base form with is suffixed by an ending letter corresponding to the gender and case combination. When an adjective is used with a verb, it is not declined, e.g. guad in es is guad / it is good.

Thus, for NOM, we'd have: a neicha Plotz (a new place, M), a neiche Stodt (a new city), and a neichs Haus (a new house).

(TODO: I'm actually not sure on the PL, need to double check)

Comparatives

Comparatives, or "more"/"most", are formed off of the base adjective:

• more (comparative): +a
• most (superlative): am +(e)stn

When the adject ends in alveleor consonants (s/z, sch, t/d), an e is inserted between the last consonant and stn.

For example, with müd:mild, we have:

• müd: mild
• müda: milder
• am müdestn: mildest

Compare, with out the inserted e for schee:pretty:

• schee: pretty
  – scheena: prettier
  – am scheenstn: prettiest

Verbs

Tenses

There are four tenses in Bavarian German which are formed by the base verb plus "half verbs", such as sei:to be to change the tense:

1. present – what is occurring now
2. past/perfect – an action that occured in the past, prior to the present action
3. past perfect/pluperfect – an action that occurs in the past, but prior to a past timeframe already established
4. future – an action that will occur at a future time

When learning new verbs it is helpful to learn the 3SG, 3PL, perfect participle. The first two, 3SG and 3PL help you know the singular and plural roots for the present tense. The perfect participle will be used for other tenses.

The general rule is that the conjugated verb goes in the "2nd position" in the sentence. "I hob...", for example. The participle often goes at the end. In relative clauses (nobensätze, lit. side clauses), the verb often goes at the end.

Present

Generally speaking, conjugating a verb in the present tense is uncommon, with the exception of some common verbs, especially relative to standard German. A more cmomon way of constructing the sentence is to use the verb duan:to do with the action in the infinitive. For example, I dua mit meine Zähnd knischn / I grind my teeth, or literally, "I do with my teeth to grind". A brief list of some of these common verbs are geh, kumma, seng, schaun, wissn, hean, hoachn, sei, hom.

From the stem, add the following suffixes. The 1SG suffix is a ', indicating there is no ending. This is often written, hence differentiating from ∅ (or nothing at all).

Thus, with kaffa:to buy, stem kauf:

Past/Perfect

This tense describes an action that has occurred in the past, prior to the present action.

It is most often formed with hom:to have in the present tense, plus the perfect participle. Ex. I hob gsogt / I said, where hob is 1SG form of hom and gsogt is the past participle of sogn:to say.

Some verbs, however, take sei:to be as their auxiliary verb. These verbs are verbs of movement or state, such as to jump, to swim, to stay (movement without movevement), to be. This list does not differ (at least as I've been told) from Standard German. For example, I bi ghupft / I jumped.

Past Pefect/Pluperfect

This tense describes an action that occurs in the past, but prior to a past timeframe already established.

Formed with hom:to have in the present tense, plus the perfect participle, plus the perfect participle of "to have", ghabt. Ex. I hob gmoant ghabt / I had thoughtBayrisches Wörterbuch, Verben

Future (wean)

𝕯: May also be seen as "wern" and "wian" and declined appropriately. 1SG may also drop the final "-d". There's so much variable that all forms encountered are listed below. The forms given by my tutor are listed first.

This tense describes an action that will occur in the future.

Formed with wean:to become in the present tense and the verb in the infinitive. Ex. I wead im Juli noch Ö foan / I will go to Austria in July.

Mood

Mood is very similar to tense, but rather than expressing the time when something happen, it describes how it happened. There are 3 main moods in Bavarian German:

• imperative (commands, etc.)
• subjunctive (would)
• past subjunctive (would have liked)

Imperative

The imperative is used to form commands, such as "look!". It is formed by removing or modifying the last letter of the infinitive.

2nd Person singular (you, informal)

There are 4 final "letters" for infinitives and they have standard transformations. ∅ indicates that the letter is removed:

• n → ∅, ex. schaun → schau!
• ng → g, ex. schlong → schlog!
• m → b, ex. lem → leb!
• a → ∅, ex, springa → spring!

2nd person singular (you, formal)

When making a polite request, it is the same as the PRS form. For example, Bringan'S ma bitte an Löffi, san'S so liab / Please bring be a spoon, if you would.

Present Subjunctive

Also known as Konjunktiv II, this indicates that the subject would like to do something. This is commonly used for polite request (I hätt gean, I would like) and expressing desired actions.

It is formed from the 1SG.PRS form, plus endings, and often accompanied by gean:like as an intensifier. For more common verbs, the stem is slightly irregular.

Note that for 1SG, the ending may be dropped entirely, which occurs quite commonly. For example warat:I would be → waa or hättat:I would have → hätt.

When the ending causes two vowels to be next together, a -r- is inserted, such as in foarat:I would drive or darat:I would do.

Some of the common irregular verbs and their stems:

• to be, sei: war
• to go, geh: gang
• to come, kumma: kam
• to see, seng: sag
• to say, sogn: sog
• to do, dua: da

Past Subjunctive

The past subjunctive is for actions you would have done, but did not do, such as learning to study Bavarian German earlier. This is formed with the present subjunctive of "to have" (or "to be" if it would use "to be" in the past tense) and the past participle of the action one would have liked to have done. As with the present subjunctive, gean:like is often used.

Verb Types

There are three main categories of verbs: seperable, inseperable, and reflexive. Separable and inseparable should be thought of as a pair, since a verb is either separable or inseparable. This refers to the whether or not the verb prefix is separable from the verb root. Reflexive verbs act on the subject of the sentence (e.g. she did it to herself) and often are required in places where English verbs do not take a reflexive pronoun.

Seperable & Inseperable

Separable and inseparable refer to whether or not the verbal prefix is separated from the verbal root. An example of a separable verb is eischoitn:to turn off. The ei prefix is separated from the verb root, schoitn. Thus we get I schoit des Liacht ei / I'm turning off the light. With the structural difference established, each type can be summarized with a few characteristics.

Seperable Verbs

• Contains g- in the past participle, thus eigschoit

Inseparable Verbs

𝕯: da is often used instead of va or ea.

There are a limited set of prefixes that are considered inseparable: b (or be), ent, g, da, va, ea. da, in addition to a "generic prefix" meaning, can also have a "till death" meaning. For example, schiaßn:to shoot vs daschiaßn:to shoot someone to death. This can also take on metaphorical meaning, with lem: to live vs. dalem: to live to see the death (of something), or more figuratively, "to live to see change in the world".

• Does not contain a g- in the past participle (unless of course the prefix is g itself)

Reflexive Verbs

Reflexive verbs require a reflexive pronoun. Although the pronoun is there, they are not always translated with a pronoun in English. For example si gfrien:to be glad, to look forward to something, is a reflexive verb, but one not normally say "I am, myself, glad that...". Reflexive verbs should be marked as such in dictionaries with si, which is the 3SG/3PL REFL pronoun. These types of verbs take either ACC or DAT REFL pronouns, which differ only in 1SG and 2SG.

Irregular Verbs

• geh:to go, stem geh, is regular except for 1PL and 3PL, which are genga.

To Be (sei)

The past tense is regular, with a stem of woa, one of two verbs that still has a declinable past tense. The past participle is gwesn. See below for more info.

Present Tense

samma is the emphatic form of "we are", commonly heard in the song "Bayern, des samma mia", or "Bavarians, that's what we are".

3SG is often dropped to 's both speaking and in writing and is suffixed to the preceding word. For example, gibt's:there is.

To Have (hom)

𝕯: "o" may be written/pronounced as "au" and 3SG.SG may have a "t" rather than "d".

Like samma above, homma is the emphatic form of "to have" for 1PL.

You will also likely hear the conjunctive form, expressing "would like to have", especially when ordering food. For example, Wos hättn'S gean zum Essn? / What would you like to eat?. Note the 'S indicating the polite form of "You".

One may also see and hear a version with "d", rather than "tt", thus i hätt/häd gean... / I would like to have....

Common Verbs That Change Vowels Between Singular and Plural

Some verbs in the present change verbs between singular and plural. If you only hear one of these forms, it is not always possible to guess what the other vowel should be. Presumably, after enough time, an unconscious pattern will emerge (and perhaps there is a conscious one that could be applied, but I don't know what it is).

• to want (woin): wü/wüst/wü | woin/woits/woin

The Simple Past

There are only two verbs which are still used in the simple past, that is, as a declined form without the use of a past participle. These are woin:to want and sei:to be (see above).

To Want (woin)

You may sometimes, but less frequently, see woin as a past participle.

Passive Voice

Passive voice is formed with different pairings of auxiliary verbs (either wean:to become or sei:to be), a verb declined in PRS, and optionally a third word, either the infinitive or the past participle. The passive voice is when the object of a verb acts as the subject – the subject is not necessarily explicit in the sentence and may be left ambiguous (if unknown).

In the examples below, the verb is kaffa:to buy, or kauft in 3SG.

Present

Auxiliary verb: wean
No third word.

Des letzte Buach wiad kauft / The last book is being boughten (by someone).

Future

Auxiliary verb: wean
Infinitive: wean

Des letzte Buach wiad kauft wean / The last book will be boughten (by someone).

Past

Auxiliary verb: sei
Past participle: woan

Des letzte Buach is kauft woan / The last book has been boughten (by someone).

Directional Prefixes

There are 4 pairs of directional prefixes that add both a direction (up, down, in, out) and an orientation (towards the speaker, away from the speaker).

They are (towards / away):

• out: ausa / ausi
• in: eina / eini
• up: aufa / aufi
• down: oba / obi

As you can see, towards ends with "a" and away ends with "i".

Question Words

• wea: who
• wenn: when
• wie: how
• wos: what
• wöche: which

Speakers often drop the pronoun when asking a question, but should include it, when asking with emphasis on rejoiner question.

Question Particles

Particles, in this sense, being something that is added to a question that does necessarily add any additional meaning to the sentence, rather, it reinforces that a question is being asked (in case it wasn't already obvious).

Using wos mochst? (what are you doing?), the below illustrates 3 additional emphatic forms for asking a question:

• wos mochst denn?
• wos mochst'n? (a shortening of the above denn)
• wos mochst leicht?

Modals

There's a lot going on with modal particles, so this section is going to be quite bare for a while, I expect.

• a: also (and...)
• scho: already (and...)

Prepositions

The noun that follows a preposition will be one of the cases listed below. Most prepositions can take either ACC or DAT. The difference lies mostly in stative versus active senses. In DAT, it describes where you are and what you're doing ("I'm at the restaurant") versus in ACC, it describes where you're going ("I'm going to the restaurant").

Each preposition is combined with an implied article for the noun that follows the preposition. Generally speaking, in DAT, the combined form is the preposition plus -m for M and N and -a for F (occasionally the standalone article da). In ACC, it would be -n, -d, -s, respectively for the genders. When deviations are known, they are listed below.

Prepositions can have a lot of meanings and equivalencies, which will be updated as they are encountered.

With ACC

• an: towards close to a location
• auf: on (both physical and abstract, such as on a business trip), in (a language)
• hinta: to behind someplace
• in (M indn): to (a place, regularly)
• pro: per
• üba/üwa/iwa: about, over (motion), for a period of time
• unta: under (motion)
• voa/vua: in front of (motion)
• zwischn: between (motion)

With DAT

• an: near a location, close to
• aus: out of, leaving from a place
• auf: on top of
• bei: at (e.g. a party), chez
• hinta: behind
• in: in a place
• nem: next to
• noch: after, to a destination
• üba/üwa/iwa: over (static)
• unta: under (static)
• vo: of, from
• voa/vua: in front of (static), before (static)
• zu/z': to (a person or thing, often once), for a holiday (z'Weinochtn:for Christmas)
• zwischn: between (static)

"zua" and "in" can be tricky in English since they are both "to". One way of distinguishing, especially if the location is ambiguously a person or a place, such as "therapy", is that "zua" is used when one goes to the location once, whereas "in" is used when one goes regularly. Compare I geh zua Therapie / I'm going to therapy (once, e.g. to try it out) vs. I geh in Therapie / I go to therapy (every Tuesday).

Da- prepositions

Da- plus a preposition is the "it" form of the preposition. That is, when one wants to say "with it", "before it", or any other preposition and "it", rather than the form "preposition es", it is da plus the preposition. Therefore, davoa:before it, damit:with it, etc. If the preposition begins with a vowel, there is a linking -r-, such as in darüba:about it.

Pronunciation

A lot of Bavarian is presented as regular phonetic transformations of Standard German. And for the most part, especially with uncommon nouns, etc. it seems to be. Between dialects, of course, there is also variation, which I will attempt to distinguish below, as well.

In the descriptions below V is any vowel, while C is any consonant.

• gs is pronounced /ks/ and is sometimes written as "x", as as xund:health
• gh is pronounced /k/, such as in ghobt (/kobt/)
• ending Ns may be dropped and nasalize the final vowel such as in i konn:I am able => i kõ
• final -el is kind of an ö or i sound, such as in eadopfi:potato, often when "el" is in the middle of a word, it is written as "ö"
• "r" is pronounced as "a" after vowels and before consonants, but not after consonants

Umlaut

Umlaut is the changing of a vowel to change the form of a word. To better illustrate the change from one vowel to the other, the change will be done with Standard German as an intermediary, since it makes it very clear what's going on: add ̈ to the vowel and you get a new vowel: a + ̈ = ä.

1. a -> ä -> ä
2. o -> ö -> e
   3 u -> ü -> i
3. au -> äu -> ei
4. e -> eu -> ei

Dialect Variations

• VbV == VwV
• ex. oba/owa, saubara/sauwara
• speaker preference, may change based on word
• one important note is that verbs ending in -b in 1SG will often be heard as ending in a -w, such as with hom:to have: hob/how i
• a/oa is often in free variation between speakers, even amongst the same family
• ex. ans/oans, zwa/zwoa

Changes from Standard German

• Vl changes from German
• al = oi
• el = ö
• il = ü
• "a" is often "o"/å
• "o" is often "u", but may be "i" closer to Salzburg/German border

When is Standard German still used?

• ich liebe (I love...). I lieb is very rarely used.
• mit alles/mit scharf (a jocular, grammatically incorrect way of saying "with everything"/"with spice") when ordering döner. From Turkish speakers of German as a second language. For example, you would order a döner with everything as I hätt gean an kebap mit alles.

Sentence Structure

As with standard German, there is also the common rule of "the verb is the second word in the sentence".

• sentence final "eh" is very common in Austria, mostly equivalent to "anyways" in English.

Negation

TODO
- ned: not, kane: none (or any, in a negative sense)
- to not be = to be + KA, I bi ka Aungsthos, I am not a coward.

Possession

There is no GEN in Bavarian German. Rather, there are two structures which are used to express possession.

The first is rather simple, with vo:of. The structure is "(possessed) vo(m) (possessor)". vom is used when the possessor is M or N, as contraction of "vo" and "dem". For example, da Hund vom Kind is the kid's dog.

The second is more complicated and is generally considered to be more Austrian. It is of the form "(DAT definite article) possessor (POSS article, declined) possessed". Thus, im Kind sei Hund is also "the kid's dog". Using this example, the two "grammatical" parts of this structure are:

• DAT definite article: im is the DAT.N definite article and is the same gender as the possessor
• POSS article: sei is the POSS.M.NOM article. The POSS article will decline based on location in the sentence and the gender of the possessor. Thus there will be two pairs: for M and N – im ... sei/sein/seim and for F - da ... ia/ian/iara. For PL, it is im ... seine and da ... iare for all cases.

The gender of the possessed has no bearing on the formation of this structure.

Thus, put all together:

Relative Clauses

Relative clauses are clauses in sentences that bein with wenn:when, wie:when, or weil:because. They are always offset with a comma and may occur at the beginning of the sentence. Structurally, the main difference between a normal clause is that the verb in a relative clause appears at the end of the clause. The clause that is paired with the relative clause has the verb at the beginning.

For example, Wenn i wos essn geh, dring i imma a Bier / When I go out to eat (something), I always drink a beer. Note the location of geh:to go, at the end of the wenn clause, compared with dringa:I drink, and the beginning of the paired clause.

Wenn vs. Wie/ois

Both pairs translate roughly to the English word "when", but in the sense of "When I was"/"While I was", rather than the question word "when". The differ in, well, when the thing took place.

• wenn: used for the present and future
• wie/ois: used for the past

For example, in the past, Wie I hamkumma bin, hob I fuchzehn Stund gschlofm / When I came home, I slept for 15 hours. Note too, as mentioned above, that the following clause has the verb (hob) at the beginning.

Conditional Sentences (fois/wenn/ob)

There are three different words that indicate conditional sentences: fois, wenn, and ob. The rules for use are straightforward: if "whether" would be used in English (e.g. whether or not), then use ob. Otherwise, use fois or wenn.

All three forms decline to a certain extent to match the subject of the clause as follows. For 3SG, the slashes indicate M, F, and N forms.

fois

Foist des ned mochst, ... / If you don't do it, ...

wenn

Wennst des ned mochst, ... / If you don't do it, ...

ob

I waß no ned, ob i hamgeh werd. / I don't know whether or not I will go home.

Have to do something (sei + zum)

To express the sense of having to do something, one uses "to be" + zum + the verb you have to do in the infinitive.

Thus, Des is zum mocha / I have to do it.

Numbers

1 - ans / oans
2 - zwa / zwoa
3 - drei
4 - via
5 - fünf / fimf
6 - sechs
7 - siem
8 - ocht
9 - nei
10 - zehn
11 - öf
12 - zwöf

Teens, 13-19: ones + zehn, ex. dreizehn:13.

20 - zwanzg
30 - dreißg

Tens, ones + a + tens, ex. dreiazwanzg:23 (drei-a-zwanzg)

There are two exceptions:

• 21, 31, etc. drops the -s in "ans", thus, anazwanzg:21.
• numbers ending in a join with ra instead of a, thus viarazwanzg:24.

Halves (-adhoib)

Halves are expressed with -adhoib affixed to the base number. If the number ends with a vowel, add an -r- between the number and the suffix. Thus, two and a half would be zwa:two + r + adhoib, or zwaradhoib:2.5.

The halves, 1 through 9, are as follows:

• anadhoib
• zwaradhoib
• dreiadhoib
• viaradhoib
• fünfadhoib
• sechsadhoib
• siemadhoib
• ochtadhoib
• neinadhoib

Fractions (-el)

Fractions of the form 1/X are expressed with -el. Thus, drittel:one third, viertel:one quarter, etc. You will hear also achterl:one eigth, with an -r-, especially when ordering wine, as this is the standard measurement for a class of wine (1/8th of a liter).

Time

Days of the Week

On a specific day, is am + the day. Thus, am Montog, on Monday.

• Monday: Montog
• Tuesday: Dienstog
• Wednesday: Mittwoch
• Thursday: Dunnastog
• Friday: Freitog
• Saturday: Somstog
• Sunday: Sonntog

Telling Time

• at X o'clock: uma X-i
• at ten o'clock: uma zehni

Resources

• Dialekt Academy – a very detailed look at the Austrian dialect, with the caveat that due to the way the website currently is, Google may block access to the audio after 1 lesson, which will be restored the next day. Costs $20.
• OöTon - can listen to different pronunciations of words in Upper Austria.

Dictionaries

Austrian

• Österreichisch
• Österreichisches Wörterbuch – iirc, this one may sometimes ask for a code. I entered 1111 and it worked.
• Trilingual dictionary – this is nice because it clearly says if it is a positive, negative, or neutral word.

German

• Bairisches Wörterbuch – has a good section on grammar, phonology, etc. in addition to the dictionary part.
• Bairisches Deutsch Zehetner, published by Edition Vulpes

Videos

Austrian

• So geht österreichisches Deutsch / Austrian dialect 101
• Bavarian skit, with transcription

German

• Easy German: Bavarian Dialect vs. Standard German

Last Updated: 2024-06-12 16:19:48