In case you plan to visit me, miss me and only find someone who was already born here.... here is a little dictionary.
If your gusto wants liverwurst, unlike elsewhere here it´s not called Leberwurst but Leewerwurst.
I had no idea, either, and I live here since 2001!
The Braunschweig person loves the mutated vowel, or umlaut.
So, if you feel like you want fourteen cherries it´s not vierzehn Kirschen but vörzehn Körschen. Or ölf Bürnen if pear is what you prefer.They won´t understand your request for elf Birnen....
When someone calls you bräsig, be careful, it means doof, dumb.
Hose - trousers - is Büx
Suppe - soup - Plürre
Augen - eyes are Klüsen
A Braunschweig person does not tell stories, erzählen... no he vertells. Some Döneken, aka Anekdote, anecdote.
Vertellen has no umlaut, this makes him knörig, schlecht gelaunt, he gets in a bad mood and might hence kick a Töle, which is a Hund, a dog.
Or hits a Pöks, which is a Junge, a boy. Take care if you have one and hear this word ;-)
Döskopp and Dämelack aren´t nice words, either, you must´ve said something dumb. And when they want you to stop nölen, keep it short.
On the other side when they ask you to mär (aus aka ausmären), take your time, they´ll listen. No plärren, though, that means crying, heulen.
When you are called knülle they think you are betrunken, drunk.
When you have a headache from drinking just let people know your Brägen - aka Kopf - hurts.
Most words don´t even sound alike, hence please take this as a friendly guide from my side.
Henry 🦁
Addendum. Teamleader N: "let´s meet again at a quarter to...." - "... that is 12:45?"
I can get as old as 100 I´ll never get the quarter to/quarter past thing!
23 comments:
Local dialect! We have it aplenty here and it changes every 100kms!
LOL, sounds confusing. Just as well I don't really have any chance of visiting you - I'd be sure to put my foot in it somewhere! :)
magiceye, I´ve heard of that! I had some Indian colleagues back at VW.
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Margaret, yes, sad you cannot stop by and visit us! I would talk English or "High German" ;-)
With so much dialect confusion, it's a good thing I will never come to Germany. I'm glad you understand the differences.
You Aussies can be confusing, too ;-)
I really thought "Arvo" is a person, LOL.
Languages and dialects... it is and remains interesting. Nice blog
Yes. And Ingo´s Oma always said Büx - she is not Braunschweig-related ;-)
Local dialect in Newfoundland can be quite unusual.
That was spaß or is it spass, now? Did the esset get dropped? Thank you for the lesson. Boston used to have its own names for things. If you wanted a soda (Coke), you asked for a tonic.(I haven't heard tonic used in decades) A water fountain to drink from is a bubbler. Though we say it liked Bubblah. And if you need to keep your pony tail in place or a pile of envelopes, you use an elastic. 😺
William, isn´t it kinda funny?
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CJ, glad to know - at least I would not get thirsty or have my hair in the way 😂
Languages are funny - and we need funny!
Oh, and... I think it´s Spaß, but to make sure I would have to ask my Niece!
They have reforms all the time. No one at ALSTOM knows if it´s "du" or "Du".
Thanks for the definitions. I'm going to save this post -- never know when they'll come in handy!
Christine, you´re welcome!
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Jeanie, LOL, just make sure to knock at my door!
I have much admiration for people who translate books, as English is my only language. Such a challenging work, getting the meaning right across languages.
When you start learning it from an early age, say grade 5, it´s not that difficult :-)
I would now feel "too old" to learn Spanish or Italian, for example! Which is sad!
It all sounds very confusing to me. I only took German for 1 year in high school and remember none of it.
Jeannie said it for me. LOL. Oh, it is just semantics. Gigi hawaii
RedPat - one year is nothing in no language ;-)
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gigi, you´re always welcome to knock here and we go for the "proper" language! :-)
Really, would be a joy!
My previous comment must have been sent to the spam folder.
It sounds confusing what you wrote and I'm glad we are not having a test. :)
Bill, sorry blogger hicks-up again. and yes, languages can be crazy!
I couldn’t get into your page yesterday for some reason. But today I can. Strange how your city has so many different from versions of word from Standard German. We local words here too, but I do t think so many. Hugs Erika
I think that every language has its anomalies, regional words etc; in fact it makes it interesting.
Erika, it´s mostly spoken in the West of Braunschweig.
And some words, like Büx are even in my home-town, Ingo´s Granma used that word :-) Blogger sucks again, huh, sad.
Thank you for coming back, hugs!
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David, I so agree! My Granma came from near Königsberg, back then Prussia, now Russia and had some funny words, too!
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