Michael Schnabel: Dialektspaltung im
thringisch-bayerischen Grenzgebiet am Beispiel des Ortspaars Sparnberg/Rudolphstein
Wie eine politische Grenze zur Sprachgrenze wurde
This article, which is intended as a pilot study for the German Research
Association (DFG) project Studies on the Linguistic Situation in the
Thuringian-Bavarian Border Region. New Dialect Boundaries on the Former
Demarcation Line between West and East Germany after Four Decades of Political
Separation?, analyses dialect data collected by R. Petzold in the Thuringian
village of Sparnberg and in the Upper Franconian village of Rudolphstein. Both
villages are situated roughly 15 km north-west of Hof, directly on the old
border between West and East Germany. There was close contact between the
inhabitants of these two hamlets, which used the same dialect, prior to the
establishment of the Iron Curtain.
The aim of the present
investigation is to ascertain to what extent the original dialect of
Sparnberg/Rudolphstein, which was a variant of East Franconian showing
Thuringian influence, developed in different directions during the four decades
in which Germany was politically divided. To this end, the linguistic usage of
the older and younger generations in both villages is analysed on the basis of
selected phonological, morphological and lexical features.
This analysis shows that the
political boundary between Sparnberg and Rudolphstein became a linguistic
boundary. This is particularly clear in the linguistic usage of the younger
generations of the places under investigation. For example, the younger
generation in Rudolphstein has replaced the [R] of the original dialect with
[r], uses Samstag instead of the earlier Sonnabend and has given up
the centralized pronunciation of the vowels, a feature characteristic of the
original dialect. On the other side of the old demarcation line, the younger
generation in Sparnberg has almost completely replaced the diphthongs [eI], [oU],
[o] and [Ee] of the original dialect, as in Schm[eI]d smith, Br[oU]der brother, Gr[o]s grass and J[Ee]ger hunter,
respectively, by the monophthongs [i:], [u:], [:] and [e:]/[E:].
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