Alsatian dialect

Alsatian is closely related to other nearby Alemannic dialects, such as Swiss German, Swabian, and Markgräflerisch as well as Kaiserstühlerisch. It is often confused with Lorraine Franconian, a more distantly related Franconian dialect spoken in the northwest corner of Alsace and in neighbouring Lorraine. Like other dialects and languages, Alsatian has also been influenced by outside sources. Words of Yiddish origin can be found in Alsatian, and modern conversational Alsatian includes adaptations of French words and English words, especially concerning new technologies.

Many speakers of Alsatian could, if necessary, write in reasonable standard German. For most this would be rare and confined to those who have learned German at school or through work. As with other dialects, various factors determine when, where, and with whom one might converse in Alsatian. Some dialect speakers are unwilling to speak standard German, at times, to certain outsiders and prefer to use French. In contrast, many people living near the border with Basel, Switzerland, will speak their dialect with a Swiss person from that area, as they are mutually intelligible for the most part; similar habits may apply to conversations with people of the nearby German Markgräflerland. Some street names in Alsace may use Alsatian spellings (they were formerly displayed only in French but are now bilingual in some places, especially Strasbourg and Mulhouse).

C, Q, and X are only used in loanwords. Y is also used in native words, but is more common in loanwords.

• 
  Declension of definite articles in Alsatian (all equivalent to English "the").
• 
  Declension of indefinite articles in Alsatian (all equivalent to English "a/an").

Alsatian nouns inflect by case, gender and number:

• Three cases: nominative, accusative, dative. Unlike Standard German, Alsatian does not have a genitive case, and, instead, utilises dative to fulfill that roles in certain cases.
• three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.
• two numbers: singular and plural.

• Adolphe Stoeber

• Marthe Philipp and Arlette Bothorel-Witz. 1990. Low Alemannic. In Charles V. J. Russ (ed.), The Dialects of modern German: a linguistic survey, 313–336. Routledge.
• (in French) François Héran, et al. (2002) "La Dynamique des langues en France au fil du XX^e siècle". Population et sociétés 376, Ined.
• (in French) Le système ORTHAL 2016 – Orthographe alsacienne - Quelques règles de base pour faciliter l’écriture et la lecture de l’alsacien dans toutes ses variantes », Jérôme Do Bentzinger, 2016
• (in French) "L'Alsacien, deuxième langue régionale de France" Insee, Chiffres pour l'Alsace no. 12, December 2002
• (in French) Brunner, Jean-Jacques. L'Alsacien sans peine. ASSiMiL, 2001. ISBN 2-7005-0222-1
• (in French) Jung, Edmond. Grammaire de L'Alsacien. Dialecte de Strasbourg avec indications historiques. 1983. Straßburg: Ed. Oberlin.
• (in French) Laugel-Erny, Elsa. Cours d'alsacien. Les Editions du Quai, 1999.
• (in French) Matzen, Raymond, and Léon Daul. Wie Geht's ? Le Dialecte à la portée de tous La Nuée Bleue, 1999. ISBN 2-7165-0464-4
• (in French) Matzen, Raymond, and Léon Daul. Wie Steht's ? Lexiques alsacien et français, Variantes dialectales, Grammaire La Nuée Bleue, 2000. ISBN 2-7165-0525-X
• (in French) Steible, Lucie. Le contrôle temporel des consonnes occlusives de l’alsacien et du français parlé en Alsace. Linguistique. Université de Strasbourg, 2014.

Media related to Alsatian language at Wikimedia Commons

• 'Hover & Hear' Alsatian pronunciations, and compare with equivalents in English and other Germanic languages.
• Euromosaic: The status of Germanic languages in France (on website of Universitat Oberta de Catalunya).
• Alsatian placenames
• Wörterbuch der elsässischen Mundarten (in German)
• Alsatian artists
• Webschnuffler, article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on new versions of Microsoft programs in Alsatian (in German)
• Office pour la langue et les cultures d'Alsace et de Moselle (in French and German)
• Alsatian dictionary (in French) (in Alemannic German)

1. ^ When Amish communities become too big, a number of families move away and form a new settlement, which is referred to as a daughter settlement. The settlement from which they leave is the mother settlement.[1][2]