Bernese German - Varieties

Varieties

There is a lot of regional variation within Bernese German dialects. However, with the increasing importance of the big agglomeration of Bern, the variety of Bern is spreading out, levelling the old village dialects.

Until the second half of the 20th century, there was a considerable range of sociolects in the city of Bern where four different groups could be distinguished:

• The patrician Bernese German of the high society. It has neither l-vocalisation nor nd-velarisation, it does not employ the alveolar trill but the French uvular trill, and it has more French loanwords than the other varieties.

• The variety of the native city population.

• The varieties of the countryside people who moved into the city.

• The variety of the – generally poor – people living in the part of the old town called Matte, known as Mattenenglisch (Matte-English), even though it has little relation with English, but has a number of loans from Jenisch, Rotwelsch and Yiddish. In addition to it, there was also a special kind of Pig Latin which is the proper Mattenenglisch according to some people.