Northern Bavarian

Northern Bavarian is a dialect of the Bavarian language, together with Central Bavarian and Southern Bavarian. The language is mostly spoken in the Upper Palatinate, although not in Regensburg, which is a primarily Central Bavarian–speaking area, according to a linguistic survey done in the late 1980s. According to the same survey, Northern Bavarian is also spoken in Upper Franconia, as well as in some areas in Upper and Lower Bavaria, such as in the areas around Eichstätt and Kelheim. Few speakers remained in the Czech Republic, mostly concentrated around Aš and Železná Ruda, at the time of the survey, but considering the time which has passed since the survey, the dialect may be extinct in those places today. If it still exists there, it would include the ostegerländische Dialektgruppe. Ethnologue estimates that there were 9,000 speakers of Bavarian Czech Republic in 2005, but does not clarify if these were Northern Bavarian speakers.ɪç bɪn ɪn ʒdoːᵈl ɡɔŋə, ᶷn do βoən daːm drɪnə, ᶷn dao ɪz uəm və də mlʲ aː ɪz uəm troi̯t aːvɡʒit kβeːzd...Ich bin in den Stadel gegangen, und da waren Tauben drinnen, und da ist oben von der Mühle auch ist oben Getreide aufgeschüttet gewesen...I went into the barn, and there were pigeons in it, and then, upstairs, there was grain heaped up as well, from the mill... Northern Bavarian is a dialect of the Bavarian language, together with Central Bavarian and Southern Bavarian. The language is mostly spoken in the Upper Palatinate, although not in Regensburg, which is a primarily Central Bavarian–speaking area, according to a linguistic survey done in the late 1980s. According to the same survey, Northern Bavarian is also spoken in Upper Franconia, as well as in some areas in Upper and Lower Bavaria, such as in the areas around Eichstätt and Kelheim. Few speakers remained in the Czech Republic, mostly concentrated around Aš and Železná Ruda, at the time of the survey, but considering the time which has passed since the survey, the dialect may be extinct in those places today. If it still exists there, it would include the ostegerländische Dialektgruppe. Ethnologue estimates that there were 9,000 speakers of Bavarian Czech Republic in 2005, but does not clarify if these were Northern Bavarian speakers. According to the same linguistic survey, the dialect is flourishing in the areas where it is spoken, despite the fact that most speakers actively use Standard German. In the south of the area where Northern Bavarian is spoken, Central Bavarian is said to have higher prestige, and Northern Bavarian characteristics are therefore not as visible as in the north, where speakers even tend to use a heavy Northern Bavarian accent when speaking German. Northern Bavarian has 8 vowels: And 11 diphthongs: Before /l/, /i, e, ɛ/ are rounded to . In southern varieties of Northern Bavarian the diphthongs /iə̯, uə̯/ are realized with an opener offset, i.e. . An interesting aspect of the diphthongs are the so-called reversed diphthongs, or in German, gestürzte Diphthonge. They are called so because the Middle High German diphthongs became ( became after unrounding) in Northern Bavarian, while they generally became in Standard German. Compare Standard German Brief , Bruder , Brüder and Northern Bavarian , , . The Northern Bavarian diphthong corresponds to the Middle High German and Standard German . Compare Standard German Schaf , Stroh and Northern Bavarian , . Likewise, the Northern Bavarian diphthong corresponds to the Middle High German and Standard German and by unrounding to . Compare Standard German Schnee , böse with Northern Bavarian , . In many Northern Bavarian variants, nasalization is increasingly common.