Northern Bavarian

Northern Bavarian
Nordboarisch
Native toGermany
RegionUpper Palatinate, Upper Franconia, Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria
Latin (German alphabet),
historically the Gothic script
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolognort2634
Areas of Northern Bavarian after 1945 and the expulsions of the Germans.
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Northern Bavarian is a dialect of Bavarian, together with Central Bavarian and Southern Bavarian. Bavarian 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.[1] 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 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.[2][3] Ethnologue estimates that there were 9,000 speakers of Bavarian in the Czech Republic in 2005, but does not clarify if these were Northern Bavarian speakers.[4]

According to the same linguistic survey,[1] 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.

  1. ^ a b Russ, Charles V. J. (1990). The Dialects of Modern German. ISBN 0-415-00308-3.
  2. ^ Ludwig Erich Schmitt (ed.): Germanische Dialektologie. Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden 1968, p. 143
  3. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-06-10. Retrieved 2010-03-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. ^ Ethnologue