Regional variation of /r/ in dialects of Swiss German

German-speaking Europe is known to feature substantial regional variation in the articulation of /r/. According to historical atlases, this is particularly true for the most southwestern fringe of the region, i.e. German-speaking Switzerland. Large-scale, multilocality studies that show an updated picture of regional variation in this region are lacking, however. To this end, we coded /r/s of almost 3,000 speakers from 438 localities on a predominantly auditory basis, using data crowdsourced through a smartphone app. We report substantial regional variation, with uvular articulations especially dominant in the Northwest and the Northeast and alveolar – particularly tapped – articulations prevalent in the Midlands. We further provide exemplary evidence of an urban ([ʁ]) vs. rural stratification ([ɾ]) in the Northwest. This contribution further discusses (a) issues related to the coding of /r/, given the volatile articulatory and acoustic properties of /r/s and (b) the benefits and pitfalls of the crowdsourcing methodology applied more generally

Areale Variation von /r/-Realisierungen in schweizerdeutschen Dialekten. Eine quantitative Untersuchung von Crowdsourcing-Daten

The present study deals with the areal variation of /r/-realisations in the Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland. In particular, we provide a quantitative survey of recordings collected through crowdsourcing, i. e. by means of the smartphone application Dialäkt Äpp (Leemann/Kolly 2013). Each of the 2851 recordings of the word trinke (‘to drink’) was auditorily coded by at least two of the four authors. The resulting maps show a neat areal distribution of the realisations of /r/, with alveolar variants in most of the central Midlands and in the Alpine regions. Uvular variants, on the other hand, seem to prevail in the northeastern and northwestern parts of German-speaking Switzerland. Comparing our data with traditional dialectological sources, we find evidence for the hypothesis that the alveolar realisation of /r/ has been extensively replaced by uvular variants in large parts of the northeast; apparently, a similar sound change is now in progress in the rural areas around Basel

Areale Variation von /r/-Realisierungen in schweizerdeutschen Dialekten.: Eine quantitative Untersuchung von Crowdsourcing-Daten

The present study deals with the areal variation of /r/-realisations in the Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland. In particular, we provide a quantitative survey of recordings collected through crowdsourcing, i. e. by means of the smartphone application Dialäkt Äpp (Leemann/Kolly 2013). Each of the 2851 recordings of the word trinke (‘to drink’) was auditorily coded by at least two of the four authors. The resulting maps show a neat areal distribution of the realisations of /r/, with alveolar variants in most of the central Midlands and in the Alpine regions. Uvular variants, on the other hand, seem to prevail in the northeastern and northwestern parts of German-speaking Switzerland. Comparing our data with traditional dialectological sources, we find evidence for the hypothesis that the alveolar realisation of /r/ has been extensively replaced by uvular variants in large parts of the northeast; apparently, a similar sound change is now in progress in the rural areas around Basel

The diffusion of /l/-vocalization in Swiss German

Several western Swiss German dialects roughly grouped around the nation's capital Bern show /l/>[u] vocalization in various contexts. The spatial boundaries of /l/-vocalization in Swiss German are suspected to have been expanding since being described in the Linguistic Atlas of German-Speaking Switzerland in the middle of the 20th century. The present study assesses the overall expansion of /l/-vocalization by means of a rapid anonymous survey in 20 urban regional centers situated just beyond the traditional boundaries of /l/-vocalization highlighted by the Atlas. Results show that the expansion of /l/-vocalization mainly progresses in southeasterly, southerly, and westerly directions, but with much less success to the north and northwest, where the equally influential dialectal areas of Basel and Zürich seem to exert opposing influences. Further analysis of the data indicates that somewhat differing constraint hierarchies are at work in the different places to which vocalization has diffuse

The Early Swiss Dialect Recording Collection “LA” (1924–1927): A Description and a Work Plan for Its Comprehensive Edition

Between 1924 and 1927 – and again in 1929 – the Phonogram Archives of the University of Zurich collaborated with Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Doegen of the Lautabteilung der Preussischen Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin in a dialectological recording campaign. Each year, Doegen was invited to travel to Switzerland from Berlin for a few days with his heavy recording equipment to collect a few dozen dialect specimens recorded with speakers from all over Switzerland. Before each recording session suitable speakers were carefully selected – mainly based on dialectological criteria – and were asked to prepare a short text for recitation (usually in their vernacular), which they then delivered into Doegen’s phonograph. All in all, some 225 shellac records could be produced in this fashion, before Doegen fell in disfavour in Berlin and could no longer continue his collaboration with Zurich. While the recordings from the later so-called “LM” campaign in 1929, which were collected in the southern Swiss town of Bellinzona and the northern Italian town of Domodossola, have either already been published or are in the process of being published, the ca. 175 recordings from the 1924–1927 “LA” campaign, collected in Zurich, Bern, Chur, Sion and Brig, respectively, have been published only partially. This paper discusses the possibilities in making this precious Swiss dialectological treasure trove available both to the interested public and to dialectological research

A catalogue of manuscripts known to contain Old English dry-point glosses

While quill and ink were the writing implements of choice in the Anglo-Saxon scriptorium, other colouring and non-colouring writing implements were in active use, too. The stylus, among them, was used on an everyday basis both for taking notes in wax tablets and for several vital steps in the creation of manuscripts. Occasionally, the stylus or perhaps even small knives were used for writing short notes that were scratched in the parchment surface without ink. One particular type of such notes encountered in manuscripts are dry-point glosses, i.e. short explanatory remarks that provide a translation or a clue for a lexical or syntactic difficulty of the Latin text. The present study provides a comprehensive overview of the known corpus of dry-point glosses in Old English by cataloguing the 34 manuscripts that are currently known to contain such glosses. A first general descriptive analysis of the corpus of Old English dry-point glosses is provided and their difficult visual appearance is discussed with respect to the theoretical and practical implications for their future study