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Kölsch is the dialect of German spoken around Cologne, Germany .
Kölsch is a variant of the Ripuarian dialect (also known as the Rhineland or rheinisch dialect), which belongs to the West-Franconian family, itself a variant of West Middle German. Almost all speakers are also fluent in High German. It is closely related to the lower Rhineland (niederrheinisch) and Mosel-Frankian (moselfränkisch) dialects. It is actively spoken by about 250,000 people.
In its modern form it is of comparatively recent origin. It particularly thrived in contact with French during the occupation of Cologne under Napoleon Bonaparte from 1794-1815 and thus contains many words from and expressions pertaining to French. There are also phonological similarities in that it is a very nasal dialect.
Kölsch is unusually well documented through the work of the Akademie för uns Kölsche Sproch whose publications include a dictionary, a grammar and a variety of phrase books. While Kölsch is not commonly taught in schools (although there are often extracurricular offerings) and a lot of young people do not have a proper command of it, many theaters exist that perform exclusively in Kölsch, most notably the Volkstheater Millowitsch, named after the late Willy Millowitsch (1909-1999) and the famous puppet theater, Hänneschentheater. There has also recently been an increase in literature written in this dialect and both traditional music and rock in Kölsch are very popular in Cologne, especially around Carnival. The Kölsch rock group BAP has even had modest national success. Another noticeable phenomenon is the watered-down usage of the dialect by German TV personalities, like comedians Gabi Köster and Stefan Raab.
In Kölsch, Kölsch was originally an adjective meaning 'of or pertaining to Cologne' and was nominalized to refer to the dialect or to the local beer.
External link
- Moselfränkisches Wörterbuch (Mosel-Frankian Dictionary, in German) (http://homepages.compuserve.de/balesmanfred1/buch.htm)de:Kölsch (Sprache)