SIL Ethnologue cites an estimate of 819,000 Swabian speakers as of 2006. This corresponds to roughly 10% of the total population of the Swabian region, or roughly 1% of the total population of Germany. As an ethno-linguistic group, Swabians are closely related to other speakers of Alemannic German, i.e. Badeners, Alsatians, and German-speaking Swiss. Swabian German is traditionally spoken in the upper Neckar basin (upstream of Heilbronn), along the upper Danube between Tuttlingen and Donauwörth, and on the left bank of the Lech, in an area centered on the Swabian Alps roughly stretching from Stuttgart to Augsburg.
Language
Swabia
Swabia | Language
Swabian, Swabian German Swabian German Swabian German Swabian German
when did the first silesian war take place?
user
1740
assistant
where?
user
Silesia, Moravia and Bohemia
assistant
between whom?
user
Prussia and Austria
assistant
what was its prime cause?
user
Brandenburg–Prussia's ruling House of Hohenzollern held dynastic claims to various duchies within the Habsburg province of Silesia
assistant
when was this ruling house established?
user
The family arose during the 11th century
assistant
where did they live?
user
The family arose in the area around the town of Hechingen in Swabia
assistant
what is the geographical location of this last place?
user
Southwestern Germany
assistant
which language did they speak?
user
SIL Ethnologue cites an estimate of 819,000 Swabian speakers as of 2006. This corresponds to roughly 10% of the total population of the Swabian region, or roughly 1% of the total population of Germany. As an ethno-linguistic group, Swabians are closely related to other speakers of Alemannic German, i.e. Badeners, Alsatians, and German-speaking Swiss. Swabian German is traditionally spoken in the upper Neckar basin (upstream of Heilbronn), along the upper Danube between Tuttlingen and Donauwörth, and on the left bank of the Lech, in an area centered on the Swabian Alps roughly stretching from Stuttgart to Augsburg.
Swabia | Language
Swabia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia, one of the German stem duchies, representing the territory of Alemannia, whose inhabitants interchangeably were called "Alemanni" or "Suebi". This territory would include all of the Alemannic German area, but the modern concept of Swabia is more restricted, due to the collapse of the duchy of Swabia in the thirteenth century. Swabia as understood in modern ethnography roughly coincides with the Swabian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire as it stood during the Early Modern period, now divided between the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.
Swabia | Introduction
Swabian () is one of the dialect groups of Alemannic German that belong to the High German dialect continuum. It is mainly spoken in Swabia which is located in central and southeastern Baden-Württemberg (including its capital Stuttgart and the Swabian Jura region) and the southwest of Bavaria (Bavarian Swabia). Furthermore, Swabian German dialects are spoken by Caucasus Germans in Transcaucasia. The dialects of the Danube Swabian population of Hungary, the former Yugoslavia and Romania are only nominally Swabian and can be traced back not only to Swabian but also to Frankonian, Bavarian and Hessian German dialects, with locally varying degrees of influence of the initial dialects.
Swabian German | Introduction
The ethno-linguistic group of Swabians speak Swabian German, a branch of the Alemannic group of German dialects. Swabian is cited as "40 percent intelligible" to speakers of Standard German. As an ethno-linguistic group, Swabians are closely related to other speakers of Alemannic German, i.e. Badeners, Alsatians, and German-speaking Swiss. Swabian German is traditionally spoken in the upper Neckar basin (upstream of Heilbronn), along the upper Danube between Tuttlingen and Donauwörth, and on the left bank of the Lech, in an areal centered on the Swabian Alps roughly stretching from Stuttgart to Augsburg. SIL Ethnologue cites an estimate of 819,000 Swabian speakers as of 2006.
Swabians | Swabian German
Swabians ("Schwaben", singular "Schwabe") are the natives of Swabia and speakers of Swabian German. Their number was estimated at close to 0.8 million by SIL Ethnologue as of 2006, compared to a total population of 7.5 million in the regions of Tübingen, Stuttgart and Bavarian Swabia.
Swabia | Introduction
Over the decades and more, the German spoken by these colonists became separate from that developing in Germany, particularly after its unification. It became known as Donau-Swabian, an archaic form of the language. Those who came from French-speaking or linguistically mixed communes in Lorraine maintained the French language (labelled Banat French or "Français du Banat"), as well as a separate ethnic identity for several generations.
Banat Swabians | Origins and recruitment
Swabians (, singular "Schwabe") are Germanic people who are native to the ethnocultural and linguistic region of Swabia, which is now mostly divided between the modern states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia, one of the German stem duchies, representing the territory of Alemannia, whose inhabitants were interchangeably called "Alemanni" or "Suebi". This territory would include all of the Alemannic German areal, but the modern concept of Swabia is more restricted, due to the collapse of the duchy of Swabia in the 13th century. Swabia as understood in modern ethnography roughly coincides with the Swabian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire as it stood during the Early Modern period.
Swabians | Introduction
Like many cultural regions of Europe, Swabia's borders are not clearly defined. However, today it is normally thought of as comprising the former Swabian Circle, or equivalently the former state of Württemberg (with the Prussian Hohenzollern Province), or the modern districts of Tübingen (excluding the former Baden regions of the Bodenseekreis district), Stuttgart, and the administrative region of Bavarian Swabia. In the Middle Ages, the term Swabia indicated a larger area, covering all the lands associated with the Frankish stem duchy of Alamannia stretching from the Vosges Mountains in the west to the broad Lech river in the east: This also included the region of Alsace and the later Margraviate of Baden on both sides of the Upper Rhine Valley, as well as modern German-speaking Switzerland, the Austrian state of Vorarlberg and the principality of Liechtenstein in the south.
Swabia | Geography
Locals in the areas speak the distinct German dialect known as Swabian German, which varies even throughout the Jura and is difficult to understand for speakers of Standard German. The dialect at the top of the plateau () is markedly different from, and stronger than, even the broadest Swabian of the lowland areas. Across the whole Swabian region, many phrases and grammar are highly localized, even down to the village level; however, the Swabian dialect of the highland regions is characterised by a "sing-song" melody, and some of the verb forms are also distinct, not only from Standard German, but also from those of the rest of Swabia.
Swabian Jura | Language
Swabia (Schwabia, ) is a historical region in Southern Germany. Swabia, Schwabia, Suebia, Suevia, or "variation", may also refer to:
Swabia (disambiguation) | Introduction
In former times, Yiddish, Pleißne and Romani was also spoken. The "Pleißne" was spoken by hawkers selling items such as baskets, brushes, and whips, and belongs to Rotwelsch. It was used as a code.
Swabian Jura | Language
In the area of Zollernalbkreis, Swabian German is spoken. In former times, Yiddish, Pleißne and Romani was also spoken. The "Pleißne" was spoken by hawkers selling items such as baskets, brushes, and whips, and belongs to Rotwelsch. It was used as a code.
Zollernalbkreis | Language
Sathmar Swabian is an Upper Swabian dialect of High German spoken in Romania in Satu Mare by the Sathmar Swabians, who are among the few Danube Swabians who are in fact Swabian. Many speakers now live in Germany but some remain in Transylvania, Romania.
Sathmar Swabian | Introduction
The region of Upper Swabia is situated in the central south of Germany consisting of the south-east of Baden-Württemberg and the south-west bavarian Swabia region and lies on the Iller-Lech Plateau, also known as the Upper Swabian Plain, one of the natural regions of Germany. The landscape of Upper Swabia was formed by retreating glaciers after the Riss glaciation, leaving behind a large number of shallows which quickly filled up with water. This led to the large quantity of lakes in Upper Swabia. The landscape of Upper Swabia is quite hilly rising from approximately 458 metres above sea level in the valley of the river Danube to a maximum of 833 metres above sea level in the south-west of Upper Swabia only to drop again to 395 meters above sea level at Lake Constance.
Upper Swabia | Geography
Sailer's Swabian dialect is that of his hometown Weißenhorn (in what is now Bavarian Swabia) with influences by the hefty rural dialect of his Upper Swabian parishes.
Sebastian Sailer | Works written in dialect
The Danube Swabians () is a collective term for the ethnic German-speaking population who lived in various countries of southeastern Europe, especially in the Danube River valley, first in the 12th century, and in greater numbers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Most were descended from late 18th-century settlers recruited by Austria-Hungary to repopulate the area and restore agriculture after the expulsion of the Ottoman Empire. They were able to keep their language and religion and initially developed strongly German communities in the region. The Danube Swabians are considered the most recent group of ethnic German people to emerge in Europe.
Danube Swabians | Introduction
Germany Austria Luxembourg
Danube Swabians | Resources for genealogical research
Smaller feudal dynasties eventually disappeared, however; for example, branches of the Montforts and Hohenems lived until modern times, and the Fürstenberg survive still. The region proved to be one of the most divided in the empire, containing, in addition to these principalities, numerous free cities, ecclesiastical territories, and fiefdoms of lesser counts and knights.
Swabia | Later medieval period
Lower Swabia (, "Unterschwaben" or "Schwäbisches Unterland") is a region in Germany in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. The name, which refers to medieval Swabia, is applied to the region around Heilbronn. The exact geographical location of this area has not been strictly defined. However, most of the area is situated in the North of Baden-Württemberg, and includes some of the Neckar river valley. Its counterpart is Upper Swabia ("Oberschwaben"), which lies directly to the South by lake Constance and the Swabian Alb.
Lower Swabia | Introduction
Swabia (, ) is one of the seven administrative regions of Bavaria, Germany.
Swabia (Bavaria) | Introduction
This even applied to verb conjugations. For example, the German verb "haben" was conjugated as "han" in Sankt Hubert and as "hava" In Mramorak, although both were in Banat. Herman Ruediger, a German sociologist, reports that in his trips throughout the Bačka in the 1920s, he noted that Danube Swabians from widely separated villages had to use standard high German to communicate with each other because their speech was so different. This was particularly true for towns like Esseg (Osijek) where Shwoveh were thoroughly with majority Croatians. For instance, the ethnic Germans of Esseg were so thoroughly assimilated with Croatia that their Shwovish or 'Essekerish' could only be understood by those who also spoke Croatian or Serbian.
Danube Swabians | Language
Conjunctions and adverbs from the respective contact languages may be integrated as well. Many German words used by speakers of Danube Swabian dialects may sound archaic. To the ear of a Standard German speaker, the Danube Swabian dialect sounds like what it is: a mix of southwestern German dialects from the 18th century with many strange words from other languages. Due to relative isolation and differing proximities to nearby German speakers (Austrians and Transylvanian Saxons), the language varies considerably, with speakers able to distinguish inhabitants of neighboring villages by the words they use for such things as marmalade ("Leckwaar" and "Schleckle" being two variants), or by how many (usually Hungarian) loanwords they employ.
Danube Swabians | Language
Due to the distance and their language the man doesn't understand what they were saying and he asked them in the dialect of Trier: "Wat, Wat?" This causes the men to think that they have to wade through the water. As the first Swabian gets into the river he starts to sink into the mud. His hat is blown away to the opposite shore, next to a frog who croaks noises that sound like "wat, wat, wat". The six surviving Swabians think it's their friend telling them to wade across; they rush in the water and all drown.
The Seven Swabians | Plot
They were allowed to keep their own religion, language and culture, and many German villages were founded in the Banat. The descendants of the ethnic Germans became known as Danube Swabians ("Donauschwaben") and spoke a distinct form of German that became different from what evolved in the principal states. This is one reason for the high proportion of ethnic Germans in the town before World War II. After the war, many left the area to escape Soviet dominance; others were expelled because of anti-German sentiment throughout eastern Europe. The town was a district center in Torontál County during Habsburg rule.
Sânnicolau Mare | History
After World War II, many evacuated, migrated, or were expelled to what became West Germany. Those who remain in Romania, along with other German-speaking groups in this country, are politically represented by the FDGR/DFDR (Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania); in Germany the Landsmannschaft der Sathmarer Schwaben in Deutschland (Territorial Association of Sathmar Swabians in Germany) represents and assists them.
Satu Mare Swabians | Introduction
The Polabian Slavs started settling in the territory of modern Germany in the 6th century. They were largely conquered by Saxons and Danes since the 9th century and were subsequently included and gradually assimilated within the Holy Roman Empire. The tribes were gradually Germanized and assimilated in the following centuries; the Sorbs are the only descendants of the Polabian Slavs to have retained their identity and culture. The Polabian language is now extinct. However, the two Sorbian languages are spoken by approximately 60,000 inhabitants of the region and the languages are regarded by the government of Germany as official languages of the region.
Polabian Slavs | Introduction
The Duchy of Swabia (German: "Herzogtum Schwaben") was one of the five stem duchies of the medieval German kingdom. It arose in the 10th century in the southwestern area that had been settled by Alemanni tribes in Late Antiquity. While the historic region of Swabia takes its name from the ancient Suebi, dwelling in the angle formed by the Rhine and the Danube, the stem duchy comprised a much larger territory, stretching from the Alsatian Vosges mountain range in the west to the right bank of the river Lech in the east and up to Chiavenna ("Kleven") and Gotthard Pass in the south.
Duchy of Swabia | Introduction
The residents of Heidenheim and its surrounding area speak the distinct German dialect of Swabian.
Heidenheim an der Brenz | Introduction
Polabian is an extinct West Slavic language that was spoken by the Polabian Slavs () in present-day northeastern Germany around the Elbe ("Łaba/Laba/Labe" in Slavic) river, from which derives its name ("po Labe" - up the Elbe or [living] up to Elbe). It was spoken approximately until the rise to power of Prussia in the mid-18th century, when it was superseded by Low German. By the 18th century, Lechitic Polabian was in some respects markedly different from other Slavic languages, most notably in having a strong German influence. It was close to Pomeranian and Kashubian, and is attested only in a handful of manuscripts, dictionaries and various writings from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Polabian language | Introduction
Swabia was one of the original stem duchies of East Francia, the later Holy Roman Empire, as it developed in the 9th and 10th centuries. Due to the foundation of the important abbeys of St. Gallen and Reichenau, Swabia became an important center of Old High German literary culture during this period. In the later Carolingian period, Swabia became once again de facto independent, by the early 10th century mostly ruled by two dynasties, the Hunfriding counts in Raetia Curiensis and the Ahalolfings ruling the Baar estates around the upper Neckar and Danube rivers. The conflict between the two dynasties was decided in favour of Hunfriding Burchard II at the Battle of Winterthur (919).
Swabia | Duchy of Swabia
In many regions, the Swabian dialect is spoken with a unique intonation that is also present when native speakers speak in Standard German. Similarly, there is only one alveolar fricative phoneme , which is shared with most other southern dialects. Most Swabian-speakers are unaware of the difference between and and do not attempt to make it when they speak Standard German. The voiced plosives, the post-alveolar fricative, and the frequent use of diminutives based on "l" suffixes gives the dialect a very "soft" or "mild" feel, often felt to be in sharp contrast to the harder varieties of German spoken in the North.
Swabian German | Characteristics
In the wake of the territorial reorganization of the empire of 1803 by the "Reichsdeputationshauptschluss", the shape of Swabia was entirely changed. All the ecclesiastical estates were secularized, and most of the smaller secular states, and almost all of the free cities, were mediatized, leaving only Württemberg, Baden, and Hohenzollern as sovereign states. Much of Eastern Swabia became part of Bavaria, forming what is now the Swabian administrative region of Bavaria. In contemporary usage, "Schwaben" is often taken to refer to Bavarian Swabia exclusively. Baden, historically part of the duchy of Swabia but not of the Swabian Circle, is no longer commonly included in the term.
Swabia | Modern history
Upper Swabia ( or "Schwäbisches Oberland") is a region in Germany in the federal states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. The name refers to the area between the Swabian Jura, Lake Constance and the Lech. Its counterpart is Lower Swabia ("Niederschwaben"), the region around Heilbronn.
Upper Swabia | Introduction
The European watershed also passes through the region, with some rivers emptying into the Danube (ultimately flowing into the Black Sea) and others emptying into Lake Constance (ultimately ending in the North Sea). Due to Upper Swabia's altitude and hilly terrain, agriculture consists mainly of dairy farming, the exception being the basin of the river Schussen, where the predominant produce is hops and fruits. Upper Swabia is still a very rural area dominated by villages. The urban population is concentrated in the cities of Friedrichshafen, Ravensburg & Weingarten and Biberach an der Riß as well as Memmingen and Günzburg. The eastern border of Upper Swabia has been disputed for some time.
Upper Swabia | Geography
During the expulsion of Germans after World War II, many Germans from Swabian Turkey were expelled from their homes and replaced with Hungarians evicted from Czechoslovakia; the remaining Germans were often persecuted by the Communist government. After the fall of communism in 1989, the Transdanubian Germans received minority rights, organisations, schools, and local councils and maintained their own regional dialect of German. However, the Germans are gradually being assimilated.
Swabian Turkey | Post-World War II
Its remains can be seen as "Fossa Carolina" or "Karlsgraben" near Treuchtlingen.
Swabian Rezat | Introduction
Silesian German continued to be spoken only by individual families, only few of the remaining in their home region, but most of them expelled to the remaining territory of Germany. Most descendants of the Silesian Germans expelled to West and East Germany no longer learned the dialect, and the cultural gatherings were less and less frequented.
Silesian German | Introduction
However, it came to encompass all German-speaking people who followed in migrations from across the Holy Roman Empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The term "Swabian" was not originally a self-proclaimed identity of a singular people but a term ascribed by Magyar lords to refer to German-speaking Catholic peasants, tavern keepers, and poor artisans. For the most part Swabians lived in villages, had few privileges, and no developed intellectual layer. In 1930 Hungary 55.4% of the total Swabian population were engaged in agriculture; 28.8% in industry, crafts, commerce, or transport; and 3.1% were in state administration. The rest were employed in the service sector.
Danube Swabians | Culture
Before World War II there was a substantial German-speaking Danube Swabian population here. According to the 2001 census, there are 2,627 inhabitants, 98.13% which are Croats.
Jarmina | Demographics
Immigrants were encouraged to settle in the Banat by the Austrian emperors in the 18th century to repopulate a frontier province bordering the Turkish empire, and to add an ethnic European Christians to the population of the newly occupied region. The Germans were offered free land and the privilege of keeping their language and religion. The Crown was seeking Roman Catholic immigrants, as were the Italian and the Spanish colonists who had come to the region. Most of the German settlers came from Alsace-Lorraine, Austria, Bavaria, Franconia, and the Palatinate. A small group can be traced to Middle Germany. However, comparatively few came from the Swabian regions of what was then known as Further Austria.
Banat Swabians | Origins and recruitment
Modern Swabian German, and Alemannic German more broadly, are therefore "assumed to have evolved at least in part" from Suebian. However, Bavarian, the Thuringian dialect, the Lombardic language spoken by the Lombards of Italy, and standard "High German" itself, are also at least partly derived from the dialects spoken by the Suebi. (The only non-Suebian name among the major groups of Upper Germanic dialects is High Franconian German, but this is on the transitional frontier with Central German, as is neighboring Thuringian.)
Suebi | Language
Because of overpopulation and increasingly smaller land-holdings, many Swabians sought land in the Western Hemisphere, especially in the 19th century. Swabian settlements can be found in Brazil, Canada, and the United States. Among the Germans who emigrated to the United States in the 19th century, Swabians in some areas maintained their regional identity and formed organizations for mutual support.
Swabians | Overseas
Beginning in 1920 and especially after World War II, many Danube Swabians migrated to the United States, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Austria, Australia, and Argentina. Some of them, descending from French-speaking or linguistically mixed families from Lorraine, had maintained the French language for some generations, as well as an ethnic identity, later referred to as Banat French, "Français du Banat." They were resettled in France around 1950. In 1941 much of Yugoslavia was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany as part of the Second World War, and in the German-occupied Banat, they granted the Swabian minority superior status over the other ethnic groups in the Yugoslav population.
Danube Swabians | World War II, expulsion, and post-war
German remained an important language in churches, schools, newspapers, and even the administration of the United States Brewers' Association through the early 20th century, but was severely repressed during World War I. Over the course of the 20th century, many of the descendants of 18th century and 19th century immigrants ceased speaking German at home, but small populations of speakers are still found in Pennsylvania (Amish, Hutterites, Dunkards and some Mennonites historically spoke Hutterite German and a West Central German variety of German known as Pennsylvania German or Pennsylvania Dutch), Kansas (Mennonites and Volga Germans), North Dakota (Hutterite Germans, Mennonites, Russian Germans, Volga Germans, and Baltic Germans), South Dakota, Montana, Texas (Texas German), Wisconsin, Indiana, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Ohio (72,570).
Geographical distribution of German speakers | United States
They also settled in Russia, Bessarabia, and Kazakhstan. They were well-respected as farmers. Almost all of the several million Swabians were expelled from Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia during the period 1944–1950, as part of the ethnic cleansing against their German minorities. There still are Swabians living near the city of Satu Mare in Romania, who are known as Satu Mare Swabians.
Swabians | Ostsiedlung
The Bavarian administrative region of Swabia is the eastern part of the duchy of Swabia. After the execution of the Swabian duke Conradin in Naples in 1268, his uncle, the Bavarian duke Louis inherited some of Conradin's possessions in Swabia. In 1803, with the German Mediatisation, Bavaria acquired the further East Swabian territories, which were merged with Palatinate-Neuburg. After the founding of the Kingdom of Bavaria, the state was totally reorganised and, in 1808, divided into 15 administrative districts (German: Regierungsbezirke), in Bavaria called Kreise. They were created in the fashion of the French departements, quite even in size and population, and named after their main rivers.
Swabia (Bavaria) | History
In Swabian German this is done by adding a -le suffix (the e being distinctly pronounced, but not stressed). For example, a small house would be a "Häusle" or a little girl a "Mädle". A unique feature of Swabian is that words other than nouns may be suffixed with -le, which is not the case with other German dialects (except Bernese Swiss German), High German, or other languages: "wasele" (diminutive of "was", "what") or "jetzetle" (diminutive of "jetzt", "now") or "kommele" (diminutive of "kommen", "come"). (In both Spanish and Italian, these may be formed similarly, e.g. "igualito" – diminutive of "igual", "same" and "pochino" or "pochettino" - diminutive of "poco", a little/a few).
List of diminutives by language | Swabian
Two dialect groups of German are spoken in Baden-Württemberg in various variants: Alemannic and Franconian dialects. In central and southern Württemberg, the Alemannic dialect of Swabian is spoken (slightly differing even within the area, e.g., between Upper Swabia, the Swabian Alb, and the central Neckar Valley of the Stuttgart region). In South Baden, the local dialects are Low Alemannic and High Alemannic (i.e., variants of what is also Swiss German). In the northern part of Baden, i.e., the area around Karlsruhe, Heilbronn and Mosbach, South Franconian dialects are predominant. In the "Kurpfalz" however, with the cities of Heidelberg and Mannheim, the idiom is Rhine Franconian (i.e., Palatinate German), while in the Northeast of Baden-Württemberg East Franconian is spoken.
Baden-Württemberg | Dialects
The same or similar Alemannic dialects are also spoken in the neighbouring regions, especially in Bavarian Swabia, Alsace (Alsatian), German-speaking Switzerland (Swiss German), and the Austrian Vorarlberg, while the other Franconian dialects range from the Netherlands over the Rhineland, Lorraine, and Hesse up to Franconia in northern Bavaria. Yiddish and Pleißne were spoken while Romani is still being used by some.
Baden-Württemberg | Dialects
Gau Swabia (German: "Gau Schwaben") formed on 1 October 1928, was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Swabia, Bavaria, from 1933 to 1945. From 1928 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area.
Gau Swabia | Introduction
The Jewish population of Swabia had remained relatively stable from the turn of the 20th century to 1933. With the Nazis rise to power it declined through deportation and emigration. After 1939, few of those remaining would have had a chance to escape or even survive the Holocaust.
Gau Swabia | Jewish population of the "Gau Schwaben"
According to the 2011 census, 81.40% of the population speak German, 13.37% Italian and 5.23% Ladin as first language.
Waidbruck | Linguistic distribution
The Satu Mare Swabians or Sathmar Swabians (German: Sathmarer Schwaben) are a German ethnic group in the Satu Mare () region of Romania. They are one of the few Danube Swabian () subgroups that are actually Swabian, and their dialect, Sathmar Swabian, is similar to the other varieties of the Swabian German dialect. Most were originally farmers in Upper Swabia who migrated to Partium (at the time Hungary, now Romania) in the 18th century, as part of a widespread eastward movement of German workers and settlers. Their principal settlements were Satu Mare, Carei, Petrești, and Foieni () and they also settled in Urziceni (), Căpleni (), Tiream (), Beltiug (), Ciumești (), and Ardud ().
Satu Mare Swabians | Introduction
The Duchy of Swabia is to a large degree comparable to the territory of the Alemanni. The Suevi (Sueben or Swabians) belonged to the tribe of the Alemanni, reshaped in the 3rd century. The name of Swabia is also derived from them. From the 9th century on, in place of the area designation "Alemania," came the name "Schwaben" (Swabia). Swabia was one of the five stem duchies of the medieval Kingdom of the East Franks, and its dukes were thus among the most powerful magnates of Germany. The most notable family to hold Swabia were the Hohenstaufen, who held it, with a brief interruption, from 1079 until 1268.
History of Baden-Württemberg | Duchy of Swabia
The Jews of Galicia had immigrated in the Middle Ages from Germany and mostly spoke Yiddish as their first language. German-speaking people were more commonly referred to as "Saxons" or "Swabians", even though most of them did not come from Saxony or Swabia (cf. Transylvanian Saxons and Danube Swabians). There were also some Mennonites who mostly came originally from Switzerland, but spoke a dialect of Palatine German which is close to Pennsylvania German.
Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria | Demographics
The Danube Swabian language is only nominally Swabian ("Schwowisch", as it was referred to locally). In reality, it contains elements or many dialects of the original German settlers, mainly Swabian, Franconian, Bavarian, Pfälzisch, Alsatian, and Alemannic, as well as Austro-Hungarian administrative and military jargon. Loanwords from Hungarian, Serbian, or Romanian are especially common regionally regarding cuisine and agriculture, but also regarding dress, politics, place names, and sports. Other cultures of influence include Serbian and Croatian, Russian (for communist concepts), Romanian, Turkish (Hambar), English (for football), and general Balkan and South Slavic loanwords like "Kukuruts" (corn). The plural of loanwords is in most cases formed in the Shwovish way.
Danube Swabians | Language
The region was quite divided by the Reformation. While secular princes such as the Duke of Württemberg and the Margrave of Baden-Durlach, as well as most of the Free Cities, became Protestant, the ecclesiastical territories (including the bishoprics of Augsburg, Konstanz and the numerous Imperial abbeys) remained Catholic, as did the territories belonging to the Habsburgs (Further Austria), the Sigmaringen branch of the House of Hohenzollern, and the Margrave of Baden-Baden.
Swabia | Early modern history
The Swabian-Franconian Forest (, also "Schwäbisch-Fränkischer Wald") is a mainly forested, deeply incised upland region, 1,187 km² in area and up to , in the northeast of Baden-Württemberg. It forms natural region major unit number 108 within the Swabian Keuper-Lias Land (major unit group 10 or D58). Its name is derived from the fact that, in medieval times, the border between the duchies of Franconia and Swabia ran through this forested region. In addition, the Swabian dialect in the south transitions to the East Franconian dialect in the north here.
Swabian-Franconian Forest | Introduction
In the 1919 elections it won six seats in the Chamber of Deputies. However, it did not contest any further elections.
Swabian Group | History
The Circle of Swabia or Swabian Circle ( or "Schwäbischer Kreis") was an Imperial Circle of the Holy Roman Empire established in 1500 on the territory of the former German stem-duchy of Swabia. However, it did not include the Habsburg home territories of Swabian Austria, the member states of the Swiss Confederacy nor the lands of the Alsace region west of the Rhine, which belonged to the Upper Rhenish Circle. The Swabian League of 1488, a predecessor organization, disbanded in the course of the Protestant Reformation later in the 16th century.
Swabian Circle | Introduction
Stuttgart, often nicknamed the ""Schwabenmetropole"" () in reference to its location in the centre of Swabia and the local dialect spoken by the native Swabians, has its etymological roots in the Old High German word "Stuotgarten", or "stud farm", because the city was founded in 950 AD by Duke Liudolf of Swabia to breed warhorses. In the local dialects of Alemannic German it can be "Schtuegert", and in Swabian German "Stuagart"; with similar variant spellings, usually dropping the central T sound.
Stuttgart | Etymology
The only two German-founded villages remaining in Swabian Turkey that were established by state ventures were Dunakömlőd ("Kimling") and Németkér ("Deutsch-Ker"). Germans also settled extensively in the major towns of Pécs ("Fünfkirchen") and Mohács ("Mohatsch").
Swabian Turkey | Settlement
According to the 2011 census, 92.61% of the population speak German, 7.03% Italian and 0.36% Ladin as first language.
Kaltern an der Weinstraße | Linguistic distribution
According to the 2011 census, 96.25% of the population speak German, 3.36% Italian and 0.38% Ladin as first language.
Kurtatsch an der Weinstraße | Linguistic distribution
The term "sváb" derives from the German word "Schwaben", describing people from Swabia (ger: Schwaben). The first German-speaking people (Saxon merchants and miners, see: Carpathian Germans) first arrived to the Carpathian basin (then mostly under rule of the Kingdom of Hungary) in the 12th century, their numbers and territory of settlement were limited, mainly in towns. In the 18th century various German-speaking peasant groups settled in Hungary in large numbers to inhabit the vast territories being depopulated during the Osman rule, they are known as Danube Swabians (Donauschwaben), though most of their forefathers have Bavarian or Thuringian roots. They settled mainly where the destruction was most severe, especially around Buda (now: Budapest), Danube valley and southern part of Hungary.
List of terms used for Germans | Sváb
Until 1803 Württemberg was one of the few Protestant territories that had a seat and vote in the Circle of Swabia.
Old Württemberg | Geographic structure
As the national cultural consensus surrounding German unification was built during the 18th and 19th century, Germany was politically dominated by the northern Kingdom of Prussia, and Weimar Classicism in the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar became the expression of German national high culture (Christoph Martin Wieland and Friedrich Schiller, while born and raised in Swabia, moved to Weimar and became two of the "four luminaries" ("Viergestirn") of Weimar Classicism). As a consequence, southern Germany and by extension both the Swabians and the Bavarians came to be seen as marked deviations from generic Standard German, and a number of clichés or stereotypes developed.
Swabians | Culture
According to the tale, the men had mistaken the animal for a Dragon. The story is really an olden day 'blonde joke' about the people of Swabia and is thought to have been told by those in neighbouring areas of Germany as a tongue-in-cheek insult to the region.
The Seven Swabians | In popular culture
The Swabian Keuper-Lias Plains () is a major natural region in southwest Germany and includes the southwesternmost part of the Keuper Uplands, which is bordered immediately to the north by the Swabian Jura.
Swabian Keuper-Lias Plains | Introduction
According to the 2011 census, 94.92% of the population speak German, 4.46% Italian and 0.62% Ladin as first language.
Völs am Schlern | Linguistic distribution
On the other side of the northern Black Forest were the Chatti about where Hesse is today, on the lower Main. Historic Swabia was eventually replaced by today's Baden-Württemberg, but it had been the most significant territory of mediaeval Alamannia, comprising all Germania Superior and territory east to Bavaria. It did not include the upper Main, but that is where Caracalla campaigned. Moreover, the territory of Germania Superior was not originally included among the Alemanni's possessions.
Alemanni | Ptolemy's "Geography"
Like all of Southern Germany, what is now Swabia was part of the La Tène culture, and as such has a Celtic (Gaulish) substrate. In the Roman era, it was part of the Raetia province. The name "Suebia" is derived from that of the "Suebi". It is used already by Tacitus in the 1st century, albeit in a different geographical sense: He calls the Baltic Sea the "Mare Suevicum" ("Suebian Sea") after the Suiones, and ends his description of the Suiones and Sitones with "Here Suebia ends" ("Hic Suebiae finis"). By the mid-3rd century, groups of the Suebi form the core element of the new tribal alliance known as the Alamanni, who expanded towards the Roman Limes east of the Rhine and south of the Main.
Swabia | Early history
When the emperor Maximilian I divided the Holy Roman Empire into Imperial Circles in 1512, one, which was practically coterminous with the duchy, was called the Swabian Circle. The area, which was formerly Swabia, was covered by the County of Württemberg, the Margraviate of Baden and the western part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. Although the name Swabia is occasionally used in a general way to denote the district formerly occupied by the duchy, the exact use of the name is now confined to the Bavarian Swabia Regierungsbezirk, with its capital at Augsburg.
Duchy of Swabia | Post-ducal Swabia
The situation of the Banat-Swabians, the German-speaking minority in Romania, is a recurring theme in Müller's writing. Historically, Germans were recruited by the Austria-Hungary to repopulate southern areas following the expulsion of the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. They were given special privileges, allowed to keep their language and Roman Catholicism, even in areas in which the Orthodox Church was paramount. Their communities spoke German into the 20th century. They were among ethnic Germans, or "Volksdeutsche," whom Adolph Hitler proposed to unite in a greater Germany. Millions of ethnic Germans were expelled from eastern Europe after the war; thousands were forced into labor camps.
The Land of Green Plums | Banat-Swabians
The Casuari spoke a South Germanic dialect, related to the High, or Upper Germanic languages. The location of their tribe was in fact a crossroad between the Weser-Rhine Germanic and Elbe Germanic languages. If so, their language originated from the Rhine, Alps, Elba or the North Sea from Friesland to Jutland.
Casuari | Language
There are many castles, monasteries, churches, ruins and old towns. Here is a small selection.
Swabian Jura | Tourist locations
The local people speak the Hunsrück dialect with a Moselle Franconian character. The village lies, along with the neighbouring ones, just north of a well known European language boundary, the so-called Das-Dat line, south of which people speak Rhine Franconian. One particular legacy from the High Middle Ages is a number of deviations from Standard High German in the realm of gender, with forms such as "die Bach" (feminine, but usually "der Bach", masculine) and "der Butter" (masculine, but usually "die Butter", feminine) cropping up, which have preserved the state of the language in Walther von der Vogelweide’s time. A number of French loanwords can also be found in the local speech, having been adopted in French Revolutionary and Napoleonic times.
Schneppenbach | Speech
Further remains of Celtic activity are also on the neighboring mountains, and the whole Heuberg region.
Lemberg (Swabian Jura) | Prehistory
"Ethnologue" lists the following locations for historical and present locations of the Raute.
Raute language | Geographical distribution
The Alemannic-speaking areas of Germany were separated into Baden and Württemberg, parts of Swabia were integrated into Bavaria in 1805; the Alemannic dialects were not the only dialects in those states (e.g. in Baden and Württemberg the Northern parts speak a Rhine Franconian dialects, East Franconian German as well as South Franconian German and in Bavaria there are Bavarian dialects as well as Rhine Franconian dialects, East Franconian German as well as South Franconian German. Alemannic dialects thus began to be subjected to a process of marginalization from a non-Alemannic administration. Alemannic separatism arose in the context of the resistance of the rural population of Baden against Napoleonic rule within the Confederation of the Rhine (1806–1813).
Alemannic separatism | Introduction
In the following years, due to territorial changes (e. g. loss of Tyrol, addition of the Palatinate), the number of districts was reduced to 8. The Swabian territories were merged with Palatinate-Neuburg and the new district was called Oberdonaukreis (Upper Danube District). In 1837, king Ludwig I of Bavaria renamed all the districts after historical territorial names and tribes of the area. This also involved some border changes or territorial swaps. Thus the name Oberdonaukreis changed to Swabia. In 1945, the town of Lindau was divested by France, but reunited with the district of Swabia in 1955. In 1972, the former Swabian city Neuburg an der Donau was reunited with the district of Upper Bavaria.
Swabia (Bavaria) | History
This region, located south of the limes, was part of the Roman Empire from around the first to third century A.D. A Roman road ran along the Neckar river and over the plateau. In Hechingen-Stein a Roman outpost along this road was discovered in the 1970s and has been turned into an outdoor museum. The limes actually cuts across the plateau at Aalen, which gets its name from the original Roman cavalry post, or "ala", on the outskirts of the modern town. Here too, the Roman ruins are being excavated and a museum has been open to the public since the late 1980s.
Swabian Jura | The Roman Empire
About 2800 Polabian words are known; of prose writings, only a few prayers, one wedding song and a few folktales survive. Immediately before the language became extinct, several people started to collect phrases and compile wordlists, and were engaged with folklore of the Polabian Slavs, but only one of them appears to have been a native speaker of Polabian (himself leaving only 13 pages of linguistically relevant material from a 310-page manuscript). The last native speaker of Polabian, a woman, died in 1756, and the last person who spoke limited Polabian died in 1825. The most important monument of the language is the so-called "Vocabularium Venedicum" (1679–1719) by Christian Hennig.
Polabian language | History
He estimated the total number of remaining Danube Swabians in Serbia and their descents at 5,000–8,000.
Germans of Yugoslavia | Serbia
Until 1950, the village was almost completely Romansh-speaking, but today it is almost completely German-speaking. Most of the population () speaks German (93.6%), with French being second most common ( 2.1%) and Italian being third ( 2.1%).
Ausserferrera | Languages
A clear example of this is the "mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache" employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to a greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: "hus" (OHG "house")"→haus" (MHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: "taga" (OHG "days")→"tage" (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from the MHG period.
German language | Middle High German
According to the 2011 census, 97.34% of the population speak German and 2.66% Italian as first language, a ratio that had hardly moved since the 2001 census.
Graun im Vinschgau | Linguistic distribution
Before 1945, there was high share of Germans (Danube Swabians) in Vaskút's population, that spoke their own dialect of German language. After the war, numerous Magyars (Szeklers from Bukovina and Csángós from Moldavia) were settled here.
Vaskút | Demographics
Swabian is categorized as an Alemannic dialect, which in turn is one of the two types of Upper German dialects (the other being Bavarian). The ISO 639-3 language code for Swabian is swg. The Swabian dialect is composed of numerous sub-dialects, each of which has its own variations. These sub-dialects can be categorized by the difference in the formation of the past participle of 'sein' (to be) into "gwäa" and "gsei." The Gsei group is nearer to other Alemannic dialects, such as Swiss German. It can be divided into South-East Swabian, West Swabian and Central Swabian.
Swabian German | Classification and variation
It is perhaps for this reason that "Schwäbische Alb" has sometimes been translated into English as 'Swabian Alps', thus avoiding the lesser-known name "Jura". However, the area is not part of the Alps (despite its proximity), nor is it ever referred to as such in German, the Alps being "die Alpen" in German (plural).
Swabian Jura | Note on terminology in English and German
The county of Swabia is located in southwest Bavaria. It was annexed by Bavaria in 1803, is part of the historic region of Swabia and was formerly ruled by dukes of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. During the Nazi period, the area was separated from the rest of Bavaria to become the Gau Swabia. It was re-incorporated into Bavaria after the war. The Regierungsbezirk is subdivided into 3 regions ("Planungsregionen"): Allgäu, Augsburg, and Donau-Iller. Donau-Iller also includes two districts and one city of Baden-Württemberg.
Swabia (Bavaria) | Governance
According to the 2011 census, 97.21% of the population speak German, 2.73% Italian and 0.06% Ladin as first language.
Prad am Stilfser Joch | Linguistic distribution
The Crown agreed to permit the Germans to retain their language and religion (generally Roman Catholic). The German farmers steadily redeveloped the land: drained marshes near the Danube and the Tisza, rebuilt farms, and constructed roads and canals. Many Danube Swabians served on Austria's Military Frontier ("Militärgrenze") against the Ottomans. Between 1740 and 1790, more than 100,000 Germans immigrated to the Kingdom of Hungary.
Danube Swabians | Settlement
During the 18th century East Colonisation, many Swabians were attracted by the Austrian Empire's offer of settling in East European lands which had been left sparsely populated by the wars with Turkey. These ethnic German communities came to be known collectively as the Danube Swabians, subdivided into such groups as the Banat Swabians, Satu Mare Swabians and others (although the name "Danube Swabians" was applied also to German settlers of non-Swabian background). Swabians settled also in eastern Croatia (Slavonia and Syrmia), and southern and western Hungary, including part of what is now Serbia and Romania (the Danube Swabians, Satu Mare Swabians, Banat Swabians and Swabian Turkey) in the 18th century, where they were invited as pioneers to repopulate some areas.
Swabians | Ostsiedlung
The Banat colonists are often grouped with other German-speaking ethnic groups in the area under the name "Danube Swabians". Besides the Banat, these groups lived in nearby western Bačka in Vojvodina, Serbia, in Swabian Turkey (present-day southern Hungary), in Slavonia, (present-day Croatia), and in Satu Mare, Romania. All of these areas were under Austrian rule, when the Crown recruited German immigrants, particularly farmers. It wanted to repopulate the lands newly recovered from Turkish occupation and to revive agriculture in an area that had been frequently overrun by war.
Banat Swabians | Banat and the Danube Swabians
North of the Benrath line up to the North Sea, this consonant shift did not happen. The Walser migration, which took place between the 12th and 13th centuries, spread upper Wallis varieties towards the east and south, into Grisons and even further to western Austria and northern Italy. Informally, a distinction is made between the German-speaking people living in the canton of Valais, the "Walliser", and the migrated ones, the "Walsers" (to be found mainly in Graubünden, Vorarlberg in Western Austria, Ticino in South Switzerland, south of the Monte Rosa mountain chain in Italy (e.g. in Issime in the Aosta valley), Tirol in North Italy, and Allgäu in Bavaria).
Swiss German | History
According to the 2011 census, 95.94% of the population speak German, 3.79% Italian and 0.27% Ladin as first language.
Partschins | Linguistic distribution
Heilbronn is located near the border between the Swabian and the South Franconian dialects of the German language.
Heilbronn | Culture
The Banat Swabians who emigrated to Germany are generally well integrated into the society in which they live. They keep contact through cultural organisations ("Landsmannschaften"). In Vienna and in southern Germany, where most Banat Swabians now live, some maintain their customs and dialect, and offer support to those who remain in Romania. Banat Swabians in the United States, whose ancestors emigrated beginning in the 1950s, have also formed community associations, including one in the New York metropolitan area, one in the Detroit area, and one in the Cincinnati area. Others have created online communities like Donauschwaben Villages Helping Hands which is a non-profit to keep the Danube Swabian legacy alive and to connect families and relatives with their ancestry.
Banat Swabians | Swabians in emigration
Most of the population () speaks German (93.3%), with the rest speaking Romansh ( 6.7%). The historical language use is given in the following table:
Calfreisen | Languages