Kiezdeutsch is a

variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

of German spoken primarily by youth in urban spaces in which a high percentage of the population is

multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

and has an immigration background. Since the 1990s, Kiezdeutsch has come into the public eye as a multiethnic language.

Definition

The term "Kiezdeutsch" originated among youth in the

Kreuzberg Kreuzberg () is a district of Berlin, Germany. It is part of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte. During the Cold War era, it was one of the poorest areas of West Berlin, but since German reunification in 1990 it ha ...

district of Berlin who used it to describe their language use amongst themselves. In 2006, it was used in an essay by linguist Heike Wiese and subsequently became an established term within the academy as well as the public sphere. Previously used terms include "Gemischt-sprechen" (mixed-speaking), "Türkendeutsch" (Turkish German),Jannis Androutsopoulos: ''Ultra korregd Alder! Zur medialen Stilisierung und Aneignung von „Türkendeutsch."'' In: ''Deutsche Sprache''. Nr. 29, 2001, S. 321–339. "Ghettodeutsch" (ghetto German), and "Kanak Sprak" (

Kanake Kanake (or Kanacke, Kanaa(c)k; pl. ''Kanacken'' or ''Kanaks/Kanax'') is a German slur for people from German-speaking countries with roots from Italy, Spain, Russia, Southeast Europe, the Near and Middle East, as well as North Africa. It is also ...

language, a

reappropriated In linguistics, reappropriation, reclamation, or resignification is the cultural process by which a group reclaims words or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group. It is a specific form of a semantic change (i.e. ...

pejorative). The term Kiezdeutsch avoided negative connotations and does not limit the language group to a particular ethnicity. Additionally, it makes clear that it is both a variety of German and an informal style of speech used in the "

Kiez ''Kiez'' () (also: ''Kietz'') is a German word that refers to a city neighbourhood, a relatively small community within a larger town. The word is mainly used in Berlin and northern Germany. Similar quarters are called ''Veedel'' in Cologne and ' ...

" (a term which in

Berlin German Berlin German, or Berlin dialect (High German: ''Berliner Dialekt'', ''Berliner Mundart'', ''Berlinerisch'' or ''Berlinisch''; derogative: ''Berliner Schnauze'', ), is the dialect spoken in the city of Berlin as well as its surrounding metrop ...

refers to an urban neighborhood).

Classification

Linguist Norbert Dittmar classifies Kiezdeutsch as an

ethnolect An ethnolect is generally defined as a language variety that mark speakers as members of ethnic groups who originally used another language or distinctive variety. According to another definition, an ethnolect is any speech variety (language, diale ...

and claims only spoken ethnolectal use was documented up to 2007. Eva Wittenberg defines Kiezdeutsch more concretely as a multi-ethnolectal German youth language. Heike Wiese argues that Kiezdeutsch should be considered a "new

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...

" due to its use amongst youth of various ethnic groups in urban areas with high proportions of immigrants.Heike Wiese: ''Kiezdeutsch. Ein neuer Dialekt entsteht''. C. H. Beck, München 2012. This has been critiqued by Germanist Helmut Glück, who argues that a dialect always refers to a historically rooted way of speaking characteristic of a particular region (rather than with a particular ethnic and age groups). He draws comparisons to

Ruhrdeutsch Ruhrdeutsch (Ruhr German) is a regiolect of German spoken in the Ruhr area. Through immigration, its vocabulary has been influenced by Low Franconian and Ripuarian language, Ripuarian dialects as well as from Eastern German dialects, Polish langua ...

, influenced by Polish immigration, and claims Kiezdeutsch is similarly most appropriately labelled a

sociolect In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language ( non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, an age group, or other social group. Sociolects involve both passive acquisi ...

Grammatic and lexical features

Kiezdeutsch deviates in a variety of ways from

Standard German Standard High German (SHG), less precisely Standard German or High German (not to be confused with High German dialects, more precisely Upper German dialects) (german: Standardhochdeutsch, , or, in Switzerland, ), is the standardized variety ...

and features a number of grammatical and lexical innovations. It is regularly subject to vehement criticism and described by some as broken or error-ridden German. A statement of the German Society for Linguistics disputes these criticisms, however. Linguists argue that like other variants of German, the use of Kiezdeutsch does not indicate poor language competencies. Instead, among its speakers, Kiezdeutsch is a single piece of a large spoken repertoire that also includes formal manners of speaking such as Standard German. The grammatic characteristics detailed below are used particularly in informal peer-group situations and signify affiliation with a particular community.Heike Wiese: ''Die Konstruktion sozialer Gruppen: Fallbeispiel Kiezdeutsch''. In: Eva Neuland, Peter Schlobinsky (eds.): ''Sprache in sozialen Gruppen''. de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 2018.

Shortening of nominal phrases

One of the most prominent features of Kiezdeutsch is the use of shortened nominal phrases (without articles or prepositions) as place and time markers:Heike Wiese: ''„Ich mach dich Messer"'' ''– Grammatische Produktivität in Kiez-Sprache (‚Kanak Sprak')''. In: ''Linguistische Berichte''. Nr. 207, 2006, pp. 245–273. "Gehst du heute auch Viktoriapark?" (Are you also going Victoria Park today?) "Ich werde zweiter Mai fünfzehn." (I will turn 15 2 May) In the above examples, the prepositions "zum" (to the) and "am" (on the) have been omitted, but do not impact sentence meaning. Shortened phrases of this nature are often perceived as unsystematic linguistic simplifications. However, a similar phenomenon occurs in standard German in informal spoken contexts (for instance, in the region of Berlin shortened nominal phrases are regularly used to designate public transit stops).

Shortening of functional words and inflectional endings

Functional words and inflectional endings, particular those that can be inferred, are often shortened or dropped: "Ich habe eine Blase am Fuß. Tut weh." (I have a blister on my foot. Hurts.) In the above example, the subject ("it") has been dropped from the second sentence as it is implied.

Word order variations

In Kiezdeutsch, as in Standard German, verbs can be placed in the second-position in declarative clauses and in the last-position in subordinate clauses. However, unlike Standard German, Kiezdeutsch allows for verbs to also be placed in the first- and third-positions: "Ich wusste ganz genau, dass er das versteht und darum hab ich das auch gesagt, aber jetzt ich hasse ihn." In the above example, "jetzt ich ''hasse'' ihn" places the verb ''hasse'' in the third-position. In Standard German, the verb would occupy the second-position: Jetzt hasse ich ihn.

Development of new grammatical particles

In Kiezdeutsch, constructions featuring two new

grammatical particle In grammar, the term ''particle'' (abbreviated ) has a traditional meaning, as a part of speech that cannot be inflected, and a modern meaning, as a function word associated with another word or phrase, generally in order to impart meaning. Altho ...

s can be found: "musstu" and "lassma": "Musstu Doppelstunde fahren!" (rather than: Du musst Doppelstunde fahren!) "Lassma Moritzplatz aussteigen" (rather than: "Lass uns mal Moritzplatz aussteigen.") Although musstu is based on the second-person phrase "musst du," it can also be used when referring to groups of people. In these instances, Standard German would require the use of "müsst ihr."

Use of "so" as an emphasis marker

The particle "so" is frequently used as an emphasis marker. While this usage can also be seen outside of Kiezdeutsch, it is much less common in monolingual than multilingual contexts: "Dicker, ich hab, ich weiß nicht, also die Stadt ist nicht mein Dings ''so''. Weißt, was ich meine? Ich bin mehr ''so'' Naturtyp für Natur, Dorf. ''So'' im Grünen, das ist mein Ding." "Ich höre Alpa Gun, weil er ''so'' aus Schöneberg kommt." (emphasizing "aus Schöneberg") "Die hübschesten Frauen kommen von den Schweden, also ich mein, ''so'' blond ''so.''" (emphasizing "blond")

Introduction of foreign words

New foreign words are integrated from heritage languages such as

Turkish Turkish may refer to: *a Turkic language spoken by the Turks * of or about Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities and mi ...

and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

, but also

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...

. These foreign words are used following the rules of

German grammar The grammar of the German language is quite similar to that of the other Germanic languages. Although some features of German grammar, such as the formation of some of the verb forms, resemble those of English, German grammar differs from that of ...

and their pronunciation is Germanized. They are used to the same degree by speakers with varying language backgrounds (for instance, Arabic words used by speakers with no Arabic background).

Coronalization of the "ich-Laute"

On a

phonological Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

level, the coronalization of the

voiceless palatal fricative The voiceless palatal fricative is a type of consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pro ...

is noteworthy. This is also known to occur in dialects from the

Rhineland The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section. Term Historically, the Rhinelands ...

Linguistic studies

There have been numerous linguistic studies of Kiezdeutsch that investigate both

sociolinguistic Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It can overlap with the sociology of l ...

and grammar. Sociolinguistic themes such as group-specifics, identity construction, and media stylization are addressed in Inken Keim's study of the speaking patterns of a bilingual German-Turkish group of girls in Mannheim, Heike Weise's essays on the construction of social groups, and the work of Peter Auer, Jannis Androutsopoulos, and Helga Kotthoff on the adoption of Kiezdeutsch amongst monolingual speakers and its medial transformation. Newer studies concern themselves with the speaking repertoire of Kiezdeutsch speakers and related register differences.Heike Wiese, Maria Pohle: "''Ich geh Kino" oder „... ins Kino"? Gebrauchsrestriktionen nichtkanonischer Lokalangaben''. In: ''Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft''. Nr. 35;2, 2016, pp. 171–216. Additionally, a central focus the sociolinguistic investigation of Kiezdeutsch is an assessment of the linguistic attitudes of both Kiezdeutsch speakers and broader society. In the area of application, there are multiple studies on Kiezdeutsch use in schools, particularly suggestions for integrating it into German language instruction. In the area of grammar, the majority of research focuses on the

phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

, and

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...

of Kiezdeutsch. Researchers interested in phonetics and phonology include Selting & Kern (2009), Jannedy et al. (2011), Šimšek (2012), Kern (2013), and Jannedy & Weirich (2014). Syntactic studies are often concerned with the third-position placement of verbs in imperative sentences as well as shortened nominal and prepositional phrases. Heike Wiese has is the foremost researcher on the creation of new particles.

Kiezdeutsch Corpus (KiDKo)

A comprehensive collection of conversations in Kiezdeutsch is available via the Kiezdeutsch

Corpus Corpus is Latin for "body". It may refer to: Linguistics * Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts * Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files * Corpus linguistics, a branch of linguistics Music * ...

(Kiezdeutschkorpus, or KiDKo).{{Cite web, title=Das Kiezdeutschkorpus, url=https://www.kiezdeutschkorpus.de/kidko-home-EN.html, url-status=live The KiDKo was developed between 2008 and 2015 through a project at the

University of Potsdam The University of Potsdam is a public university in Potsdam, capital of the state of Brandenburg, Germany. It is mainly situated across three campuses in the city. Some faculty buildings are part of the New Palace of Sanssouci which is known ...

. The corpus, which is freely accessible and online, is based in part on audio recordings of youth in a multiethnic neighborhood (Berlin-

) amongst their friend circle during their free time. Another section of the corpus is based on youth in a monoethnic neighborhood with comparable socioeconomic conditions (Berlin-

Hellersdorf Hellersdorf () is a locality in the borough of Marzahn-Hellersdorf in Berlin. Between 1986 and Berlin's 2001 administrative reform, it was a borough in its own right, consisting of the current area of Hellersdorf as well as Kaulsdorf and Mahlsdo ...

). That allows for comparative study. The recordings were made in 2008 and are available as written transcripts. The corpus is linguistically annotated. In addition to the literal transcript, it includes an orthographically normalized form (partly consisting of translations from Turkish),

part of speech tagging In corpus linguistics, part-of-speech tagging (POS tagging or PoS tagging or POST), also called grammatical tagging is the process of marking up a word in a text (corpus) as corresponding to a particular part of speech, based on both its definit ...

, as well as syntactic information. The transcripts are linked to their audio files. All data is anonymized.

* Jannis Androutsopoulos: ''From the Streets to the Screens and Back Again. On the mediated diffusion of ethnolectal patterns in contemporary German''. LAUD, Essen 2001. * Jannis Androutsopoulos: ''Ethnolekte in der Mediengesellschaft. Stilisierung und Sprachideologie in Performance, Fiktion und Metasprachdiskurs.'' In: Christian Fandrych, Reiner Salverda (Hrsg.): ''Standard, Variation und Sprachwandel in germanischen Sprachen / Standard, Variation and Language Change in Germanic Languages''. Narr, Tübingen 2007, S. 113–155. * Peter Auer: ''‚Türkenslang': Ein jugendsprachlicher Ethnolekt des Deutschen und seine Transformationen.'' In: Annelies Häcki Buhofer (Hrsg.): ''Spracherwerb und Lebensalter''. Francke, Tübingen 2003, S. 255–264. * İnci Dirim, Peter Auer: ''Türkisch sprechen nicht nur die Türken. Über die Unschärfebeziehung zwischen Sprache und Ethnie in Deutschland''; de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004, doi:10.1515/9783110919790. * Lena Ekberg, Toril Opsahl, Heike Wiese: ''Functional gains: A cross-linguistic case study on three particles in Swedish, Norwegian, and German.'' In: Jacomine Nortier, Bente A. Svendsen (Hrsg.): ''Language, Youth and Identity in the 21st Century. Linguistic Practices across Urban Spaces''. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2015, S. 93–115, doi:10.1017/CBO9781139061896.007. * H. Julia Eksner: ''Ghetto Ideologies, Youth Identities and Stylized Turkish German Turkish Youth in Berlin-Kreuzberg''. Lit Verlag, Berlin 2001. * Ulrike Freywald, Leonie Cornips, Natalia Ganuza, Ingvild Nistov, Toril Opsahl: ''Beyond verb second – a matter of novel information structural effects? Evidence from Norwegian, Swedish, German and Dutch.'' In: Jacomine Nortier, Bente A. Svendsen (Hrsg.): ''Language, Youth and Identity in the 21st Century. Linguistic Practices across Urban Spaces''. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2015, S. 73–92, doi:10.1017/CBO9781139061896.006. * Stefanie Jannedy, Melanie Weirich, Jana Brunner: . In: Wai Sum Lee, Eric Zee (Hrsg.): . City University of Hong Kong, Hongkong 2011, OCLC 862406470, S. 962–965 (Download des Artikels DF; 305 kB; retrieved 6 April 2021. * Stefanie Jannedy, Melanie Weirich: ''Sound change in an urban setting: Category instability of the palatal fricative in Berlin.'' In: ''Laboratory Phonology.'' 5, 1, 2014, S. 91–122, doi:10.1515/lp-2014-0005. * Werner Kallmeyer, Inken Keim: ''Linguistic variation and the construction of social identity in a German-Turkish setting. A case study of an immigrant youth-group in Mannheim, Germany.'' In: Jannis Androutsopoulos, Alexandra Georgakopoulou (Hrsg.): ''Discourse Constructions of Youth Identities''. Benjamins, Amsterdam / Philadelphia 2003, S. 29–46, doi:10.1075/pbns.110.03kal, online. * Friederike Kern: ''Rhythmus und Kontrast im Türkischdeutschen''. de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2013, doi:10.1515/9783110296532. * Friederike Kern, Margret Selting: ''Einheitenkonstruktion im Türkendeutschen: Grammatische und prosodische Aspekte.'' In: ''Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft.'' Bd. 25, 2006, S. 239–272, doi:10.1515/ZFS.2006.009. * Helga Kotthoff: ''Ethno-Comedy und riskanter Humor in der Clique. Rassistisch, einfach spaßig oder besonders cool?'' In: Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Hanna Pulaczewska (Hrsg.): ''Cross-Cultural Europe: Issues in Identity and Communication''. ibidem, München 2010, S. 145–181. * Helga Kotthoff: ''Alles nur ein Scherz? Über humoristische Diskriminierung.'' In: Peter Maitz, Stefan Elspaß (Hrsg.): ''Der Deutschunterricht.'' 6, Themenheft zur sprachlichen Diskriminierung, 2011, S. 74–86. * Philipp Krämer: ''Delegitimising creoles and multiethnolects: stereotypes and (mis-)con-ceptions of language in online debates''. (PDF; 711 kB). In: ''Caribbean Studies.'' 45, 1–2, 2017, S. 107–142. * Ines Rehbein, Sören Schalowski: ''STTS goes Kiez – Experiments on Annotating and Tagging Urban Youth Language.'' In: ''Journal for Language Technology and Computational Linguistics.'' Bd. 28, 2013, S. 199–227 (Themenheft ''Das STTS-Tagset für Wortartentagging – Stand und Perspektiven''). * Ines Rehbein, Sören Schalowski, Heike Wiese: ''The KiezDeutsch Korpus (KiDKo) Release 1.0.'' In: ''Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC).'' 24–31 May 2014. Island, Reykjavik 2013. * Margret Selting, Friederike Kern: ''On some syntactic and prosodic structures of Turkish German in talk-in-interaction.'' In: ''Journal of Pragmatics.'' Bd. 41, 2009, S. 2496–2514. * Yazgül Šimšek: ''Sequenzielle und prosodische Aspekte der Sprecher-Hörer-Interaktion im Türkendeutschen''. Waxmann, Berlin 2012. * John R. te Velde: ''Temporal adverbs in the kiezdeutsch left periphery: Combining late merge with deaccentuation for V3.'' In: ''Studia Linguistica.'' 71, 3, 2016, S. 205–367, doi:10.1111/stul.12055 * George Walkden: ''Language contact and V3 in Germanic varieties new and old.'' In: ''Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics.'' Bd. 20, 2017, S. 49–81. * Heike Wiese: ''„Ich mach dich Messer" – Grammatische Produktivität in Kiez-Sprache (‚Kanak Sprak').'' In: ''Linguistische Berichte.'' Bd. 207, 2006, S. 245–273. * Heike Wiese: ''Grammatical innovation in multiethnic urban Europe: new linguistic practices among adolescents.'' In: ''Lingua.'' 119, 5, 2009, S. 782–806. * Heike Wiese: . C. H. Beck, München 2012, doi:10.17104/9783406630354. * Heike Wiese: ''Voices of linguistic outrage: standard language constructs and the discourse on new urban dialects.'' In: ''Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies.'' 120 (ed. Ben Rampton et al.). King's College, London 2014. * Heike Wiese: ''Die Konstruktion sozialer Gruppen. Fallbeispiel Kiezdeutsch.'' In: Eva Neuland, Peter Schlobinski (Hrsg.): ''Handbuch Sprache in sozialen Gruppen''. de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2018, S. 331–351. * Heike Wiese, Ulrike Freywald, Sören Schalowski, Katharina Mayr: ''Das KiezDeutsch-Korpus. Spontansprachliche Daten Jugendlicher aus urbanen Wohngebieten.'' In: ''Deutsche Sprache.'' Bd. 40, 2012, S. 97–123. * Heike Wiese, Horst J. Simon, Marianne Zappen-Thomson, Kathleen Schumann: ''Mehrsprachiges Deutsch: Beobachtungen zu Namdeutsch und Kiezdeutsch.'' In: ''Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik.'' 81, 3, 2014, S. 247–307. * Heike Wiese, Maria Pohle: ''„Ich geh Kino" oder „... ins Kino"? Gebrauchsrestriktio-nen nichtkanonischer Lokalangaben.'' In: ''Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft.'' Bd. 35, 2016, S. 171–216. * Heike Wiese, Katharina Mayr, Philipp Krämer, Patrick Seeger, Hans-Georg Müller, Verena Mezger: ''Changing teachers' attitudes towards linguistic diversity: Effects of an antibias programme.'' In: ''International Journal of Applied Linguistics.'' 2017, onlinelibrary.wiley.com (PDF) * Heike Wiese, Hans G. Müller: ''The hidden life of V3: an overlooked word order variant on verb-second.'' In: Mailin Antomo, Sonja Müller (Hrsg.): ''Non-Canonical Verb Positioning in Main Clauses''. Buske, Hamburg 2018, S. 201–223 (''Linguistische Berichte'', Sonderheft 25). * Amir Zeldes, Julia Ritz, Anke Lüdeling, Christian Chiarcos: ''ANNIS: A search tool for multi-layer annotated corpora.'' In: ''Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics Conference.'' 20–23 July 2009. Liverpool UK 2009, ucrel.lancs.ac.uk

External links

* kiezdeutsch.de * kiezdeutschkorpus.de * www.deutsch-ist-vielseitig.de (materials for teaching about Kiezdeutsch)

Works cited

German dialects German language German youth culture Turkish youth culture Turkish diaspora in Germany City colloquials