Upper Saxon German
Upper Saxon (
German:
Obersächsisch or colloquially,
Sächsisch) is a
Central German dialect spoken in much of the modern German States of
Saxony and
Thuringia. The degree of
accent varies from place to place within the states, with it being anywhere from a relatively mild accent in the larger cities such as
Dresden or
Chemnitz, to a stronger form in the villages of the
Ore Mountains (
Erzgebirge). The most notable distinguishing feature of the dialect is that the letters "o" and "u" are often pronounced as they would be if written with an
umlaut.
For example, "aus" is pronounced "aüs" (using German orthography), and "Oma" is pronounced "Öma". Often, when a word is spelled with an umlauted "o", the Saxon variant will be pronounced in a fashion similar to an English long "a". When a word ends with the letters "er", the Saxon variant will usually be pronounced like a long "o". Therefore, the word 'Döner' would be pronounced .
For the Ore Mountain dialect, a little verse might illustrate the differences to High German:
* Ore Mountains: Wu de Hasen Hosen haßen un de Hosen Husen haßen, do sei mer derham.
* High German: Wo die Hasen Hosen heißen und die Hosen Husen heißen, da sind wir daheim.
* English: Where the hares are called trousers and the trousers
Husen, there is our home.
The Saxon Dialect
outside the Ore Mountains can be easily recognized by the deliberate softening of hard consonants like p, t, k (into b, d, g), slight changes in vocals (everything seems to get more of o) and sometimes the last syllables are stressed and lengthened. Like in (german phonetical)
G[oa]ffee-S[oa]chsn ("Kaffee-Sachsen").
*
Low Saxon*
Saxony*
Thuringia
