Swiss German Mass

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TypesAndShadows

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Okay, this might be too obscure, but I figure it’s worth a try.

This summer, I’m visiting Adelboden in German-speaking Switzerland. There’s a church there with a Sunday Mass, so that’s not a problem. The only mention I’ve found of the language used for Mass, says it is ‘Swiss German’. Is it reasonable to assume this is actually Swiss German, as in the local language, rather than Swiss Standard German?

If it really is Swiss German, is the Order of Mass available on the Internet in the sort of Swiss German spoken in Adelboden? This seems unlikely, but it would be nice 🙂
 
I lived in Switzerland as a kid.

The national (or native) language is Romansh

Swiss German is German with a Swiss dialect.
 
I have found this, it appears to be helpful from about pg. 22 but its just a preview.
books.google.co.uk/books?id=OFTsxXCnMooC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Liturgisches+Institut+Z%C3%BCrich%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MrW3T-XnMrKW0QX8rvmeCA&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

not really helpful either but thought I’d include it anyway:shrug: it;s the website for the Catholic Church in Switzerland , I believe.
kath.ch/index.php?

from wikipedia
The language is Adelbodnertütsch, which belongs to the Bernese Oberland dialects with some loans from Valais dialects and belongs to the Highest Alemannic language group.
Click to expand...
Most of the population (as of 2000) speaks German (95.0%), with Serbo-Croat the second most common ( 1.0%),
and Portuguese third ( 0.9%).[4]
Click to expand...
 
Switzerland has four official national languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansch (a tiny minority). “Swiss German” is derived from the standard High German found in central Germany, but with many differences in pronunciation and spelling. Many Germans cannot understand much of it, and the Swiss use High German for business dealings and for tourism. From my inexpert observation, the difference between Swiss dialect and High German is on a par with the difference between Castilian Spanish and Portuguese.
 
All German-speaking Swiss can speak Hochdeutsch (standard German) which is used in the commercial sphere, but the Swiss dialects (collectively Schwiizertüütsch) used at home can be hard for even Germans to understand. There are four national languages in Switzerland: German, French, Italian, and Romansch.
 
Thanks for your help. Clicking around from the links, and thinking further, it looks like Mass is almost certainly in German that is basically Standard German, possibly with Swiss variants, and not in the various local languages in the German-speaking area that other websites have told me are typically referred to as “Swiss German”.

So, I’m probably safe with a German/English Order of Mass 🙂
 
triumphguy said:
I lived in Switzerland as a kid.

The national (or native) language is Romansh

Swiss German is German with a Swiss dialect.
Click to expand...
According to Wikipedia (not the best source, I’ll grant you), Romansh is spoken by about 0.9% of Switzerland’s population and is the tenth most common language in the country. It is one of four official languages of Switzerland, along with German, Italian, and French. It is the least used of these four languages.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language
 
Even if you are fairly comfortable with standard German, if you aren’t familar with Swiss German it will be difficult to understand.
 
We recently returned from a vacation to Switzerland. We were not there for Sunday Mass, but we did visit Catholic churches. The churches have missal/hymnals in the pews, similar to those in German Catholic churches, which are approved by the Swiss bishops. As we were looking at them I asked my husband, who speaks German, if the German translation of the Mass looked any different from the translation used in Germany. He said that it appeared to be the same to him. If you know standard German, you should be able to use their missal without any problems. Understanding the homily might be another matter!
 
TypesAndShadows said:
This summer, I’m visiting Adelboden in German-speaking Switzerland. There’s a church there with a Sunday Mass, so that’s not a problem. The only mention I’ve found of the language used for Mass, says it is ‘Swiss German’. Is it reasonable to assume this is actually Swiss German, as in the local language, rather than Swiss Standard German?

If it really is Swiss German, is the Order of Mass available on the Internet in the sort of Swiss German spoken in Adelboden? This seems unlikely, but it would be nice 🙂
Click to expand...
If the “local language” that you mean is restricted to Adelboden, then it is unlikely that it will have its own Mass translation, just like the whole English-speaking world is now under one translation, as opposed to regional dialects.
 
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