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mouseburglar mouseburglar March 2, 2015 March 2, 2015 at 10:03:51 AM UTC link Permalink

Hey guys, I am new here :)

I managed to learn a language thanks to this project, so now I want to repay my thanks and contribute. I'm Swiss, so my question was if it would be possible to add Swiss-German sentences. It's a bit of a language on its own and I know many people coming to my country would be interested in a tool like this to learn our language.

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raggione raggione March 2, 2015 March 2, 2015 at 3:47:31 PM UTC link Permalink

Grüezi, Daniel!
Hört sich grossartig an!
Sounds great. Personally I can't help you with the technical side of it. But somebody else will, I'm sure.

gillux gillux March 3, 2015 March 3, 2015 at 12:07:39 AM UTC link Permalink

Hello mouseburglar.

I’m afraid we can’t, because Swiss-German doesn’t have a registered ISO code, which is a strong requirement for adding new languages. You can read more details about this here: http://en.wiki.tatoeba.org/arti...guage-request.

The way we currently mark regional variations of a language is by using tags (http://en.wiki.tatoeba.org/articles/show/tags). Sounds like someone already created tags for Swiss German, see for example #760215.

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sabretou sabretou March 3, 2015 March 3, 2015 at 4:11:58 AM UTC link Permalink

ISO lists Swiss German as 'gsw': http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/...ion.asp?id=gsw

The name is shared with Alemannic and Alsatian, however. The ISO code definitely points towards 'German, SWiss' however.

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gillux gillux March 3, 2015 March 3, 2015 at 5:13:41 AM UTC link Permalink

Maybe that’s because gsw is a different thing. The Wikipedia article¹ says that Swiss German “refers to any of the Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland and in some Alpine communities in Northern Italy.” And that “the dialects of Swiss German must not be confused with Swiss Standard German, the variety of Standard German used in Switzerland.”

Maybe a native speaker or otherwise well informed member could comment on that matter.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_German

mouseburglar mouseburglar March 16, 2015 March 16, 2015 at 3:17:08 PM UTC link Permalink

Hey Gillux!

Sorry for the long pause on this pause (and thanks for all the help!!) I was away and didn't have access to Tatoeba.

So about Swiss German:

(1) first some gut feeling: Swiss German is an old split-off of Standard German and is considered by most German speakers (Swiss or otherwise) as its own language (Germans wont understand Swiss German).

(2) Swiss Standard German vs Swiss German: the latter is the aforementioned old dialect/language unique to Switzerland and some surrounding areas in Germany and Austria. The former is basically standard German with some very, very slight variations in writing (we replace the special letter "ß" with "ss" for example).

(3) ISO 639-3 Code: the code "gsw" refers to Swiss German as was pointed out by sabretou (thanks! -http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/...on.asp?id=gsw, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...ndard_German). I couldn't find a code for this Standard Swiss German, I guess the difference isn't enough. I did however find a list of german languages and their codes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language).

I hope this helps to clear stuff up. I would think it an awesome project to add Swiss German to this wonderful platform and I think you would be surprised to see how many people in this small country would help - we are rather enthusiastic about this language of ours ;). And many German immigrants might find this highly useful. However that may be, I would love to contribute here, just give me a heads-up!

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Vortarulo Vortarulo March 16, 2015 March 16, 2015 at 5:33:14 PM UTC link Permalink

Grüezi uus Züri! :)

Since there is no standardized Swiss German, people would contribute in different dialects, right? So we'd have a mixture of Bernese, Züritüütsch, Baseldütsch, even Walliser. I think it'd be useful to think about how to do this. If all Swiss German dialects are allowed (I think they should), maybe the exact dialect should be indicated in a tag somehow.

Also, the flag. The Swiss flag would be great, but there might be an issue if someday Rhaetoromance will be added. Perhaps in that case, the flag of Grisons could be used. What would you say? Swiss flag for the German dialects, Grisons flag for Rhaetoromance one day? Or would a modification of the Swiss flag be better?

(I'm not a native speaker, unfortunately, but I understand Swiss German)

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cueyayotl cueyayotl March 17, 2015 March 17, 2015 at 12:38:08 AM UTC link Permalink

If the user means Swiss German [GSW] and not just the Standard German variety spoken in Switzerland, we have one previous instance of it #2577725.

It would be great to see [GSW] added to the project, and as long as the user contributes only in his variety, we wouldn't have to worry too much about dialectal classification. Such is the case with other languages like Quechua and Nahuatl (although there are both [NCI] and [NGU] contributions for Nahuatl)

As per the flag, I like the idea taken for Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa, which was to use the South African flag with the ISO 639-3 code written on the side.

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mouseburglar mouseburglar March 21, 2015 March 21, 2015 at 9:02:06 PM UTC link Permalink

Grüezi mitenand and hi :)

Yes sentence #2577725 is actually this language, you're right! Great to see that you like the idea as well.

I do however also see the problem of Vortarulo: there are many different dialects and if many people are to contribute (which I guess is the ultimate goal) there are bound to be many versions around. But seeing how Tatoeba has such a strong system of dealing with same sentences in different version by just applying multiple translations I think this could be not a problem but an enrichment.

So to get a picture, there are roughly less than 20 dialects in switzerland, each represented by a "county". They have their own flags, so perhaps it would be possible to split the flag into GERMAN - COUNTY or even SWISS - COUNTY? Like half-half as you see it with UK/US on many websites (example: http://neu.feinshmekerfilm.de/w...ge_UK_US.png)? I don't know how you deal with this usually, but it might get rid of many confusions if it was clear that two people talk in the same language but just in very different dialects.

I would love to hear your input here!