Linguistic overview

A brief overview

Bielitzer Mundarten

There has not been many publications concerned with describing the grammar of the Bielsko German dialects.

The language varieties of the Bielsko and Biała regions, similarly to other German dialects, are inflectional. This means that the parts of speech present in the language change, inflect (verbs conjugate for tense, person, number while nouns inflect for number and case).
Jacob Bukowski is the author of the first, and at the same time the most comprehensive, grammar of Bielsko dialects. Basing his research primarily on the language variety of Biała, he took notice of the following features:

• the transformation of the suffix -en, which in standard German is used to mark the infinite form of the verb, into -a (1935: 167Wagner 1935 / komentarz/comment /
  Wagner, Richard Ernst 1935. Der Beeler Psalter. Die Bielitz-Bialaer deutsche mundartliche Dichtung. Katowice: Kattowitzer Buchdruckerei u. Verlags – Sp. Akc.
  ): , e.g. Kajf-a, kauf-en, „to buy”, (1935: 178Wagner 1935 / komentarz/comment /
  Wagner, Richard Ernst 1935. Der Beeler Psalter. Die Bielitz-Bialaer deutsche mundartliche Dichtung. Katowice: Kattowitzer Buchdruckerei u. Verlags – Sp. Akc.
  ).
• diminutives are formed by adding the suffix  –la, instead of the standard –lein and –chen (1935: 167Wagner 1935 / komentarz/comment /
  Wagner, Richard Ernst 1935. Der Beeler Psalter. Die Bielitz-Bialaer deutsche mundartliche Dichtung. Katowice: Kattowitzer Buchdruckerei u. Verlags – Sp. Akc.
  ):  e.g. Mäus-la, Mäus-chen, „a little mouse” (1935: 180Wagner 1935 / komentarz/comment /
  Wagner, Richard Ernst 1935. Der Beeler Psalter. Die Bielitz-Bialaer deutsche mundartliche Dichtung. Katowice: Kattowitzer Buchdruckerei u. Verlags – Sp. Akc.
  ).
• the diphtongs ei and ai are proloned and realized as aih i oih (1935: 167Wagner 1935 / komentarz/comment /
  Wagner, Richard Ernst 1935. Der Beeler Psalter. Die Bielitz-Bialaer deutsche mundartliche Dichtung. Katowice: Kattowitzer Buchdruckerei u. Verlags – Sp. Akc.
  ).
• the diphthong au used in standard German in Bielsko dialects is realized as aa oroo, e.g. bloo, blau, „blue”; Baam, Baum, „tree” (1935: 167Wagner 1935 / komentarz/comment /
  Wagner, Richard Ernst 1935. Der Beeler Psalter. Die Bielitz-Bialaer deutsche mundartliche Dichtung. Katowice: Kattowitzer Buchdruckerei u. Verlags – Sp. Akc.
  ).
• the diphthong eu is replaced by ee, e.g. freen, feuen, „to be happy”.

In his grammar, Jacob Bukowski included a table presenting the inflection of the definite and indefinite articles, as well as personal pronouns (1935: 167-168Wagner 1935 / komentarz/comment /
Wagner, Richard Ernst 1935. Der Beeler Psalter. Die Bielitz-Bialaer deutsche mundartliche Dichtung. Katowice: Kattowitzer Buchdruckerei u. Verlags – Sp. Akc.
):

Declension of definite articles for case

		masculine	feminine	neuter
Singular	Nominative:	dar/der	die/de	dos
	Genetive:	das	dar/der	das
	Dative:	dam	dar/der	dam
	Accusative:	dan/a.	die/de	dos
Plural	Nominative:	die/de
	Genetive:	der/dar
	Dative:	dan/de
	Accusative:	die/de

Declension of indefinite articles for case

	masculine	feminine	neuter
Nominative:	a/aj	a/aj	a/aj
Genetive:	as	ainer/ar	as
Dative:	am/em	ainer/ar	am/em
Accusative:	en	a/ai	a/aj

Declension of personal pronouns
Singular

	I	you	he	she	it
Nominative:	ech	du/de	har/a	seh/sei	es/eis
Genetive:	mainer/mer	dainer/der	saine/se	ihrer/er	sainer/ser
Dative:	mir/mer	dir/der	eihm/em	ihr/er	eihm/em
Accusative:	meich/mech	deich/dech	eihn/an	sei/se	eis/es

Plurar

	we	you	they
Nominative:	wir/wer	ihr/er	sei/se
Genetive:	enser	euer	ihrer
Dative:	ens	euch/ech/ich	eihn/an
Accusative:	ens	euch/ech/ich	sei/se

Infinitive forms of auxiliary verbs

	to have	to be	to become
Present tense	hon	sen	wada lub warda
Present perfect	gehot hon	gewast sen	gewurda sen
Future tense	wan hon	wan sen	wan, wada lub warda

Conjugation of auxiliary verbs for person in the present tense
Singular

	to have	to be	to become
I	ho	bein	war/wad/ward
you	host	best	werst/west
he, she, it	hot	ei	wet/werd

Plural

we	hon	sen	wada/warda/wan
thou	hot	set	wad’t/ward’t

Bock pointed out the major differences that exist between the various language varieties (1916a: 219Bock 1916a / komentarz/comment /
Bock Friedrich 1916b. Der Liega-Jirg. Gedicht in der Bielitzer Mundart. Bielitz: Friedrich Bock. [przedruk w: Wagner 1936: 222-230].
). To exemplify these differences he employed the words "eyes" and "tree", in standard German being "die Augen" and "der Baum". In Międzyrzecze Górne (Oberkurzald), Stare Bielsko (Alt-Bielitz) and Kamienica (Kamitz),  these are formulated as „die Auga” and „der Baum”,while in Olszówka Dolna, Lipnik, Bielsko and Biała they are pronounced as „die Aaga” and „der Baam”.
According to Friedrich Bock, there were two types of dialects spoken in Bielsko and Biała. He described as the full "voll" dialect and the half dialect "halb'. He argues that by the beginning of the 20th century, the former was already nearly extinct. Only the "lower classes of the populace" used it: artisans, for example drapers, who resented industrialism and continued to craft their products in traditional workshops. This dialect was often called pauerisch, a peasant dialect, i somewhat resembled the other dialects of the region.
The urban half dialect was distinguished by a different pronunciation of certain phonemes. In rural areas the phoneme [b], when surrounded by vowels, was realized as [v]. The word "seven" was pronounced /sejva/, in the half dialect /siebm/ while in standard German /si:ben/ These examples show that the "half" urban dialects were much closer related to the literary German language than the language of their rural neighbours. However, there are exceptions. The literary German word for "no" is "nein". In the urban dialects the equivalent word is „näh" while the word used in villages around Bielsko and Biała is "naj" - which seems to be more similar to the standard German version. The standard German diminutive suffix -lein varies from the "pauerisch" dialect with its suffix -a. The "half" dialects used up to three different diminutive suffixes: -le, -el and -erle (Bock 1916a: 221Bock 1916a / komentarz/comment /
Bock Friedrich 1916b. Der Liega-Jirg. Gedicht in der Bielitzer Mundart. Bielitz: Friedrich Bock. [przedruk w: Wagner 1936: 222-230].
).