Bavarian Alphabet & Letters

Bavarian (Boarisch, in German Bairisch) is the Upper German speech of Old Bavaria and Austria, and it has never had an official spelling. Schools in Munich, Vienna or Bolzano teach standard German, so when people write their dialect, in a text message, on a beer garden sign or in the Bavarian Wikipedia, they use the German alphabet: the 26 letters from A a to Z z, the umlauts Ä ä, Ö ö, Ü ü and the sharp s ß, whose capital ẞ is preferred when a word with ß is written in all caps, though SS is also allowed.

What makes written Bavarian look Bavarian is how those letters are combined. The diphthongs the dialect has where German has a plain vowel are spelled out: oa in Stoa (Stein, stone), hoaß (heiß, hot) and Boarisch itself, ia in griaß (grüß, greet) and liab (lieb, dear), ua in Bua (Bub, boy) and guad (gut, good). A final -er turns into a: Wassa, Mudda, bessa. Because spellings are personal, the same word can turn up as guad, guat or gued depending on the region and the writer.

Some writers, mostly in Austria, add one letter that German does not use: å, the Scandinavian a with a ring, for the dark, rounded a that Bavarian has where German has a plain a, as in Wåssa or håt. It is a writer’s choice, not a rule, which is why it sits in its own column in the grid above.

Umlauts, ß and the apostrophe in Bavarian words

Most Bavarian dialects have lost the rounded vowels of standard German: schön is schee, Glück is Glick, müde is miad. So ü and ö appear less than in German, mostly in names and standard words. Ö has found a new job in Austria and parts of Bavaria, where an l after a vowel turns into a vowel sound: Viennese writes Göd for Geld (money) and vü for viel (much), while Munich says vui. Ä is common for the open e sound: Mädl or Madl (girl), Kas or Käs (cheese). ß stays busy, in Weißwurscht, hoaß, Griaß Gott and a Maß, the one-litre beer mug.

The real workhorse is the apostrophe ’. Bavarian drops sounds that German keeps, and writers mark the gap: g’scheit (gescheit, clever), g’sund (gesund, healthy), i hob’s (ich habe es, I have it), ’s Bier (das Bier), and the most famous of all, O’zapft is! (angezapft ist es, it is tapped), the words with which the mayor of Munich opens the Oktoberfest by tapping the first keg. Many people simply type the straight key ', but the curly ’ is the correct typographic apostrophe; both are in the grid.

Bavarian words and phrases with their special letters

The greetings are the first Bavarian words anyone learns. Grüß Gott, or in dialect Griaß Gott and Griaß di (to one person you know), is the everyday hello. Servus, from Latin for “your servant”, works both for hello and goodbye among friends. Pfiat di or Pfiat Gott is goodbye, shortened from behüte dich Gott, God keep you. Habe die Ehre or Habedere is the old-fashioned, polite version.

Then come the words that have no exact German match. Fei softens or stresses a sentence: Des is fei guad! means “That really is good, you know”. Gaudi is fun, Brotzeit a snack of bread, sausage and cheese, a Hoibe a half-litre of beer, Obatzda the paprika cheese spread you eat with a Brezn 🥨. Mia san mia (we are who we are) is the motto of FC Bayern Munich, and Wiesn is what locals call the Oktoberfest, after the Theresienwiese where it has been held since the royal wedding of 1810.

How to type Bavarian letters: ä ö ü ß å on any keyboard

German and Austrian keyboards have keys for ä ö ü and ß, and the newer German layout also reaches ẞ. On a US keyboard in Windows, switch on US-International and press " then a for ä, " then o for ö, " then u for ü, and Right Alt+S for ß. Without it, hold Alt and type on the number pad: Alt+0228 ä, Alt+0196 Ä, Alt+0246 ö, Alt+0214 Ö, Alt+0252 ü, Alt+0220 Ü, Alt+0223 ß, Alt+0229 å, Alt+0197 Å, Alt+0132 „, Alt+0147 “, Alt+0146 ’ and Alt+0128 €. In Word, type 1E9E and press Alt+X for ẞ.

On a Mac, Option+U and then the vowel gives ä ö ü, Option+S gives ß, Option+A gives å, Option+Shift+W gives „, Option+[ gives “ and Option+Shift+] gives ’. On phones, hold a, o, u or s and slide to ä, ö, ü, ß or å; on iPhone, Smart Punctuation can convert straight quotes automatically when enabled. In HTML the entities are ä ö ü ß å „ “ ’ and €.

Where Bavarian is spoken, and the emoji that go with it

Bavarian has an estimated 23 million speakers, by CLDR estimates about 14 million in Germany 🇩🇪 and about 8.5 million in Austria 🇦🇹. In Germany it is the speech of Upper and Lower Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate, not of the whole state: Franconia in the north speaks Main Franconian and Bavarian Swabia in the west speaks Swabian, both with collections of their own. In Austria almost everything outside Alemannic-speaking Vorarlberg speaks Bavarian, Vienna included, and across the border the German dialects of South Tyrol 🇮🇹 belong to the southern branch. Its neighbours are Swiss German, Swabian and standard German, which every Bavarian speaker also reads and writes.

Money is written in euros, after the amount with a decimal comma: a Maß fia 15,50 €. For Bavaria itself there is no flag emoji: Unicode only has ready-made flags for England, Scotland and Wales among regions, and a tag sequence for Bavaria shows as a plain black flag on most phones. So people send the colours instead, 🔷 or 💙🤍 for the white and blue lozenges adopted as the Wittelsbach coat of arms in 1247, and 🦁 for the lions of the coat of arms. 🥨🍺🍻🎡 is Oktoberfest, 🏔️ the Alps and ⛪ the onion-domed village church. For the flags, food and landmarks of each country, see the Germany, Austria and Italy collections.