Franconian Dialect Alphabet & Letters

Main-Franconian is the name of the language code vmf for the East Franconian dialects, which German linguists call Ostfränkisch and which were long called Mainfränkisch after the river Main, which runs through only part of the dialect area. They are spoken in Franconia, the north of Bavaria with Nuremberg, Würzburg, Bamberg, Bayreuth and Schweinfurt, and spill over into Tauberfranken and Hohenlohe in Baden-Württemberg and the south of Thuringia around Meiningen. Like every German dialect, Franconian has no official spelling: schools teach standard German, and when people write their dialect, in a message, on a beer-cellar blackboard or in a Kerwa song, 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 almost never needed.

Franconian has no letters of its own, and this page adds none. What makes a written line look Franconian is how the German letters are used, and every writer spells by ear, so the same word appears as Bratwurst, Bradwurschd or Brodworschd depending on the town and the person writing.

What Franconian looks like written: the soft B, -la and fei

The best-known mark of Franconian is that it softens consonants. At the start of a word and between vowels, p, t and k are said much like b, d and g, and dialect writers spell it that way: bidde for bitte, Bedra for Petra, Weggla for a bread roll (Weck), Bassd scho for passt schon. Franconians joke about it themselves: when spelling a word aloud they tell the letters apart as the hard B and the soft B, the hard D and the soft D. In the other direction, many speakers roll a tongue-tip r that standard German speakers notice at once.

The diminutive is -la in much of Franconia and -le in other parts: Weggla (bread roll), Seidla (a half-litre of beer), Schäuferla or Schäufele (roast pork shoulder), Bradwärschdla (little bratwursts). Short words shrink, ned for nicht and is for ist, and the apostrophe ’ marks what is dropped: Wie gehd’s?, ’s Seidla. The little word fei, shared with Bavarian, adds emphasis or a gentle warning: Des is fei gud! (that really is good), Des is fei hees! (careful, it’s hot).

Franconia is famous for understatement. Bassd scho, it’s fine, is said to be the highest praise a Franconian gives; Allmächd!, from allmächtig (almighty), is the all-purpose cry of surprise, especially in Nuremberg; gell? asks for agreement, and Servus, Grüß Gott and Ade do the greeting and the goodbye.

Franconian words for food, beer and wine

Most of the dialect’s best-known words are on the table. Nuremberg’s finger-sized grilled bratwursts 🌭 are eaten Drei im Weggla, three in a roll, or simmered in vinegar and onion as Blaue Zipfel. Sunday lunch is Schäufele 🍖, pork shoulder roasted until the crackling shatters, with Klöß 🥔, potato dumplings, and plenty of gravy. In the months with an r, from September to April, fried carp 🐟 from the ponds of the Aischgrund is a local pride, and before Christmas Nuremberg’s Lebkuchen 🍪 and its Christkindlesmarkt 🎄 draw visitors from all over the world.

Upper Franconia is often called the region with the most breweries per person in the world, and summer life happens on the Keller 🍻, the beer gardens over old cellars dug into the hills, where beer comes by the Seidla 🍺. Bamberg brews Rauchbier, smoked beer, and every village has its Kerwa 🎡 (Kirchweih), the church fair with music, rides and beer tents; Erlangen’s big one is simply called the Berch. Lower Franconia is wine country 🍇: Silvaner from the slopes along the Main comes in the flat, round-bellied Bocksbeutel bottle and is drunk by the Schoppen 🍷, in Würzburg often standing on the Old Main Bridge.

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

German 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+0132 „, Alt+0147 “, Alt+0146 ’ and Alt+0128 €.

On a Mac, Option+U and then the vowel gives ä ö ü, Option+S gives ß, Option+Shift+W gives „, Option+[ gives “ and Option+Shift+] gives ’. On phones, hold a, o, u or s and slide to ä, ö, ü or ß; the German keyboard on iOS and Android also turns straight quotes into „ “. In HTML the entities are ä ö ü ß „ “ ’ and €.

Where Franconian is spoken, and Franconian vs Bavarian

CLDR estimates about 5 million speakers of Main-Franconian, all in Germany 🇩🇪. Most live in the three Bavarian regions of Upper, Middle and Lower Franconia, which became part of Bavaria only in the Napoleonic era, and many Franconians are quick to say that they are not Bavarians. Their dialect is a different branch of German: Bavarian, with a collection of its own, lies to the south-east, Swabian to the south-west, Thuringian and Upper Saxon to the north, and the Hessian dialects to the west.

The name causes confusion. East Franconian belongs to Upper German, like Bavarian and Swabian, while Rhine Franconian (Hessian, Palatine) and Moselle Franconian, from which Luxembourgish grew, are Central German, and Low Franconian is the family of Dutch. All share the name of the medieval Franks, not one language. In writing, Franconian and Bavarian part quickly: Bavarian has Griaß di and Madl with its ia and oa, Franconian Grüß dich, Weggla and its soft consonants.

Money is written in euros, after the amount with a decimal comma: a Seidla für 4,20 €. There is no flag emoji for Franconia, ; Unicode’s only subdivision-flag sequences listed as recommended for general interchange are England, Scotland and Wales, so people send 🇩🇪 or the region’s colours ❤️🤍, red and white like the Franconian flag with its three-pointed Frankenrechen, the Franconian rake. 🏰 stands for Nuremberg’s Imperial Castle and Würzburg’s Marienberg Fortress, ⛪ for the cathedral of Bamberg, and ⚽ for 1. FC Nürnberg, known simply as der Club. For the rest of the country’s emoji, see the Germany collection; for standard spelling, the German one.