Swabian Alphabet & Letters

Swabian (Schwäbisch, often called Swabian German) is spoken mainly in central, eastern and southeastern Baden-Württemberg around Stuttgart, Tübingen, Reutlingen and Ulm, and in the Bavarian region of Swabia around Augsburg. It has never had an official spelling. Schools teach standard German, so when people write their dialect, in a text message, on a pub blackboard or in a book of dialect poems, 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. Its capital ẞ is rarely needed, because ß never starts a word.

Swabian has no letters of its own, and this page adds none. What makes a written line look Swabian is how the German letters are combined, and the fact that every writer spells by ear: the same word turns up as guat, guad or gut, and Spätzle as Spätzla or Schbätzle, depending on the town and the person holding the pen.

What makes Swabian look Swabian: -le, isch and the apostrophe

The most visible mark is the diminutive -le, where standard German uses -chen or -lein: Häusle (little house), Mädle (girl), Schätzle (darling), Spätzle (the egg noodles, often said to mean “little sparrows”), and even greetings, Grüßle and Adele. In many places the plural is -la: zwoi Mädla. The umlaut ä shows up constantly in these words, which is why Ä is the letter people associate with written Swabian.

Swabian also says an s before t and p as sch everywhere in a word, not only at the start as in German, and writers often spell it out: isch for ist, bisch for bist, Fescht for Fest, Wurscht for Wurst. The German ei often becomes oi: zwoi (two), hoim (home), Ha noi! (oh no, you don’t say). A final -n tends to vanish, so schaffen (to work) is schaffe or schaffa.

Then there is the apostrophe ’, which marks the sounds Swabian swallows: Wie goht’s? (how is it going), ’s Häusle (das Häusle), Heilig’s Blechle! (holy tin, a mild exclamation of surprise), g’schwätzt (talked). Many people just type the straight key ', but the curly ’ is the correct typographic apostrophe; both are in the grid.

Swabian words and phrases, from Grüß Gott to Kehrwoche

Grüß Gott is the everyday hello, Ade or the softer Adele the goodbye, and Liebe Grüßle ends a friendly email. Gell? asks for agreement (right?), Hajo means “well, yes, of course”, and schwätza is to talk, so I schwätz Schwäbisch is I speak Swabian. Schaffe means to work, not to create, and Schaffe, schaffe, Häusle baue (work, work, build a little house) is the half-mocking, half-proud motto of a region known for thrift and home ownership. A Bruddler is a grumbler, and a Muggaseggele, from Mugg, a fly, is the tiniest amount imaginable.

Kehrwoche, the sweeping week, is the rota by which tenants of a building take turns cleaning the stairs and the pavement; a little sign that passes from door to door says whose week it is, which is why 🧹 is a Swabian in-joke. The same broom hung over a winemaker’s door means something friendlier: a Besen, a seasonal tavern where the family serves its own wine for a few weeks of the year.

Food is what most of the world knows of Swabia. Maultaschen 🥟 are large pasta pockets filled with meat, spinach and bread, nicknamed Herrgottsbscheißerle (little God-cheaters) after the story that monks at Maulbronn hid meat inside the dough during Lent. Spätzle 🍝 are scraped from a board into boiling water and eaten as Käsespätzle with cheese and fried onions, or with lentils and sausages as Linsen mit Spätzle und Saitenwürstle. Swabian potato salad 🥔 is dressed with broth and vinegar, never mayonnaise, Zwiebelrostbraten 🧅 is roast beef under a heap of fried onions, the Swabian Brezel 🥨 has a fat belly and thin crisp arms, and in Württemberg wine 🍷 is drunk by the Viertele, a quarter-litre glass with a handle, often of the red Trollinger.

How to type Swabian 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 €. 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+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; on a German phone keyboard, holding the quote key usually offers „ “ as well. In HTML the entities are ä ö ü ß „ “ ’ and €.

Where Swabian is spoken, and Swabian vs Bavarian

CLDR estimates about 840,000 speakers of Swabian, all of them in Germany 🇩🇪; that is a rough estimate, and many more people in Württemberg speak a German with a clear Swabian colour. Swabian belongs to the Alemannic family, together with Swiss German and Alsatian, and is its northernmost branch. Its neighbours are Bavarian to the east, the traditional border running along the river Lech by Augsburg, the Franconian dialects to the north, and the Alemannic of Baden and Switzerland to the south-west. People from Baden are not Swabians, and most will tell you so.

Swabian and Bavarian sound alike to outsiders but differ at once in writing: Swabian isch where Bavarian has is, the diminutive Häusle and Mädle against Bavarian Häusl and Madl; Swabian varieties also have regional diphthongs such as oa and ia. The Danube Swabians, Germans who settled in Hungary, the Banat and the Bačka in the 18th century, came from several regions in Central and Southern Germany and Austria, with some settlers from Low German areas; their local dialects varied from place to place. See also the German, Bavarian and Swiss German collections.

Money is written in euros, after the amount with a decimal comma: a Viertele für 4,50 €. There is no flag emoji for Swabia or for Baden-Württemberg, because Unicode recommends flags for only three regions, England, Scotland and Wales, so people send 🇩🇪 or the things the region is known for: 🦁 for the three black lions of the old Duchy of Swabia, still on the Baden-Württemberg coat of arms, ⛰️ for the Swabian Alb (the Swabian Jura), 🏰 for Hohenzollern and Lichtenstein castles, ⛪ for Ulm Minster, and 🚗 for Stuttgart, home of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, where a car is still sometimes just called a Daimler. For the rest of the country’s emoji, see the Germany collection.