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I realize this question sounds a bit subjective but in the English-speaking world I feel pretty confident that most people would agree on Glasgow and Northern Ireland area accents being the most in need of subtitles in other parts of the Anglosphere.

My German is quite rudimentary but I've been able to follow the gist of the conversations pretty much everywhere I've visited in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Yet during a long evening in Oberwallis I couldn't even guess what a single word was. I felt all the endings were foreign and couldn't relate its sounds to the sounds of "normal" German at all.

So is Walliserdeutsch for German speakers the equivalent of Glasgow/Belfast for English speakers?

hippietrail
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    Schwyzerdütsch is a compleatly different language, generally German do not understand it. – burbuja Jun 02 '11 at 14:03
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    I think Geordie is the most difficult, and also this question is subjective. – z7sg Ѫ Jun 02 '11 at 14:50
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    This is very subjective, and unlikely to get one correct answer. I know Swabian dialects that will make your toes curl and your hair turn grey. Most regions have extreme dialect variations that are close to impossible to understand for foreigners and Germans alike. – Pekka Jun 02 '11 at 17:34
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    As an example of Walliserdeutsch, try to read this http://www.walser-alps.eu/mundart/mundartproben/mundartprobe-ried-brig-wallis without cheating by reading the German text. :-) Or what about a simple example: "Gä-wer amu da umbrüf!" -- "Let's go up there"... – Pierre Arnaud Jul 15 '11 at 17:12
  • @burbuja: If German and Swiss German are completely different then the difference between for instance German and Arabic must be completer (-: – hippietrail Jul 16 '11 at 07:51
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    You might like to know that once I (native German) mistook guys speaking Schwyzerdütsch for Scots. So maybe it is equivalent somehow. – Zane Jun 03 '14 at 13:52

6 Answers6

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I am a native Zurich Swiss German speaker and I cannot understand Walliserdeutsch easily, either. It took me three days to get used to it when I visited the area.

RegDwight
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raoulsson
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    That is my experience as well: Even native Swiss German speakers can have a very hard time understanding Walliser German. For other German speakers who’d have a very hard time understanding Swiss German, I expect it would be twice as difficult. – mach Jun 16 '19 at 08:54
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Most German dialects have weakened over time and much is being mixed from other regions, and from Hochdeutsch. If however (mostly in rural areas) the dialect is well preserved then even native Germans from another region will be unable to understand it.

This can even be the case in regions very close. I grew up in such a region where I could hardly understand people's dialect from a village only 15 km away from my home town.

So I would answer the question with no, Walliserdeutsch is not harder to understand as other dialects.

Takkat
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Wallis is in Switzerland and in my opinion most of the Swiss dialects are very hard to understand for Germans. I have made similar experiences to you. When Swiss people are having a conversation in their native dialect I don't understand any word. So to answer your question: yes, I'd say that Swiss dialects are considered the most difficult to understand for Germans.

Deve
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  • That's interesting. I did OK with all the other Swiss dialects I came across in Bern, Basil, and St Galen. Not full comprehension but not noticably worse than in Germany, and that was overhearing two locals - not people simplifying for my sake (I did even better at those times). – hippietrail Jun 02 '11 at 14:13
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    @hippietrail: are you sure you really heard Swiss dialects and not just Swiss accent on Standarddeutsch? – ladybug Jun 08 '11 at 11:02
  • Well they always acted surprised that I picked up on anything but peoples' reactions here are now making me more doubtful. I stayed with the family for about a week and a half so it seems odd that they would speak Standarddeutsch with each other just because I was there. But it is over ten years ago so I have to agree that I can't be certain. How easy is it to spend this much time in Switzerland and only once hear local dialect? – hippietrail Jun 08 '11 at 23:22
  • I'd say that other dialects such as those from Uri, Bern, and the very rural and Alpine regions tend to use quite different words and expressions, just like Wallisertütsch, which are difficult to understand too for other Swiss Germans. – Pierre Arnaud Jul 15 '11 at 17:12
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In my opinion this question cannot be answered conclusively. If a specific German dialect is understood depends on which people you're asking.

For example, somebody from Northern Germany will struggle understanding people speaking Walliserdeutsch, but they'll understand Plattdeutsch(*) for example, while people from Western Austria have a hard time when listening to Northern Germany's dialects, but understand Wallisdeutsch quite well.

(*) I know it's not a dialect, but Schwyzerdeutsch isn't either.

PS: German Wikipedia has a nice article and map about German dialects.

splattne
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I think the hardest dialects are the ones that are considered to be separate languages:

  • Plattdeutsch
  • Schwyzerdütsch
  • Lëtzebuergesch

If raoulsson says, even as a Swiss he can't understand Walliserdeutsch, it is possible that this is the "hardest" one. However, there is no general agreement on that. I don't even know how Walliserdeutsch sounds, for example. ;)

Another candidate for a hard dialect is heavy Bavarian, but as the others have already pointed out, it really depends from where you start.

ladybug
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3

Frisian can be similar hard to understand for Germans as the Swiss dialects.

bernd_k
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    I thought Frisian was either a separate language or a dialect of Dutch. Or are there more than one variety of speech called Frisian? – hippietrail Jun 02 '11 at 14:25
  • I guess the question if Dutch is separate language or a German dialect is more a political than a linguistic one. I think German and Dutch are similar close as Spain and Portuguese. Officially all are considered different languages from each other. – bernd_k Jun 02 '11 at 14:41
  • I'd rather say (hopefully not offending too many people on the way) that Dutch is kind of a cross (Mittelding) between German and English. – Hendrik Vogt Jun 08 '11 at 11:26
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    Eeek, I would say that Dutch is a different language... – Glen Wheeler Jun 21 '11 at 09:39
  • @Hendrik Vogt: I think Dutch developed before English so I can't see how it could be the product of English and German crossing. – hippietrail Jul 16 '11 at 07:55
  • @hippie: I didn't mean it's a product of a crossing, i.e, I didn't mean to imply any chronolocical order. But there surely is a dialect continuum between Dutch and German, and I got the impression that English people from the dover area have a kind of dialect that may make you think they're Dutch. – Hendrik Vogt Jul 16 '11 at 08:21
  • @Hendrik: Ah perhaps "cross" was a bad choice of words. There certainly is a dialect continuum between German and Dutch and Frisian but there isn't anything like a dialect continuum between English and Dutch or Frisian but I'm yet to do a linguistic tour of rural England or Netherlands to listen to the dialects and accents change. It would be fun though (-: – hippietrail Jul 16 '11 at 08:29
  • @hippie: Yeah, I knew that "cross" was bad, but didn't know a better word. I know that there's no continuum between English and Dutch, but I did have a student from Dover whom I mistook for a Dutch guy speaking English, and I should point out that I know quite well how Dutch people speak English. – Hendrik Vogt Jul 16 '11 at 08:33
  • The Frisian languages are linguistically not considered German dialects, though they are West Germanic languages. They are kind of in-between German and English. Dutch is more similar to Lower German, but still considered as a separate language. A a native German I'd say I understand more of written Dutch than of written Frisian. – idspispopd Jun 17 '19 at 08:44