Wallisertitsch
Cantons: VS · Brig
The three branches
Branch: Highest Alemannic
The alpine valleys: Valais, Glarus, Uri and Unterwalden, the Walser settlements. The most conservative and the hardest for an outsider, because old forms survive here that vanished from the Mittelland long ago.
The line that draws it
- In this branch
- schniie
- Next door
- schneie
- Standard German
- schneien
What it sounds like
Programmes and films in which this dialect is mostly what you hear. Checked links — we record nothing ourselves.
- TschuggerSRFDialectWallisertitschA few voicesRead from a scriptStandard German subtitlesAbout this
Wallis German, which other Swiss people need subtitles for. A joke among Swiss people, and genuinely not where to start.
How to recognise them
Forms Heidi's own check actually tells apart. On the left the local form, on the right the Zurich one.
- appasöppis
- wiermir
- wiltwotsch
- HäärpfelHärdöpfel
- AacheAnke
- güetguet
Where this one sits
Computed from the branch, the cantons and the reference town — no new claims about the dialect itself.
Same branch
Sources
- Hotzenköcherle, Schläpfer, Trüb, Zinsli (eds.) 1997. Sprachatlas der deutschen Schweiz (SDS). Francke, Bern. Eight volumes, 1962–1997; over 1,500 maps from fieldwork carried out 1939–1958, covering the Alemannic dialects of Switzerland and the Walser dialects of northern Italy.
- Christen, Glaser & Friedli (eds.) 2010. Kleiner Sprachatlas der deutschen Schweiz. Huber, Frauenfeld. The condensed, general-readership edition of the SDS.
- Leemann, Steiner, Studerus, Oberholzer, Jeszenszky, Tomaschek & Kistler 2025. Dialäktatlas: 1950 bis heute. vdf, Zollikon. 1,000 speakers at 125 locations surveyed 2020–21, compared with the SDS.
- Hotzenköcherle, R. (ed. Bigler & Schläpfer) 1984. Die Sprachlandschaften der deutschen Schweiz. Sauerländer, Aarau.
- Bohnenberger, K. 1913. Die Mundart der deutschen Walliser im Heimattal und in den Aussenorten. Huber, Frauenfeld (Beiträge zur schweizerdeutschen Grammatik 6).