Züridütsch
Cantons: ZH · Zürich
This is the one you learn here
The three branches
Branch: High Alemannic
The Mittelland and the east: Zurich, Bern, Aargau, Solothurn, St. Gallen. The largest group — and the one people mean when they say “Swiss German”.
The line that draws it
- In this branch
- schneie
- Next door
- schniie
- 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.
- TeleZüriCH MediaDialectZüridütschA few voicesSpoken on the spotMachine subtitles
- Radio 24Radio 24DialectZüridütschA few voicesSpoken on the spot
- Radio 1Radio 1DialectZüridütschA few voicesSpoken on the spot
- Stadt ZürichStadt ZürichBothZüridütschA few voicesRead from a scriptMachine subtitles
- Die SchweizermacherRex-FilmDialectZüridütschA few voicesRead from a scriptStandard German subtitlesAbout this
Zurich German from 1978 and still the film about becoming Swiss. The accent has moved since, which is itself worth hearing.
- ZwingliC-FilmsDialectZüridütschA few voicesRead from a scriptStandard German subtitlesAbout this
Zurich's own reformation, in Zurich German. One of the few feature films in the variety this deployment actually teaches.
- DialectZüridütschA few voicesRead from a scriptStandard German subtitlesAbout this
Zurich German with Yiddish beside it — a second lesson, about how close two languages can sit and still be two.
- PlatzspitzbabyZodiac PicturesDialectZüridütschA few voicesRead from a scriptStandard German subtitlesAbout this
Zurich German, the city's heroin years seen by a child. A hard subject and unusually clear speech.
How to recognise them
Heidi cannot yet recognise this dialect by specific forms. Nothing here, rather than something plausible.
Start with Innerschwyzertütsch instead, 40 km away — Heidi knows forms from there →
Where this one sits
Computed from the branch, the cantons and the reference town — no new claims about the dialect itself.
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.
- Weber, A. 1987. Zürichdeutsche Grammatik. Rohr, Zürich (3rd ed.; first 1948). Grammatiken und Wörterbücher des Schweizerdeutschen 1.
- Gallmann, H. 2010. Zürichdeutsches Wörterbuch. NZZ Libro, Zürich (2nd ed.). Grammatiken und Wörterbücher des Schweizerdeutschen 3.
- Fleischer, J. & Schmid, S. 2006. Zurich German. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36(2): 243–253.
- Leemann, Kolly, Purves, Britain & Glaser 2016. Crowdsourcing language change with smartphone applications. PLOS ONE 11(1): e0143060.