Ian Farrell explores the origins and development of Berlinerisch…

Moving to Berlin is a big step in anyone’s life. No matter where you’ve lived before – Paris, Rio, Stockton-on-Tees – Germany’s capital is guaranteed to be a new experience for you. Every day holds a new discovery: a future favourite bar or café, stumbling upon a spontaneous live concert or dance performance, or simply making friends with some of the many colourful folk on the streets of your adopted home.

If you want to make the most of this life-changing decision, you’re going to want to learn the language. Maybe you studied German at university in your home country. Maybe you’re planning on doing a crash course when you get here. Maybe you are German (or Austrian, or Swiss, or another native speaker of Deutsch).

Either way, you’ll settle into it sooner or later. The grammar might be a bit tricky for beginners, but after a month or two you’ll probably be able to hold down a half-decent conversation, and this multi-kulti metropolis is generally pretty tolerant of your mistakes.

At some point, you’ll stumble across one of those elusive creatures: a born-and-bred Urberliner. Maybe someone will come round to read your meter, or install a new boiler, or perhaps you’ll make the mistake of trying to strike up a conversation with your bus driver when buying a ticket. You greet them with confidence, the opening gambit you prepared in your head tripping relatively smoothly off your tongue.

You prick up your ears for the response…but wait, what was that?! Was it even German? It sounded like something between a grunt and a mutter, far too fast for you to understand, and now they seem to be laughing and/or scowling at you! Did you say something wrong? You are very, very confused. Welcome to the world of Berlinerisch.

Image © Paul Sullivan

What is Berlinerisch?

“Berlinisch ist eine Art von Nuscheln mit eigenartiger Intonation, wobei der Hörer das Gesprochene kaum versteht” / “Berlinerisch is a type of mumbling with a peculiar intonation whereby the listener barely understands what is being said“ – Helmut Schönfeld, Berlinisch Heute

Contrary to what some natives would have you believe, Berlinerisch, or Berlinisch, is not a language in its own right. It would be easy to mistake it for an accent or dialect, but it is in fact neither. An accent would simply involve pronouncing some words differently to standard German (Hochdeutsch). A dialect would do the same, but also include new words of its own and maybe the odd tweak to the accepted grammar rules. Berlinerisch does all these things – but there’s more to it than that.

Strictly speaking, Berlinerisch is a metrolect – a mixture of different dialects all piled together in one big urban area, usually a result of long-term immigration into a city from both elsewhere in the country and further afield. There is no one ‘standard’ form of Berlinerisch; everybody speaks it differently.

Origins Of Berlinerisch

So how exactly did this fascinating group of dialects come about? As with so many aspects of Berlin’s culture, the answer lies in the city’s mottled history.

In the early stages of its existence, Berlin’s local lingo was defined by its trade links. In the 15th Century, as a member of the Hanseatic League that traded across northern Europe, the city adopted the Low German dialect used by its business partners.

But as the towns of Berlin and Cölln began to grow through the influence of the Hanseatic League and the Holy Roman Empire, their populations were boosted by a high influx of outsiders.

Flemish settlers brought their own language, which was closely related to the local way of speaking, while merchants from Saxon cities such as Meißen added the slightly different East Central German dialect. Others also came from further afield, adding their own linguistic flourishes. This mixture of tongues quickly melded together into a mutually intelligible metrolect – the basis for modern Berlinerisch.

However, these were hardly the last peoples to immigrate to Berlin – nor even the first. The name Berlin itself comes from the Slavic tribes who set up shop in this area as far back as the sixth and seventh centuries (it literally means ‘swamp’, in reference to the natural landscape they found on arriving here). They also named many of the surrounding areas – Treptow, Teltow – and some of their terms hung around long enough to find their way into the common slang when the area was finally urbanised over a millennium later. The popular Berlin term Kiez, for example, was a Slavic word for ‘settlement’, often used to describe small fishing communities — Berlin-Köpenick being one local example.

Later contributors to Berlinerisch included Jewish people from Eastern Europe, whose Yiddish phrase for a strong wind, hech suha, got mangled into the endearing Berlin complaint ‘Det zieht wie Hechtsuppe’ (literally ‘There’s a draught like a pike soup in here!’). However, perhaps the most surprising influence on the way Berlin natives speak today is that most sophisticated of tongues, French.

Much like with English today, it was very fashionable for Germans in the late 17th Century to throw French words into conversation in order to seem educated. The trend increased in Berlin when The Great Elector and Duke of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm, offered sanctuary to 20,000 Huguenots who had been hounded out of their homeland by the Catholics.

These well-educated religious refugees thrived in Protestant Brandenburg, comprising up to a fifth of the capital’s population and integrating well with the upper classes. Soon, French had become the official language of the royal court, and the Academy of Arts was instructed to put on all its performances in French, with Berlinerisch now seen as somewhat vulgar by those in charge.

Those not in charge, however, barely batted an eyelid, simply taking the words being spoken around them and using them to add a little French élan to their linguistic hotpot. A Frikadelle became a Boulette, and the typical Berliner on the street took to ordering them ‘aus der Lameng’ (à la main) when they were eating on the go. (A little further down the line, the same phrase became common parlance for the act of proposing an idea off the top of one’s head).

This trend continued through Napoleon’s invasion in 1806, a period which gave birth to the popular urban myth that the Berliner phrase ‘mach doch keine Fisimatenten’ (don’t make such a fuss/stop giving me excuses) came from French soldiers propositioning impressionable young German ladies with the words ‘visite(z) ma tente’ (‘come back to my tent’). Unfortunately, fuddy-duddy linguists no longer belive this to be true. The overall influence of French on Berlinerisch, however, remains undisputed.

The Berlinerisch Wall

Heinrich Zille: Konsum-Genossenschaft, 1924 Bildtext: „Frida – wenn Deine Mutter ooch in’s ‚Konsum‘ koofte wärste schon lange een kräftiges Kind – sag’s ihr!“

When the industrial revolution hit Germany, Berlinerisch was already well-established among the local workforce, especially in the areas we now know as Mitte and Kreuzberg, the centre of the Berlin at the time. As the city’s population boomed, so did Berlinerisch. What had once been confined to the heartland of the Prussian empire now spread rapidly to surrounding Brandenburg, gradually pushing out the East Low German previously spoken there.

For several decades, Berlinerisch thrived, remaining the go-to lingo of the average German on the S-Bahn. It survived two world wars in relatively good shape, but the uneasy peace that followed was a different story. The city’s two regimes had differing ideological attitudes to Berlinerisch from the start, but it wasn’t until the Wall put an end to populations from both sides mingling together that the signs really began to show.

As money poured into West Berlin in an effort to rebuild and establish a capitalist economy, competition for jobs led to people dropping their accents in order to seem better educated. At the same time, there were people moving into the city from elsewhere in the Federal Republic for a myriad of reasons: work, sympathies for the East German regime or simply to avoid conscription (as an occupied territory, West Berlin had no German army presence). Berlinerisch began once more to be seen as vulgar and lower-class, an attitude that was only strengthened by West Berlin’s isolation from its more provincial surroundings.

The GDR, on the other hand, with its emphasis on hard work and equal social standing for all, provided the perfect environment for a working-class way of speaking. Berlinerisch was used not just informally, but also in many public situations. Indeed, it was often seen as impolite or pretentious to speak standard Hochdeutsch. Speaking Berlinerisch was a sign of solidarity; it showed you were one of the normal, everyday Volk. The rude health of the dialect was also maintained by direct and constant contact with East Germans from smaller towns and villages around Brandenburg, who rarely had any reason to posh up their accents for anyone else.

However, the changes were not all black and white. Despite the slow decline in its status in the West, it was during this era that Berlinerisch began to gain more national recognition due to an increase in exposure on West German television. Likewise, covering up one’s dialect could still be advantageous in the GDR. My friend Ralph, who has lived in Brandenburg and Berlin all his life, took this decision at quite a young age in order to help his career.

‘In the business world, even in East Germany you would often be taken more seriously if you spoke Hochdeutsch,’ he explains. ‘But it depended who you wanted to impress. I once attended a meeting for the introduction of our new boss, and he made a point of coming up to me afterwards and asking in his best Berlin accent which area I was from. There were a lot of old Berliners on the board, so he knew it was a way of gaining acceptance – though he could obviously speak Hochdeutsch as well.’

Nevertheless, it’s safe to say that Berlinerisch enjoyed a higher status in the East than the West, and these differences quickly became evident once the wall fell. As citizens from the two halves of the city began once more to mix in the workplace and on the street, the differences in accents served to reinforce the stereotypes that had arisen due to changes in attitude during Berlin’s decades as a divided city. Easterners still considered their dialect a strong part of their identity, and thought the Westerners snobbish for suddenly acting as if they were somehow above using it. Likewise, those from the old West thought their Eastern counterparts came across as uneducated.

In the end though, it was the old Ossis who had to adapt to the Western way of life, and it wasn’t long before attitudes began to change accordingly. Parents and teachers quickly became aware of the advantages of Hochdeutsch in a competitive, capitalist workplace and began passing these values onto the next generation. A study conducted by the Humboldt University in 1998 revealed that Abitur students about to graduate from school at the time had retained an affinity for Berlinerisch, but younger students with little or no experience of the GDR had already learned to prioritise Hochdeutsch in everyday interactions.

Contemporary Berlinerisch

Yet more UrBerliners. Image by Paul Sullivan.

Image © Paul Sullivan

These days it may take a while before you truly encounter Berlinerisch, even if you live here. Berlin is now more cosmopolitan than ever before, boasting residents of varying permanency from elsewhere in Germany and all around the world. Sometimes it can feel like there are hardly any Urberliners here to speak Berlinerisch with. But the sandpaper tongue and acerbic wit can still be experienced, especially in the less-touristed areas of the city

Berlinerisch may have taken a back seat to Hochdeutsch when it comes to academic and professional interactions, but it remains a popular form of expression among the younger generation, especially those from the old East. My former flatmate, Annika, grew up ‘janz weit draußen’ (an affectionate Berlin term for ‘out in the sticks’, i.e. Brandenburg) and has spoken Berlinerisch all her life.

‘I can’t speak any other way,’ she told me over a Schnitzel a few weeks ago. ‘I Berlinered at home, and so did most of the kids I grew up with. There were some schools in the East that drilled Hochdeutsch into the children, but not mine.’

However, she acknowledges that it is no longer possible to simply address people in Berlinerisch and assume they will understand. ‘A few weeks ago, my Granddad came to visit and we went out for lunch. He asked the waitress for ‘ne Knacker und ‘ne Molle (a Wurst and a Bier), and she just stared at him and said Wie bitte? — she was probably from out of town.’

Berlinerisch also retains a cult status in literature and media on both a local and national level. Berlin superstar band Die Ärzte often sing in the local dialect, while Kurt Krömer, a comedian who grew up in Neukölln and has had several popular shows on national television, has built a large part of his act on his local roots and way of speaking. Indeed, comedy seems to be a natural outlet for the love of the Berlin way of speaking, and the dialect can often be heard on the city’s Lesebühnen and stand-up circuit.

One of my own first encounters with it was at the Rakete 2000 prose evening, where local writer Ahne performed several scenes from his irreverent book and radio show Zwiegespräche mit Gott (“Conversations with God”) in which the Almighty is the author’s neighbour and the two engage in the kind of mind-bending, back-and-forth jostling that only true Berliners can deliver.

When he heard I was writing this article, Annika’s boyfriend, Matze, who grew up a stone’s throw from the grand old DDR cinema Kino International on Karl-Marx-Allee, presented me with a volume of Didi und Stulle, a light-hearted comic strip about two slightly chavvy pigs who get into scrapes while bickering in exaggerated Berlinerisch.

Full of running gags, occasionally puerile humour and – somewhat bizarrely – quotes from Nietzsche, it manages to both poke fun at and evoke pride in the capital’s inhabitants and their brusque mannerisms.

Berliner Schnauze

Another UrBerliner. Image by Paul Sullivan

Image © Paul Sullivan

Die Berliner sind unfreundlich und rücksichtslos, ruppig und rechthaberisch, Berlin ist abstoßend, laut, dreckig und grau, Baustellen und verstopfte Straßen wo man geht und steht – aber mir tun alle Menschen leid, die nicht hier leben können! / “Berliners are unfriendly and inconsiderate, gruff and self-opinionated. Berlin is repugnant, loud, filthy and grey; there are building sites and traffic jams wherever you walk or stand – yet I feel sorry for anyone who cannot live here!”) – Anneliese Bödecker

Despite the variety of different approaches to speaking Berlinerisch, there is one thing all Urberliners have in common — the legendary Berliner Schnauze or Berlin lip. Literally translated as ‘Berlin snout’ (which conjures up great imagery of yapping, aggressive dogs), this combination of a snappy attitude, dry wit and downright rudeness is often the main reason non-natives are left dazed on that first encounter with the local lingo.

As with many accents and dialects, Berlinerisch acts for many as an expression of identity; of pride in their origins and background, and the values they consider intrinsic to them. Speaking a dialect can gain you acceptance among your peers, like a membership to an exclusive club. With Berlinerisch, however, this means more than simply saying the right words; you also have to say them with the right feeling.

Your typical Berliner is down-to earth, direct and quick-witted. They don’t take offence easily, and don’t expect others to, either — in fact, the common stereotype of the rude German us foreigners bang on about is, in my experience, not too far from the impression much of the rest of Germany has of Berliners. In order to be accepted here, you need to be as sharp as a razor and always have a comeback ready if someone snaps at you. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be that inventive; it’s more about showing you can play the game and give as good as you get. Like a kind of advanced, dialect-based banter.

Like the attitude, Berlinerisch is snappy. It is spoken quickly and many of the words are spat out half-chewed, with letters missing at the beginning, end or both. This is part of what makes it so difficult to follow. But with some basic guidelines it can be quite fun to pick up yourself, and mastering just a few simple(ish) phrases will increase your feeling of belonging in the city ten times over. So put on your best Schnauze and get ready to forget everything you thought you knew about speaking German…

The Sounds of Berlin(erisch)

There may be a lot of colourful words and phrases that are only used in Berlin, but the first step towards mastering Berlinerisch is making the right sounds when using “normal” German terminology. The table below gives a rough guideline of how letters and sounds in Hochdeutsch compare to their Berlinerisch equivalent. And if you’re still struggling with standard German, don’t worry – a lot of these changes actually make the words easier to pronounce.

Hochdeutsch	Berlinerisch	Examples
ch, some “hard” g sounds	ck	ich > ick/icke; gucken > kieken
ei (like “eye” in English)	ee (like “ey” in English)	weiß > weeß; klein > kleen
au (like “ow” in English)	oo (as in Hochdeutsch “Ofen”)	auch > ooch; Augen > Oogen
Most g sounds (start of words)	j (like English y)	ganz gut > janz jut; groß > jroß
Most g sounds (end/middle of words)	like a Hochdeutsch “ch”	wichtig > wichtich; gesagt > jesacht
s	t	was > wat; das > dat (or dit/det)
Word endings (usually for emphasis)	+e	ick > icke; jetzt > jetze; Bank > Banke; dit/det > dette
“e” and “er” endings	a	Alter > Alta; Mutter > Mutta

*Note: These changes don’t apply in all cases, but keeping them in mind will give you a good general handle on the pronunciation.

There’s also one other general rule that will improve the authenticity of your Schnauze: mumbling is good! This means a lot of words end up missing letters (“eine” becomes “‘ne”; mal becomes “ma’”) and vowels become less pronounced (which probably explains why “das” often beomes “det” or “dit”, instead of “dat”).

Vocabulary

Now you’ve got some of the basic pronunciation sorted, it’s time to learn some typical Berliner words and phrases. Some of these are more common than others, and some have been added more to illustrate the amazing creativity that goes into the way Berliners speak. You don’t need to learn them all by heart – just throwing a few into conversation now and then will give your German that touch of extra local grit.

Berlinerisch	Hochdeutsch	English
die Schrippe	das Brötchen	the bread roll
die Stulle	eine Scheibe Brot	the sandwich (often open)
Dit weeß ick nich	Das weiß ich nicht	I don’t know (that)
Sag ma’, haste ‘ne Uhr?	Entschuldigung, wissen Sie, wie spät es ist?	Excuse me, could you tell me the time please?
Sie ick ut wie ‘ne Litfaßsäule?	Nein, es tut mir Leid (in response to the previous question)	Do I look like a tourist infromation point to you? (Or “Sorry, I’m afraid not”)
plärren	weinen	to cry
’Nen Knacker und ‘ne Molle, bidde	Eine Wurst und ein Bier, bitte	A sausage and a beer, please
Ick jloobe du spinnst, Alta	Ich glaube, du bist verrückt, mein Freund	You must be crazy, mate
wa? (e.g. Haste nüscht alle Tassen im Schrank, wa?)	like “oder”, only more versatile – add to the end of any sentence (esp. questions) for that extra dash of Berliner sass!	e.g. “Wow, you really are one sandwich short of a picninc, aren’t you?”
der Schrippenarchitekt	der Bäcker	the Baker (lit. “bread architect”)
die Fresse	das Gesicht	the face
der Glatzenschneider	der Frisör	the hairdresser (bald-patch-trimmer)
Boah, meine Fresse eh!	Ach du, meine Güte!	Oh my goodness!/Blow me down! (warning: slightly vulgar!)
Dit is’ mir wurscht	Das ist mir egal	I don’t care about that (Lit. “That’s a sausage to me”)
Wat für’n Ding?	Wie bitte?	A what now?/Sorry, what was that?
Dit kann do’ wo’ nich’ wa’ sein!	Dit kann ja woll nich’ wah sein!	You’ve got to be kidding me!
Alta Schweda!	Meine Güte!	Blimey! (lit. “Old Swede!”)
Ran an die Buletten!	Los geht’s!	Let’s go! (lit. “Go for the Bulette!”)
Dir ham se wohl mit de Banane aus’m Urwald jelockt	Bist du bescheuert?	They must have lured you out of the jungle with a banana (good to say when someone’s being a bit daft)
Det Kind wer’n wa schon schaukeln	Keine Sorge, das kriegen wir hin	No worries, we’ll take care of that (Lit. “We’ll swing that kid”)
Ick mach‘ dir gleich Beene!	Na komm, los!	Hurry up! (“I’ll give you legs in a minute!”)
Ick gloob’, meen Schwein pfeift	Das kann ich kaum fassen	I don’t believe it! (Lit. “I think my pig’s whistling!“)
Graf Koks	Angeber	Show-off (Lit. “The Duke of Cocaine”)
Ick bin schon wieder in der Bredullje! (from French Bredouille)	Ich bin schon wieder in Schwierigkeiten!	I’m in a pickle again!
Hab ick von Bockwurscht jeredet, det du deenen Senf dazu jibst?	Wer hat denn nach deiner Meinung gefragt?	Who asked you? (lit. “Was I talking about a sausage that needed your mustard adding to it?”)
Is deen Vadder Vorsteha in ner Glaserei, oder warum stehsde mir im Weje?	Entschuldigung, darf ich mal durch?	Excuse me, could I get through please (or “Does your father run a glass factory, or is there some other reason you’re standing in my way?”)
Sei doch nicht so etepete!	Tu doch nicht so Schüchtern!	Don’t be shy!/Don’t hold back! (etepete = être peut-être in French, to um and er/lit. “to be perhaps”)

So there you go. You can now go back out onto the streets of Berlin armed with your own stock of cutting jibes and comebacks, and ready (with a little practice) to understand just what the locals are saying to you. Feel like testing your newfound knowledge? Then see how much of these examples you can follow:

Ick sitz’ am Tisch und esse Klops,
uff eenmal klopp’s.
Ick kieke, staune, WUNDRE mir,
uff eenmal jeht se uff, de Tier!
„Nanu!“, denk’ ick, ick denk’: „Nanu?
Jetz isse uff, erst war se zu?!“
Ick jehe raus und kieke
und wer steht draußen? … Icke.

– Traditional Berlin nonsense rhyme

Du denkst, Du bist die Allerschürfste für mich,
biste aba nich. Ick fin Dir widerlich.
Du denkst, Dir findet wirklich jeder hier geil,
is aber nich so, janz im Jejenteil.
Du kommst hier reien als jehört Dir die Welt,
als wär jeder Tisch nur für Dir bestellt.
Du glotzt ma an, hau ab, Du machst mir noch krank.
Du willst all’n jefallen. Du hast nich mehr alle Tassen im Schrank.
Du nervst, Du nervst.
Ick würd Dir so jern eine hauen.
Du bist völlich behämmert.
Du hast nich mehr alle Latten am Zauen.
Is doch wahr …
Du denkst, Du bist die Allerschürfste für mich,
biste aba nich. Ick fin dir widerlich.
Du denkst, Du bist wirklich unwiderstehlich,
biste aba ebend jerade nich