One of the most fascinating things about living in Mainz is the dialect. It is very entertaining to listen to and in in day to day communication it is difficult not to burst out laughing. For example, one time I was alone in the caretakers' office when suddenly a rather roughly clothed and dirty looking man comes through the door without knocking and asks, "Hasst du de Schlüssel für de Pfoste so dass isch i'ren komme kann?" (en as in Provence), "Wie bitte?". After asking for the third time I found out that the man was asking if I had the keys to lift out the post so they could drive into the pedestrian area.
Another time, Petra from housekeeping burst into the office door yelling angrily, "Könnt ihr jetzt endlisch de Kannsche zu schraube?! Uff de Domstras schreck isch de Tode zum lebe!" ("Will you screw the wagon together?! On the Dome Street I scare the dead to life!"). To make matters worse, I was with Herr Krizowski who is Polish and had no clue what she meant either. We ended up writing a note that the Kännchen has to be fixed but we found out we were wrong when Herr Krause saw it and laughed.
In one of the first few weeks at the job, we wanted to report a leak from a drainage pipe above a door in the basement of the Erbacher Hof annex, Haus am Dom. We brought the caretaker responsible for buildings owned by the 'Bischöfliches Ordinariat' or 'Episcopal Ordinariate' in English. He then reported the leak to the the man he knows from the plumbing company through this description, "unne im Flur läuft obbe de Brüh ras" ("Beneath in the hall, above the door, the brew is coming out")
And these are just a fraction of my daily experiences. At home my grandparents speak the same way! They have introduced me to expressions such as, "Goggelores" which means joy, or "Gaudi" which means fun. I was also corrected to saying 'Kreppel' instead of 'Berliner' to a dougnut-like pastry filled with jam. On a Sunday, the day after I went out in town, my grandmother asked me, "und, habt ihr pa Biersche gemacht?" ("so did you have some beers?"). I responded, "Wie meinst du Papier??" ("How do you mean paper?"). This has become just as famously funny as the "Eatse Taya" - the German pronounciation of 'Ice Tea'.
What I've discoverd about German dialects is that all of them seem to be avoiding the sound "ch". The best example is the word, "ich", or I in English. In Mainz they say "isch" (ish), in Berlin they say "ick" and in Bayern they skip it all together and just say "i" (Ee). Most people don't say "nicht(s)" for nothing, preferring to say "nitt" or "nix".
The great thing is that the people know how funny the dialect can be and make fun of themselves for it. For example my boss once said, "my German is as good as my English" - he doesn't speak English. There are also many jokes about misunderstandings between people because of the dialect. Yet the dialect creates an astounding sense of identification among people. Although the dialect that my grandparents speak is generalized as "Menzerisch", and to the untrained ear can even be understood as being from Frankfurt, they speak differently from the next village, not even 5km away. For example, Petra said, "Domstras" but my grandparents would have said, "Domstros". Likewise, they call the Straßenbahn, "die Strosbahn" and call their street, "die Poststros".
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