I mean, not really.
For example, you walk into a swabian grocerie store and say: "Oi Oe, bidde."
What happens? Immediately, everybody in this store stares at you. And somebody says: " Sia send abr et fo hir! "What was wrong?
You have been living in Swabia for more than 30 years. Everybody around you spoke Swabian. It was the language that you have heard since you were a child. Your dreams are in Swabian. And suddenly, somebody says: " Sia send abr et fo hir! "
Well, this is swabian reality: you have to be born in Swabia to know how to pronounce: "Oi Oe, bidde" .
I started with the idea of this dictionary in summer 1995. At that time, I was working in a small Architectural studio in Strümpfelbach in the Remstal. The architect's neighbor and friend Herbert Anger often came around and started telling some stories in his great swabian dialect. By accident, I found a notice about Otto Hietsch's "Bavarian into English" in a newspaper. I thought that it would be great to have something similar about Swabian. And why not as a interactive dictionary in the internet? Until Summer 1999, more than 240.000 hits on this site and more than 800 fan-mails have proved, that this idea wasn't too bad...
I know, my English is poor, but I'm a bloody eater of Spätzle and, that's an old one, the average Swabian don't speak or understand anything except Swabian. So, if you have any questions, suggestions or bug reports, please use an English language as classical as possible. Odr kennet Sia au Daitsch schwätze?
If you want to see further web-sites by the same author, check www.tightrope.de, www.workshop-archiv.de, www.tightrope.de/hausband, www.sep-ruf.de, www.architektenwerk.de, www.apfelwerk.de, www.abas-stuttgart.de, www.schauggarchitekten.de, www.paarberatung-onlinde.de, berufskollegs-recklinghausen.de or fotostyling & dekoration stuttgart
Thomas Kemmer, September 2005