Does Oktoberfest have its own language?
All over the place I’ve been hearing references to Bayerisch (the Bavarian language) in connection to Oktoberfest. The official website has an English-Bayerisch dictionary. A friend gave me an Oktoberfest song book* which also includes a Bayerisch phrase guide (and an interview with Roberto Blanco, of all people. WTF? All I know is that if he’s performing at Oktoberfest, I am so there.) Advertisements seem to be tossing in a Bayerisch phrase or two all over the city.
This confuses me a bit (“this” meaning the whole Bayerisch thing, although the Roberto Blanco thing also has me a little baffled). First of all, despite warnings to the contrary from non-Bavarian Germans, Bayerisch is not the default language in Munich. German is. People don’t speak Bayerisch at me,** and they don’t speak it around me. In my eight months here, I have heard very little Bayerisch, and trust me, I do a lot of eavesdropping. You want to see a city where people speak dialect instead of a real language? Go try Zurich, because Munich is pretty solidly a convert to the Hochdeutsch camp. I hear more English and Italian here than I do Bayerisch. Secondly, rumor has it that Oktoberfest is sooooo commercial and so very overrun with tourists that the locals, for the most part, are oh-so-fed-up, and don’t even hardly go to the Wies’n anymore.
So whom, exactly, is going to be speaking all this Bayerisch at me? Is it one of those scenes like Colonial Williamsburg or a Renaissance fair where the employees get all crazy into character and refuse to speak like a normal person? Somehow I’m skeptical. But just in case, I’m arming myself with a few key vocabulary words and phrases. Feel free to print this out and carry it around as a cheat-sheet. Oktoberfest starts tomorrow!
Z ‘ dringga mächd i biddschee a Mass! - I’d like to have a beer.
biddscheen – please / you’re welcome.
Deaf i mi zu dia hisizn? - May I sit down here?
Naa – no
Zoin - The bill, please.
aufmandeln – to aggrandize oneself, especially when you do not find any free seats in the beer tents.
aufstöin – to donate a beer.
Bierdimpfe – notorious beer drinker, “tavern potato”.
Fetznrausch – totally drunk.
Gaudinockerln – luxuriant breasts
Weißbia – wheat beer (only in the smaller beer tents at Oktoberfest)
Deaf i Dia a Busserl gem. - I’d like to give you a kiss.
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* The Oktoberfest Song Book comes on a long blue ribbon, so that you can hang it around your neck. Very handy!
** As if trying to prove me wrong, a little old lady actually came up to me and spoke Bayerisch in the grocery store today.
Only to be found on this Wiesn-Dictionary…
