Orenburg state university

One country — 50 dialects

A set of lectures and workshops on “Dialects as a sign of diversity” was opened at Faculty of Philology in OSU on the 19^th of February. It was provided by lecturers Bartholomäus Minkowski from Germany and Michael Zebek came from Volgograd State University.

The teacher of Robert Bosch Stiftung Michael Zebek read introductory lecture “Dialect. What is it?” for Philology Faculty students of OSU and OSPU. Future interpreters have known what kinds of dialects exist in Germany (there are more then 50!). And often people of different regions don’t understand each other if they speak a dialect. He also mentioned the phenomenon “Kiezdeutsch” — youth slang spoken by many migrants, for example, from Turkey and Italy.

— Perhaps interpreter needs to know only High German because it is the official language, — fifth-year student of OSU Philology Faculty Regina Kashapova says, — but for internships in Germany it is important to know dialect of the region which you are going to visit. We had a funny incident in Berlin when the driver tried to tell us that he had no change, but we didn’t understand because of his dialect.

The initiative to organize this event belongs to OSU professor, lecturer of Robert Bosch Stiftung Bartholomäus Minkowski.

— For a long time Germany was split into numerous principalities, whose population spoke their own dialects, — Mr. Minkowski says. — I think it is very important when students know at least some of the dialects because it is a part of German culture they are studying.

After the introductory lecture professors from Germany divided students into groups to conduct workshops on Berlin-Brandenburg, Ruhr-Cologne, Bavarian and Swabian dialects and fully tell about “Kiezdeutsch” language.

The event was concluded by lecture “Berlin dialect” for OSU professors, OSPU foreign languages Department and teachers of Orenburg schools on the 22^nd of February.