Henri Rünneburger currently lives near Marseille, in Allauch. He tells you how he came to work on Germanic and in particular on Benfeld’s speech.
In the field of current Germanic dialectology, the relatively small number of works on Alsatian and its local variants can be explained by the situation of our linguistic territory, between France and Germany. And yet, these friction points are precisely the reason why our language remains particularly interesting today, both for dialectologists and sociolinguists. Henri Rünneburger, a native of Benfeld, and lecturer at the University of Aix-Marseille, worked thirty years on his dictionary a new French-Alsatian dictionary, and Alsatian-French, he released it in three volumes at Baar, dico which represents the most important lexicographic work published to date on our German-speaking linguistic area.
In addition, it is a precise reflection of the state of the language in the southern part of the Bas-Rhin in the 20th century and shows through numerous examples how vocabulary is subject to the daily influence of French, the dominant language in everyday life. public. With nearly 100,000 entries, this dictionary developed on the basis of a corpus, offers a broad overview of dialectal forms as well as their uses, illustrated by numerous examples. The indication of the meaning of each entry is enriched not only by co-occurrences, but also by fixed idiomatic forms with their explanation.
In addition, all entries include their pronunciation as well as the main inflected forms (declensed or conjugated). Are also indicated, as far as possible, synonyms, antonyms, diminutives and other words close by their use, not forgetting the level of style or the field of use (construction, printing, carpentry, medicine , religion, sport, botany, zoology). This 2,500-page dictionary testifies to the full variety of Alsatian regional culture as it is embodied in the language, a language that must assert itself in a rapidly changing society. Only downside of these 3 volumes, their price, 300 € all the same, but given their importance, I had to tell you about it.
Price : 300 €
The link to order it on the Baar Verlag website.
Also order it from your favorite bookstore.