Dialect edition: Blick am Abend does it again
«Grüazi mitanand»—with these words, Editor-in-Chief Peter Röthlisberger greeted the readers of *Blick am Abend* on Tuesday. And one reader, who witnessed the accident in the Üetliberg Tunnel, reported: «My lungs were burning like fire.»
For the seventh anniversary of the free newspaper, the journalists from Ringier wrote the texts in their respective dialect. The variety of dialects was limited, however; the majority of the articles in the anniversary edition were written in "Züridütsch. The front article was devoted to the influence that young immigrants from the Balkans have on the dialect of their peers: "Warum de Balkan-Släng bäumig isch." For better or worse, corps commander and Blick am Abend columnist André Blattmann also had to take part in the experiment - although he no longer belongs to the group of under-30s who, according to editor-in-chief Röthlisberger's daring stocktaking, now "also write Esemes and Imeil in dialect". Blattmann approached the matter with due restraint: "What I'm trying to write now is mostly my Höfner dialect from the canton of Schwyz or the language from the Zurich Oberland.
In addition to positive feedback, the dialect edition also provoked mocking remarks on social media. Tages-Anzeiger journalist Michèle Binswanger, for example, was glad not to have to take the train: "The chalice filled with the blood of full-blown linguistic carnage is passing me by," she wrote on Twitter. Another user took sides with French-speaking Switzerland: "Schwiizertütsch as a unifying element. Vraiment? Grüazi les romands ..."
The Blick am Abend editorial team is a repeat offender: the paper has already appeared in dialect twice in the past. An undisputed aspect of the language experiment: In the anniversary edition, for once even the declarations of love in "Schatzchäschtli," which are always written in dialect, did not stand out particularly linguistically. (SDA)
