Imstian Dialects

The Imstian Dialects build, together with Bavarian, Alemannic, South and East Franconian, the Upper German dialect group. The two Imstian main dialects are spoken in Germany, Austria and Italy by approximately 250.000 people. They do not have any official status in any state nor are they written officially.

The Upper german dialects

Name

The linguistic term Imstian (German Imstlerisch) derives from the small city of Imst, which is the biggest settlement in the Imstian Sprachraum. The speakers themselves do not call their dialects so, in fact the term Schwäbisch is used in the north west, Alemannisch in the west and Bairisch in the east, so always according to the surrounding dialects (as many south Franconian speakers call themselves "Swabians" although they actually don't speak an Allemannic language).

Characteristics

As a High German dialect group, Imstian was affected by the High German Consonant Shift:

High German	haben	halb	Schlafen	Schwein	es	essen	machen	Apfel	Herz
Upper Imstian	choo	choub	schloifo	Schwii	is	esso	mocho	Opfo	Cherz
English	Have	half	sleep	Swine	it	eat	make	apple	heart

In distinction to Standart High German, it shares lots of features though with the surrounding dialects, especially that, as for nouns, the genitive and accusative cases are no longer productive as well as the disappearance of the synthetic preterite, which was replaced by the periphrasticly-built perfect:

	Disappearance of the preterite form	Building of the pluperfect form	Genitive construction	Accusative construction	Conjunctive construction in indirect speech
High German	Ich gab es der Frau.	Ich hatte es gekauft.	Das Haus des Freundes ist schön.	Ich sehe den Löwen an.	Sie sagen, du seiest blöd.
Upper Imstian	I choi's iro froowo gebo.	I choi's krrooft krroit.	Imo fruuti siis chuus isch schoo.	I luo dir lef.	Di sogit, do toitisch tuufor soo.
English	I gave it to the woman.	I had bought it.	The friend's house is nice.	I am watching the lion.	They say you were dumb.