Languages are not only means of communication, mediums of cognitive development and instruments of action. Through the variety of languages used, speakers also identify their geographical origins, local loyalty, migration history, and their social background and group membership. Dialects are geographical varieties, while sociolects are social varieties. Examples of how geographical varieties can at the same time have the function of sociolects are given below. This chapter also discusses the tenacity of dialects in general and in comparison with one another and the social factors governing this, as well as the changing functions of some dialects.

Standard German and dialects as regional and social markers

For the historical reasons outlined in Chapter 2, regionalism, and regional identification through language, were and continue to be strong in German-language countries. A speaker's regional identification can occur along a continuum from local dialect via regional dialect, even to regionally coloured Standard German. The latter is characterized by secondary (i.e. not the most typical) phonological features and intonation patterns (i.e. ‘regional accent’) being transferred from dialect (a locally or regionally identified variety) to Standard German, and through the choice of lexical items associated with a particular region. There are certain meanings for which there is no single supraregional German Standard German lexeme, e.g. ‘Saturday’ (southern and western, Samstag; northern and eastern, Sonnabend), ‘butcher’ (east central, and some west central, Fleischer, southern and central, Metzger, northern, Schlächter), so that regional identification in speech is unavoidable.