Kiezdeutsch - A new emerging variety of the standard German

Essay from the year 2013 in the subject German Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,5, Free University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: Across Europe new types of linguistic varieties have emerged, mainly spoken by adolescents with foreign roots. The development of these varieties have been analysed and observed in recent decades, such as Rinkebysvenska in Sweden or Straattaal in the Netherlands. All these varieties display common characteristics, e.g. spoken by young people with different migratory backgrounds and a linguistic system developed by the contact language. (Paul, Freywald, Wittenberg 2009, 1-2) A new emerging phenomenon, with similar proprieties of the other varieties in Europe is Kiezdeutsch - a multiethnolect variety spoken in urban cities across German speaking countries. (Wiese 2012, 110 - 114) In recent years in Germany there has existed a great debate about the status of Kiezdeutsch. Three different positions came out; if Kiezdeutsch could be defined, as a 'dialect' strongly affirmed by Wiese (2012), or as a 'style of speaking' affirmed by Helmut Glück, professor of German at the University of Bamberg, or as an 'incomplete language acquisition' defined by the public opinion. In this essay I will focus on the sociolinguistic factors that played an important role for the birth of Kiezdeutsch, and describe this variety as a language of the youth, and on the linguistic system that combines features of contact language. I will research what makes Kiezdeutsch a dialect with a dynamic linguistic system, and how it is undervalued by the public opinion, which considers Kiezdeutsch not as a dialect, but rather a 'broken German' or 'an incomplete language acquisition', acquired by immigrants.