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KIEZDEUTSCH AND ITS CONFLICTING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE
NORMATIVE SYSTEM OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE
Nigora Israilova
Department of Theory and Practice of the German Language,
Andijan State Institute of Foreign Languages, Andijan, Uzbekistan;
Abstract:
The article considers the ethnolect 'Kiezdeutsch' – the slang spoken in the multiethnic
areas of large German cities – and raises the question of its potentially negative impact on the
literary standard of the German language. After considering the main linguistic and stylistic
features of slang and analysing how it functions, the author concludes that Kiezdeutsch
currently occupies a marginal position within the German language and does not significantly
affect literary language.
Keywords:
Kiezdeutsch, language of communication, multi-ethnic composition, language
standard,
Over the past decade, lively discussions have been taking place not only among linguists, but
also in the German press and among bloggers, concerning an ethnolect known as Kiezdeutsch.
Translated, the term ‘Kiezdeutsch’ means ‘neighbourhood German’ and refers to the main area
where this ethnolect is spoken, namely the multi-ethnic districts of German cities such as
Berlin-Kreuzberg, Berlin-Hellersdorf and Neuköln.
The term ‘Kanak Sprak’ (from the
German derogatory term ‘Kanake’ for immigrants, usually from the south-east, who speak poor
German) is considered synonymous with it – an ethnolect, as well as the manner of speaking of
young people with a migrant background. The term became widely used after the publication in
1995 of the book Kanak Sprak by the German writer of Turkish origin Feridun Zaymoğlu. In
our article, we will use the term Kitsdeutsch as the term that has become most established in
recent years in the scientific literature on this subject.
Kiezdeutsch serves as a language of communication not only for ethnic minority youth, but also
for German teenagers and mixed ethnic groups, and is a consequence of changes taking place in
language and culture, namely the processes of internationalisation and globalisation, growing
linguistic, social and cultural
pluralism.
The exclusively oral form of functioning and the multi-ethnic composition of the slang's
speakers have determined the key linguistic and stylistic features of Kiezdeutsch, namely:
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
ISSN: 2692-5206, Impact Factor: 12,23
American Academic publishers, volume 05, issue 06,2025
Journal:
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page 468
- simplifications at all levels of grammar (assimilation, partial rejection of case inflections and
articles, free use of syntax, desemantisation of verbs acting as components of verb-noun
combinations);
- numerous lexical borrowings from the corresponding source languages, mainly Turkish and
Arabic: ‘lan’ (from Turkish, German equivalent ‘Typ / Kerl’, Russian ‘guy’) , “wallah” (from
Arabic, German equivalent ‘bei Gott’, Russian ‘hey, honestly’)), etc.;
- Anglo-American vocabulary (influence of the language of hip-hop and rap music styles).
The German press emphasises the social function of this linguistic phenomenon. In friendly
publications, Kitzdeutsch is regarded as a variant of German, a multiethnic dialect or even a
fully-fledged dialect that serves as a tool for establishing the social and age identity of speakers.
For example, in March 2012, the authoritative magazine Der Spiegel published an interview
with Potsdam University professor Heike Wiese under the headline ‘Plädoyer einer Professorin.
Kiezdeutsch rockt, ischwör!’ (A professor's plea. Kiezdeutsch rocks, I swear!). Wiese considers
Kiezdeutsch to be evidence of the successful integration of young people with a migrant
background and asserts the legitimacy of slang as a fully-fledged variant of the German
language [8]. From her point of view, the distortions of literary German in Kiezdeutsch are not
chaotic or random, but, on the contrary, extremely productive and in line with contemporary
trends in the development of the German language as a whole. In her academic works, she
analyses and classifies these features.
It is claimed that the majority of Kiezdeutsch speakers are by no means illiterate teenagers or
immigrants who have not mastered literary German, but young people who have a full or
sufficient command of the language standard (Standarddeutsch), i.e. the generally accepted
norms and correct language structures. They consciously switch language codes depending on
the communicative situation or their
communicative intent [6].
Since speech is the most important factor in expressing the speaker's social and cultural identity,
changing the language code is always pragmatically marked and aimed at affirming one's
belonging to a particular group, individual status or the status of the group itself.
It is noteworthy that in most contemporary publications and research materials, there is a clear
tendency to view ethnolect exclusively in a positive light. Its creative potential and innovative
and productive nature are emphasised, while accusations of primitiveness and distortion of
‘correct’ grammatical forms are refuted [4]. Supporters of Kiezdeutsch argue their position
based on the linguistic material itself: from their point of view, ethnolect effectively uses the
possibilities and develops trends that already exist in the language, especially in its colloquial
variant. There are even suggestions that some productive Kiezdeutsch linguistic innovations
could become part of the standard German language [6].
Indeed, the productive use of trends in modern colloquial German is reflected in Kitzdeutsch,
for example, in the variety of modal particles and interjectional verb forms such as ischwör,
glaubich, gibs.
These words were formed through the assimilation and fusion of the
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corresponding predicative constructions ich schwöre, glaube ich and es gibt into a single
linguistic unit:
-Ischwör, Alter, war so.
- Da hinten kommt glaubich der Bus.
- Gibs auch Jugendliche, die einfach aus Langeweile viel Mist machen. Ich weiß, wo die gibs[6]
It should be noted that such neologisms, having synchronous connections with the significant
parts of speech on the basis of which they were formed, nevertheless show a certain shift in
semantics. Participating in the communicative process as incidental remarks, interjections and
modal particles lose, to a greater or lesser extent, the lexical meaning characteristic of the
primary predicative construction.
Thus, the main semantic function of the interjection Ischwör, formed from ‘ich schöre’ (‘I
swear’) through word contraction and assimilation, is to convey the speaker's emotional
excitement and their desire to emphasise the truthfulness of their statement. The subjective-
modal component is reinforced by other means, both linguistic (intonation) and non-linguistic
(gestures, facial expressions).
The process of desemantisation is usually reflected at the grammatical and formal-structural
levels. These changes are particularly evident in the above examples with the interjectional verb
gibs. The absorption of the impersonal pronoun es leads to the absence of a formal subject and,
consequently, to a change in grammatical relationships – the original object in the accusative
case (Jugendliche, die) takes the place of the missing grammatical subject, becoming the
subject itself. Gibs takes on the function of an existential marker rather than a full-fledged
predicate.
It is interesting to note that in the examples given in publications illustrating this neologism,
there are examples with an additional formal subject introduced by the speaker – the impersonal
pronoun ‘es’. In this way, the traditional grammatical structure of the literary norm is preserved
(Das Problem daran ist ja, dass es Rivalitäten gibs. Jeder Bezirk will der Stärkste sein) [6].
Such linguistic redundancy may indicate that the verbal interjection gibs has become
established in the ethnolect as an independent, integral linguistic unit and is not perceived by
speakers as a fusion of meaningful verbal or substantive forms; at the structural level, speakers
are aware of the need to use traditional impersonal predicative constructions.
Kiezdeutsch has a pronounced tendency towards linguistic economy, which can be observed at
all linguistic levels – phonetic, lexical and syntactic. Information is condensed by maximally
reducing the number of linguistic units in a reply and choosing the simplest possible syntactic
structures.
A striking illustration of linguistic economy is the well-known phrase, eagerly reproduced by
journalists as a catchy and provocative headline for articles about Kiezdeutsch: ‘Ich bin Thomas
Mann’ (literally translated as ‘I am Thomas Mann’), supposedly a line from a mobile phone
conversation of an unknown passer-by in Potsdam. The meaning of the line can be deciphered
as ‘I am currently on Thomas Mann Street’. The omission of prepositions and articles, and the
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
ISSN: 2692-5206, Impact Factor: 12,23
American Academic publishers, volume 05, issue 06,2025
Journal:
https://www.academicpublishers.org/journals/index.php/ijai
page 470
rejection of full verbs in favour of nominal constructions serve to convey maximum
information with minimum time expenditure.
Undoubtedly, economy of linguistic expression corresponds to the spirit of the times and is an
integral feature not only of youth slang, but also of all spheres of everyday oral
communication, as well as Internet communication on forums, blogs and social networks.
However, how harmless is such free use of language, and does it pose a threat to literary norms?
Society's view on this issue is ambiguous.
German periodicals, describing the socio-cultural nature and linguistic and stylistic features of
the new youth slang, raise a number of important questions for discussion among readers and
the scientific community - first and foremost, about the possibility and degree of influence of
ethnolect on literary norms, whether this potential influence is a threat or a natural process; the
linguistic identification of those who speak it; linguistic pluralism and the state's language
policy; and the need for parents and/or schools to control the speech of adolescents. Articles
devoted to this issue have been met with a lively response from readers.
It is noteworthy that, contrary to the positive tone of most articles, bloggers' attitude towards
Kiezdeutsch is rather sharply negative and emotional. Shame, the extinction of the language
and disrespect for German culture – these key words sum up the negative attitude of readers [7].
The sceptical rather than friendly attitude of the internet audience is a natural reaction to the
historical, political and social changes taking place in the country, reflecting the Germans'
cautious attitude, first and foremost towards the speakers of the new dialect themselves and
only secondarily towards their manner of communication.
The powerful migration processes of the modern era inevitably lead to interaction
and interpenetration between different cultures, nations and languages. Societies of the modern
cultural and historical era represent a mobile, rapidly changing system that includes a multitude
of subcultural, territorial, ethnic micro- and macro-formations, each of which has its own
specific characteristics, including in the features of language and speech. However, they are not
isolated from each other — each of us belongs to several such micro-formations at once.
Similarly, subcultural slang languages and ethnolects are not ‘closed’; they exist in parallel with
the literary language, inevitably interacting with it. Therefore, the question posed in the title
of this article can be answered in the affirmative: yes, Kiezdeutsch is undoubtedly a challenge
to the literary norm, but it is by no means evidence of the degradation and decline of language
and culture. Since, at the moment, Kiezdeutsch is still a marginal phenomenon in the German
language space and, from our point of view, it is unjustified to elevate it to the rank of a
separate dialect, thereby placing it on a par with Bavarian, Swabian and other dialects of the
German language. Undoubtedly, in view of contemporary migration and globalisation processes,
phenomena such as Kiezdeutsch are inevitable and should be viewed positively, as they attract
the attention not only of linguists but also of the media and the general public.
Bibliography:
1. Wiese, Heike „Kiezdeutsch“. Ein neuer Dialekt entsteht. C.H. Beck Verlag, München,
2012.
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ISSN: 2692-5206, Impact Factor: 12,23
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2. Zaimoğlu F. Kanak Sprak: 24 Mißtöne vom Rande der Gesellschaft. 6. Auflage. Rotbuch,
Hamburg 2004
3. Wiese, Heike URL:http://www.sueddeutsche.de/leben/jugenddialekt-kiezdeutsch-ich-bin-
alexanderplatz-1.1278128
4. Kanak Sprak URL: http://www.detlev-mahnert.de/kanak.html
5. Kiezdeutsch URL: http://www.kiezdeutsch.de/sprachlicheneuerungen.html
6. URL: http://www.spickmich.de/news/201202021400-kiezdeutsch-als-dialekt
7. URL: http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/wunderbar/professorin-heike-wiese-verteidigt-den-
jugendslang-kiezdeutsch-a-824386.html
