The comedy duo Badesalz, the Hesselbachs, Heinz Schenk im Blauen Bock or Bodo Bach and Martin Schneider: Most people in Germany have heard Hessian before – “Media Hessian”.

At least that's what the linguist Lars Vorberger calls it in his new book "Hessisch.

From babble and snuggle".

The language is not that simple, because Hessian is not just Hessian.

According to the linguist, anyone who moves in this language landscape is in the “most complex dialect area on German soil”.

Äppler and "ahle Worscht"

According to Vorberger, it would have taken thousands of books to list all the Hessian forms of a word.

He has therefore selected individual examples such as the "Äppler", the "ahle Worscht" and the "Chatten" as Ur-Hesse.

In a few words, using a kind of dictionary, he explains why it is called "at grandma's" and not "at grandma's", why the Frankfurt folk festival is called "Dippemess" and that no music is played with the hand cheese, but that the "nice Description of the physical consequences of onion consumption”.

"At the level of the dialects, we distinguish four major areas: North, East, Central and South Hessian," writes Vorberger.

The dialect areas go beyond the borders of the federal state.

"But there are not only many different dialects in the federal state of Hesse, the dialects spoken there are also very diverse." In no other area of ​​Germany would there be so many dialect areas in such a small area.

Swear words don't sound bad

"Dabbes", "Hannebambel", "Labbeduddel": in Vorberger's dictionary you learn that swear words in Hessian don't sound so bad.

This is also related to the fact that there is not always a clear translation into the standard language.

He explains why the first name of the environmental activist Greta Thunberg sounds more like the island of Crete, that Hessian does not have the genitive case and that Goethe probably spoke Hessian and the dialects are "friendly to the ears".

However, languages ​​and dialects are dynamic - the fact that many people no longer speak old dialects does not mean that they will die out, according to the linguist.

Rather, they would change, evolve and merge into new forms of regional speech.