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I came across the word 'übernèè' in a pocket dictionary which is Swiss German for 'übermannen' or 'übernehmen'.

Is this 'nèè' ending common in Swiss German? Is there any way to anticipate it, in that if I see a certain ending in standard German I could expect it to translate to 'nèè' or indeed 'èè'?

Is it simply just a translation of 'ä' in standard German?

Thanks in advance for any light you can cast. I'm intrigued!

cheznead
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There is a Swiss Standard German, main differences compared to standard German are ss for ß and special words.

Today all formal writing, newspapers, books and much informal writing is done in Swiss Standard German, which is usually called Schriftdeutsch (written German).

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_German#Vocabulary

There are no standard rules for writing dialects (like Swiss German). But you may find proposals.

For Zürich-German I found a definition using the èè

Another definition can be found at Wikipedia.

Is it simply just a translation of 'ä' in standard German?

No, it is a kind of 'ä', but not exactly the same. Maybe you can find some help in a online tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGU4smsHnO4 Starting from minute 4:50 you have some ä's

knut
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In addition to knuts answer, I'd like to expand on the difference between ä and èè.

In Swiss German, some äs sound different than other äs. But we have only one letter in the Alphabet to write it (we don't use e with accents like è, é, or ê like the French do). In written form, everything becomes an ä. (or sometimes even a simple e. It boils down to personal preference there because - like knut said - there is no rules for written Swiss German.)

Some äs are more guttural, with a very low tongue (IPA [æ]), while other äs are more closer to an e sound (IPA [ə]) (comparable to "have we met"), which is done by having the tongue slightly closer to the roof of the mouth. This depends on location/dialect, but even in the same dialect both version can occur based on the word.

Although I have never seen someone use the è character in written swiss-german communication before, It is very likely an attempt to find the phonetically closest letter to describe to the reader how exactly to pronounce that ä. In this case (übernèè), it is the second option from above paragraph, and sounds most likely to be a dialect from around Zurich.

Here are some variations of how to write "übernehmen" in swiss german. They are all "correct", because there are no rules. (Writing in swiss german is fun, you can develop your very own style.)

übernää übernä übernäh übernee überne überneh

kscherrer
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You should not think of "nèè" as an "ending", but as the Swiss German form of the Standard German verb "nehmen". It has this form even when standing alone: "Darf ich's nèè?" (Darf ich es nehmen?)

There are a number of other words ending in "èè" in this dialect:

  • "geben" -> "gèè".
  • "mehr" -> "mèè".

In my pronunciation, "èè" is indistinguishable from the "ee" ending in Standard German words like "Schnee" or "See".

microtherion
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