Schwäbisch Gmünd

Schwäbisch Gmünd (German pronunciation: [ˈʃvɛːbɪʃ ˈɡmʏnt], until 1934: Gmünd) is a town in the eastern part of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. With a population of around 60,000, the town is the second largest in the Ostalb district and the whole East Württemberg region after Aalen. The town is a Große Kreisstadt since 1956, i.e. a chief town under district administration; it was the administrative capital of its own rural district until the local government reorganisation on 1 January 1973.

Schwäbisch Gmünd was a self-ruling free imperial city from the 13th century until its annexation to Württemberg in 1802.

Geography

Schwäbisch Gmünd is situated within the northern foothills of the Swabian Jura Mountains on the Rems river, about 50 kilometres (31 miles) east of the state capital Stuttgart. The municipal area comprises the localities (Ortschaften) of Bargau, Bettringen, Degenfeld, Großdeinbach, Herlikofen, Hussenhofen, Lindach, Rechberg, Rehnenhof-Wetzgau, Straßdorf, and Weiler.

Swabian German

Swabian ( Schwäbisch ) is one of the Alemannic dialects of High German. It is spoken in Swabia, a region which covers much of Germany's southwestern state Baden-Württemberg, including its capital Stuttgart, as well as the rural area known as the Swabian Alb, and parts of southwestern Bavaria (Bavarian Swabia). Swabian is also spoken by part of the Danube Swabian minorities in Hungary, former Yugoslavia, Romania, and the former Soviet Union.

Description and character

The dialect ranges from a 'standard' Swabian, spoken in Stuttgart, to a variety of stronger, thicker forms found in the countryside. Older people can often tell the town a person comes merely from hearing their accent.

Swabian is difficult to understand for speakers of Standard German, not just for its pronunciation but because it contains some vocabulary that differs altogether from Standard German. For example, strawberry jam in Standard German is Erdbeermarmelade while in Swabian it is Bräschdlingsgsälz.

In 2009, Muggeseggele (a Swabian idiom), literally referring to the scrotum of a male housefly, was elected in a readers survey by Stuttgarter Nachrichten, the largest newspaper in Stuttgart as the most beautiful Swabian word, with a large lead on any other expression. The expression is being used as an ironic small measurement unit and is deemed usable towards children (compare Bubenspitzle). German public broadcaster SWR's children's website Kindernetz explained Muggeseggele in their Swabian dictionary for the TV series Ein Fall für B.A.R.Z., which takes place in Fellbach. The website use the sentence A muggeseggele Zeit hetta miar no! and translates it as Ein bisschen Zeit hätten wir noch, meaning We would have a little time left

Gmund

Gmund, Gmünd or Gmuend (cf. German: Mündung, "(river) mouth") may refer to the following places:

See also