Missingsch: Standard German on Low German Grammar
The sentence “Das Bild is für ihr” sounds like Standard German but gives away the speaker's northern origin. That is how Missingsch sounds: a regional speech form in which familiar words are put together by other rules. This article explains what lies behind it and where Missingsch occurs.
What Missingsch Is
Missingsch, also spelled Messingsch, is a northern German language variety. It arose when native speakers of Low German began speaking High German. It is a regional variety of Standard German, not a Low German dialect. The vocabulary is mostly High German.
Grammar and sentence structure, on the other hand, stay Low German. Low German expressions are also often carried over word for word into High German. In the example sentence, the Low German flavored object form "für ihr" stands where "für sie" would be expected. Here High German words meet Low German grammar.
Where the Name Comes From
The origin of the name has not been settled. One explanation traces it to Meißnisch, the chancery language of Meissen. Another points to the word for brass, since two languages fuse in Missingsch like two metals in an alloy.
This uncertainty also shows in the spellings Missingsch and Messingsch. Both explanations refer to the same phenomenon: one puts the High German standard at the center, the other the mixing of two languages.
Where You Find Missingsch
The Hamburg form is the best known, above all thanks to the Ohnsorg Theater. Bremen, Kiel and eastern Westphalia are named as further places. The regional speech form is therefore not confined to one city, but it has local variants.
Missingsch also turns up in literature, for instance in Kurt Tucholsky's novel Schloss Gripsholm. Literary Missingsch is more uniform than the spoken language, which differs from place to place.
In Short
Missingsch pairs High German vocabulary with Low German grammar. It has local flavors and appears on stage as well as in books. The key to classifying it is a distinction: Missingsch is a regional variety of Standard German, not a Low German dialect.
Missingsch in Books and on Stage
Kurt Tucholsky, born in Berlin on January 9, 1890, let the character Lydia speak in his summer story Schloss Gripsholm, published in 1931. She comes from Rostock, and through her you can hear what literary Missingsch sounds like: High German words assembled according to Low German patterns.
The Ohnsorg Theater in Hamburg also stands for this mixture. Richard Ohnsorg founded it in 1902 as the Dramatic Society, it has had its present name since 1947, and its productions have aired on NDR since 1954. The stage mainly performed Low German, yet audiences know the in-between tone from many plays.
To spot Missingsch, do not look at single words but at sentence structure and at forms such as ihr in place of sie. The words are mostly familiar, while the grammar reveals the origin. That is exactly why Missingsch often strikes listeners as funny and warmhearted at once.
The word Missingsch therefore describes no fixed norm but a spectrum. At one end is nearly pure Standard German with a light coloring, at the other a language in which Low German clearly shines through. Describing both takes patience and a good ear.