German in a contact situation: The case of Namibian German

1. INTRODUCTION The German spoken in Namibia is commonly known as Südwesterdeutsch, which may seem surprising, as the terms Südwestafrika, Südwest and Südwester/in have lost their historical authority and are nowadays considered politically incorrect. In Ger-man, people rarely talk of Namibisches Deutsch, though in English, the direct translation , 'Namibian German', is often heard. In this research paper, I will refer to this variety of German as 'NG' (Namibian German). The general view held by non-linguists is that only Standard German (SG) author-ised in Germany is " correct German ". In this research paper, I will be looking at the salient linguistic characteristics of NG which differentiate it from the SG spoken in parts of Germany. Researchers have previously noted that NG differs from SG primarily in respect of its lexical characteristics. The aim of this research paper is to establish whether this is in fact an accurate description of the major difference between the two varieties of German. Despite the prestige held by the German language in Namibia, there is a lack of relevant , current and comprehensive literature on the topic. This has not only highlighted the necessity but also aroused my interest to undertake such a study. The most useful literature on the linguistic aspects of NG has been material written by Nöckler (1963), J. Pütz (2001) and Riehl (2002). Nöckler and Pütz devote their work solely to the lexical characteristics of NG, after ultimately concluding that this is the area which most differentiates NG to SG. Nöckler's work, however, is out-of-date and cannot thus be exemplary of the contemporary linguistic situation of German in Namibia. He lists lexical features present in NG, but fails to provide illustrations of usage patterns. Pütz, on the other hand, demonstrates how NG lexicon is used in a sentence, but his rather facetious and casual approach to the topic1 is seen through his citing of us-1 Pütz, J (2001:15): 'Im Gegensatz zu Nöcklers Arbeit, sind die Dickschenäries natürlich alles andere als seriös! … Ironisch, sarkastisch, grobschlächtig, lustig, vulgär, provokativ – aber alles andere als akademisch.' ('In contrast to Nöckler's work, the dictionaries are everything else but serious! … Ironic, sarcastic, coarse, funny, vulgar, provocative – everything else but academic.')