"Boarian is simply heartwarming": Ilse Aigner on dialect as a sense of home - she reveals her favorite terms

Created: 08/16/2022, 08:56

By: Corinna Kattenbeck

Passionate Bavarian: Ilse Aigner, President of the Landtag, stands by her mother tongue and pulls the trump cards out of her opponents at Schafkopf.

© POSS/BAVARIAN PARLIAMENT

The Bavarian dialect is a trademark of Ilse Aigner, President of the Landtag.

In an interview, Aigner reveals what the language coloring means to her - and how it has helped her career.

Straubing – Your Bavarian language coloring is a trademark of Ilse Aigner (57).

"Bearish!", says the Bavarian language association and honored the President of the State Parliament with the Bavarian language root on Sunday in Straubing.

From the point of view of Sepp Obermeier, inventor of the award, she had proved to be a dialectal role model in a television program, among other things.

Congratulations!

What does the award mean to you?

Ilse Aigner: I'm very happy because it's not a matter of course.

It's an honor, especially when you see who has already received the award.

Ilse Aigner in an interview: "I always talk Bavarian at the Gautrachtenfest or the Hauptalmbegehung"

For example Luise Kinseher, Martina Schwarzmann, Christian Stückl and Pastor Schiessler.

Which statement in the laudatory speech did you find appropriate?

I found it fitting that I can judge four in the political theater de Wadl.

It was said that I never cracked, rarely snapped, but always straight as an arrow.

Do you also speak dialect on official occasions?

Not 100 percent, not the way I talk to my sisters or friends.

But you can definitely hear it.

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When do you switch?

At events such as the Ludwig-Erhard summit, I adapt, but at the Gautrachtenfest or when walking the Hauptalm with farmers, I always talk Bavarian.

Ilse Aigner's dialect: "It certainly didn't hurt my career, quite the opposite"

Can you score with your dialect?

People are already reacting positively.

It certainly didn't hurt my career, quite the opposite.

It is in my nature that I have remained down to earth, still have an ear for the people and can speak in such a way that people understand me. 

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Just like you learned at home in Feldkirchen-Westerham.

Do children there still speak Bavarian these days?

Again more than before.

My voting circle goes as far as Kreuth/Bayrischzell, where the children speak a lot of dialect.

And when I look at the young people: Correspondence among themselves is often in Bavarian, which isn't the case here with us.

I myself like to make 'posts' in Bavarian on social media, if it's really bassy.

• From the eulogy:

• In his laudatory speech, Professor Wolfgang Herrmann praised the award winner for her authentic and down-to-earth demeanor.

  This has to do with their Bavarian dialect – a language that is semantically more nuanced and therefore much more expressive than standard German.

  "Nowhere else are there dialect colors so strong, onomatopoeic, gecheckerted as we do in Altbaiern."

• The former TU President enthused: "Hardly anyone brings the dialect from the Oberland as sparkling clean, brünnerlklar like Ilse Aigner." In addition, she knows sheepheads like a penny, is quick when she walks, scolds about the miserable, lusadn Schbotzn and trumps sympathetically up with her motto: "Des pack ma dant!" Herrmann described Aigner as the "language root queen" and gave her a piece of advice: "You should remain charming and steadfast, and you should use the expressive power of our Bavarian language in its unsurpassable sophistication prove it every day.”

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Biermösl Blosn is convinced: "You can't study Bavarian, you have to feel it in your heart." What does your mother tongue mean to you?

It's my root, my sense of home, I've grown into it.

Bavarian is simply heartwarming.

There are also such beautiful terms that are easier to say in dialect than in written language. 

Which terms do you particularly like?

"A gfrieriga Schnä" for example, meaning good snow that is nice to ski on.

The word "fei" can also be used in many ways, it can mean "but", "also" and just as well "actually".

The expression "A gmahde Wiesn" often sounds wonderful. 

Interview with Ilse Aigner: “Every dialect has something.

What is beautiful is diversity"

Your dialect sounds quite smooth.

Is Upper Bavarian inherently more socially acceptable than, for example, Swabian, Franconian or Upper Palatinate?

It is probably easier to understand from the outside.

The Eberhofer thrillers and the Rosenmüller films are a complete success - well beyond the Bavarian borders.

But every dialect has something.

The beauty is the variety. 

In the past, the dialect was not necessarily considered noble.

What is your advice to Bavarians who tend to hide their dialect?

If you are understood: Out with it!

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