Zuritaliano - strano aber lustig

I always feel that taking public transport enables you to experience more real culture than traipsing around museums for hours on end with an audio guide stuck in your ears. I also love food shopping (as long as there are free nibbles to try, bargains and not too many people).

Now when I get on my number 78 bus (which on Sundays takes a detour up to the cemetery; I’m not living in the youngest, hippest of areas), I take of my IPod and try to gauge some conversation. Initially I did this because ear-wigging is a great way to improve your language skills. The language I heard, however, was not German. It wasn’t really Swiss German either. It is a curious mixture of Italian and Swiss German, spoken as seamlessly as is possible when merging one of the world’s most beautiful languages with one of the worlds, erm, phlegmy.

The discovery of this language has hence transformed my trips to the supermarket. My Italian is better (as in more correct) than my German (which I have picked up from hearing it rather than learning it, so my grammar is guesswork), so these hybrid citizens are doing half the work for me. It’s great!

I am pretty sure that this language has not been documented at all (you saw it here first!), but it really exists; there appears to be no real pattern, other than the fact the German ‘little’ words, such as tag-questions, yes-no words and question words. It is really fascinating to listen to. Italians would probably cry if they heard the morphed dialect of their melodic language, and the Swiss probably moan about it not being Swiss!

It feels a little like I have discovered a secret society speaking in a secret code…