I just mailed that word to a Swiss colleague to check, and he replied back with

Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswe rkbauunterbeamtengesellschaftsmusikkapellenuniform mützenreinigungsinstitutsverwaltungsratspräsidents büroinstandhaltungsfirmenangestellter

saying it is a valid word, albeit nonsense

I'm not a pro at linguistics, but isn't the 'gang' a modification of gehen, gehe, gegangen? Rather than corridor?


edit. Well I guess the corridor in german is just the place of going: gang. Egg or chicken, which came first.

in deed, gang is just a Swiss German conjugation of gehen.

You are right but only partly "gang" as a verb is a modification of the Standard German "gehen". However, "Gang" is also a noun (therefore written with a capital letter "G") that means indeed corridor.

With regard to the funny French translations there is also:
"oeuf oeuf que lac je" = egg egg what lake I = Ei ei was seh ich
or
"je maison" = I Home = Ich haus (meaning I leave)

I really like "zytglogge" and I've been trying to figure out whether that translates as time clock or time bell

I'd say time bell because of the carillon.

although nothing will ever replace "schtangä", I am currently getting a lot of mileage out of "figgä". my wife and kids have no idea what it means, it sounds totally harmless to fellow gringos, and it still has the desired effect of letting off some steam when you slice open your thumb with the cutting knife or stub your toe on the kitchen table.

And of course, if it hasn't been stipulated already, that age-old favourite "Uuffwiiderluege" - lovely

Don't worry, the kids will pick up on this quicker than you think - cue the embarrassing comments in front of your neighbours, friends family

Well... from one connoisseur of well chosen curse words to another, I feel compelled to remark that using the verb form in this context does not make much sense. I prefer "verfiggt".

Which is an Americanism () translated into German, the proper Sg word would be "Schiiiiiiiiiss-"(Hg Scheiss =sh**t) something

ahem, do f-words get automatically deleted nowadays?

None!

Well, maybe one or 2 things in Bern: "äuä!", "gäu?" and "Zetteli woue?" at the check-out in grocery stores!

If you insist on using pure Swiss German, I highly recommend "himmel hergott sakramentofix halleluja schiss glump vereckts nomal"

That's what my dad taught me.

it's much more difficult to string a couple of verfiggt's together, though

when the kids ask what dad is saying, I just tell them "im fass ha niid". in fact, that works for pretty much any question they ask.

I tried translating the popular "Huura" and using it similarly in english back home.

I didn't last too long in that Sunday School class.

'Schönes Tagli' is my all time favorite and the old Granny kissing her grand kids good bye is far from being the only one saying it!

There's another one I've heard...Hope I get the French right.
La Vie est dure = Dä Wii isch tüür = The wine is expensive.

Now I'm getting confused whether Swiss German comes from French or German :P


Der Wein ist teuer. If I was to read that, I would pronounce it as "Dä Wii isch tüür" (since I only speak swiss german not high german, but can read high german).

Er het e Ecke ab.